The Bird has Flown

I am very pleased to say our bird has flown from its nest. Now it is possible that a hungry owl has flown in and had it during the night. I prefer to think the red-collared dove flew. I was very concerned because I didn't see the mother return to feed the fledgling. So I was fearful that the bird might die. However it looked reasonably chirper in the nest on the basis of daily observations, it was moving around and I saw it fight off some smaller birds, sparrows, that attempted to mob it. No evidence of a dead bird in the immediate vicinity of the nest so I am hopeful the bird has made it to freedom.

plaintive cuckoo, cacomantis merulinus

Khao Prachapchang Non-hunting Area

Ratchaburi Province, 06.06.10

I am still taking it pretty easy, not really putting myself about or pushing myself . I took a trip to the local non-hunting ground and heard plenty of birds but only sighted a greater-racket tailed drongo, a plaintive cuckoo and this cattle egret which performed very well for the camera. I make the cuckoo  the female hepatic morph as opposed to the hepatic morph variant or the banded bay cuckoo! In respect of the former this is due to my fellow being lighter  around the eye and in respect of the latter my fellow's bill is a lot shorter. Please correct me if I am wrong!

cattle egret, bubulcus ibis

Khao Prachapchang Non-hunting Area

Ratchaburi Province, 06.06.10

I went up to the Huai Mai Teng reservoir after but little to report other than an abundance of nesting oriental pratincoles noisily defending their nests; a few of the pratincoles were mobbing a predatory black-shouldered kite.  I sighted a very beautifully coloured blue-throated bee-eater, a bird which visits to breed. There should be a lot of these but mine was solitary and I have to say I was really taken by the extraordinary complexity of its colouring. It was perched high on a tree branch killing some beautiful yellow butterfly. I had been hoping there would have been river lapwing present as I thought I saw a photograph on  a Thai website of this species at the reservoir. Of course it was in July last year that I sighted 4 river lapwings here and I got my first taste of a reasonably rare species.

Edit: I have just been reviewing photographs and I reckon I should add these from Huai Mai Teng reservoir.

Indochinese bushlark, mirafra marionae

Huai Mai Teng Reservoir

Ratchaburi Province, 06.06.10

Blue-throated bee-eater, merops viridis

Huai Mai Teng Reservoir

Ratchaburi Province, 06.06.10

Savage Nature

It's pretty low key here on the bird front simply on the basis of inactivity and a reluctance to get out of bed very early. As always the bird world is rarely uneventful.

red collared dove and two fledglings

These last few weeks we have had a nest with two fledgling red-collared doves on our balcony. All was going well until Monday morning when I noticed the nest was empty and assumed the birds had made their first bold bid for freedom. In the evening my wife told me that a stray dog had got into our garden this morning and she saw it had one of the fledglings in its mouth. I had a look round our balcony and discovered the other one near the heat source of an air-conditioning compressor. I was very sad as I had enjoyed watching mum and the two fledglings. I returned this bird to the nest and it is still alive and seems quite chirper, in fact, but I have no idea if mother is feeding it.

fledgling red-collared doves

the mother looking on at her babies

I am not sure what to do. Hopefully it will fly to freedom in the nest few days. My word nature is brutal. How utterly traumatic and savage. Being a witness to this, the highs and lows, has been almost like a privilege, albeit tinged with a degree of sadness due to recent developments. However this is how it is being a newly fledged bird.

On the subject of fledglings a trip to Chaloerm Phrakhiat Thai Prachan NP on Sunday yielded a fledgling greater racket-tailed drongo. I have to thank the members of www.birdforum.net and Bird Conservation Society of Thailand for assisting in the identification. The only thing I got right was that it was recently fledged; in fact I thought it might be a little cormorant as I have seen a few of them around the reservoir here.

recently fledged greater racket-tailed drongo

Chaloem Phrakhiat Thai Prachan NP

Ratchaburi

Elsewhere I had nice views of a female black-naped monarch. No photo due to poor light but what a beautiful head, much richer and subtler in colouring than the drawings in the field books. As always the usual suspects. There has been rain but it has had no discernible impact on the very low water levels in the reservoir.

This evening I went out for a walk in the rice paddy and had a lovely view of a cinnamon bittern; there are a few of them around together with yellow bitterns. I left the camera at home so just had the bins. I saw some ducks flying and followed them to their landing spot to discover they were lesser whistling ducks. Sorry to say I was almost disappointed as the light on the aerial birds made them look quite different so I went in pursuit with high hopes. Plenty of red-wattled lapwing screeching at me, no doubt fearful that I was encroaching on their nests.

The barn swallows appear to have departed but there are many asian palm swifts in their place and the paddy also boasts some  ashy woodswallows nesting in the elctricity pylons.