“Winter visitors” seen in our backyard, from my chair in the lounge room, seen in last few days…
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| Fork-tailed Sunbird (M). In our Bauhinia bush and… |
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…the next day Fork-tailed Sunbird (F) in same bush.
They love the flowers |
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| Blue Magpie. In our kitchen garden. Likes meat and bones |
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| Little Egret — dark morph (rare). Hunts by our fish pond |
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| Grey-backed Thrush. Usually a lawn skulker, and … |
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| …cf, its more common cousin, the Violet Whistling Thrush… |
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| … which always fans its tail. And looooves snails. |
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| Orange-rumped Munia. Hunts insects on our lawn |
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| Chinese Pond Heron. Winter visitor |
An occasional visitor, not just winter, also stopped by today:
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| Greater Coucal, shy, elegant |
These above are are all a bit unusual in our garden.
Our common daily birds are: several varieties of
Bulbul (crested; red-vented; Chinese),
Speckled Doves,
Magpie Robins,
Crested Mynahs, the Violet
Thrush (above),
Japanese White-eyes,
Tailor birds and the common
Sparrow. In the skies:
Herons, Black-eared
Kites and Sea
Eagles float above our skies. We get occasional visits from
Peregrine Falcons and
Kestrels, and were lucky to see an actual kill
on our lawn recently.
ADDED (August 2023): a family of White-breasted Waterhen, mother and 3 babies, live in our hedge and lawn.
ADDED: And this morning (10/2/23) the first sounds of our Spring visitor, the
Koel. Up in the trees. Planning its raid of other birds’ nests, where they lay their own in amongst them and fool the original inhabitant to incubate them. Imagine the surprise! These are the parasitic habits of the Koel, member of the cuckoo family. And which remind me of
Ken Keasey’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” that I
wrote about the other day.
[ADDED (ii): Arlene says she heard the first Koel on 1st of February].Last year we heard the last call on 5 July.
“Koel” is onomatopoeic, for the sound of fhe male’s call, starting low and rising, ever quicker, ever more urgent, until it suddenly stops. Gets a bit grating after a while.
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The Asian Koel. That crazy eye! Is that where
Ken Keasey got his title? A crazy cuckoo? |
[Note: where the photos aren’t mine they’re from public commons and chosen to be closest to the sort of bush we saw them in here]
