Malayan Night Herons hatched on Mother's Day

Found these two hatched egg shells of the Malayan Night Heron on Mother's Day. Glad to see these two new born lives arrived to this wonderful world, successfully.

Length is ~3.5cm, Width is ~3.5cm, the complete egg is approximated as 5*3.5cm.

 

Keep Watching, Keep Listening, and Keep Exploring.

Birding on the eve of Mother's Day

I had my birding trip to Sinhua area in Tainan on the eve of mother's day, together with three members of NCKU Bird Club. We started our journey at 4.30am and reached the destination at about 5am, it's about dawn in the summer in Taiwan. 

I was lucky to have a chance to see my lifer, a Bamboo Partridge (Bambusicola thoracicus, 竹雞), it is an endemic sub-species of Taiwan. The call is loud and easily distinguished, as "kee-koo-koo" repeatedly.

Partridges are usually shy and hard to be found and digiscoped, unless you play "hide without seek" with the bird. Then, how did I locate it? It's partly due to luck and "bird-sense" as well. I patiently and calmly followed the source of the call from the higher ground as possible. Surprisingly, the bird was actually calling on a tree branch at the same ground level as me, at about 20m away, without missing the opportunity, I just shot it, digitally. 

Therefore, I would like to dedicate these partridge pictures to my mom. Happy Mother's Day!

(click on the picture to enlarge)

Here are the bonuses of the day:

Taiwan Scimitar Babbler (Pomatorhinus musicus, 小灣嘴), an endemic species of Taiwan.

Maroon Oriole, an endemic sub-species of Taiwan. The maroon colour is closely similar to the red colour of the Trogon in Malaysia.

White-bellied Green Pigeon

Happy Birding.

Mikado Pheasant of Taiwan

Dasyueshan National Forest Recreation Park is also known for it's high concentration of the Mikado Pheasant and Swinhoe's Pheasant, it is a preferred birding site among the birders to look for these endemic pheasants in Taiwan.

Mikado Pheasant (Syrmaticus mikado, 帝雉), also known as an Emperor Pheasant, is an endemic species of bird in Taiwan. The male has very beautiful striking blue plumage with an elegant pheasant tail, a majestic pheasant that a birder must not miss while birding in Taiwan. It is one of the beautiful, elegant and majestic pheasants that I have ever seen.

Both male and female were my lifers on 15 April in Dasyueshan.(click on the pictures to enlarge)

The majestic male Mikado Pheasant

The female

Happy Birding.

Swinhoe's Pheasant of Taiwan

Swinhoe's Pheasant (Lophura swinhoii, 藍腹鷴) is an endemic Galliformes in Taiwan. It's my lifer on 14 April in Dasyueshan National Forest Recreation Park, it's a male Swinhoe's Pheasant. (click on the pictures to enlarge)

front view

back view

side view

Besides the Swinhoe's Pheasant, I also spotted a Spotted Nutcracker (nucifraga caryocatactes, 星鴉) at the same spot. Nutcracker is belong to Corvidae family, they are adaptive birds and as smart as the crow.

Happy Birding.

Taiwan's Endemic Laughing-thrush and Sibia.

Dasyueshan National Forest Recreation Park is one of the birding sites with high concentration of endemic species of birds in Taiwan. I spotted eight endemic species in my recent birding trip to Dasyueshan on 14/15 April, they're Mikado Pheasant, Swinhoe's Pheasant, Collared Bush Robin, Taiwan Barwing, White-whiskered Laughing-thrush, White-eared Sibia, Steer's Liocichla, and Taiwan Yuhina.

Taiwan has 24 endemic species of birds. Taiwan Huamei, Taiwan Bush-Warbler, Taiwan Wren-Babbler, Rufous-capped Babbler, Rusty Laughing-Thrush, Taiwan Fulvetta, Black-necklaced Scimitar-Babbler and Taiwan Hill Patridge are the endemic species of Taiwan that I have yet to encounter.

Here are my digiscoped pictures of the endemic species of White-whiskered Laughing-thrush, also known as Taiwan Laughing-thrush (Garrulax morrisonianus, 台灣噪眉), and White-eared Sibia, also known as Taiwan Sibia (Heterophasia auricularis, 白耳畫眉).

White-whiskered Laughing-thrush

White-eared Sibia

White-eared Sibia (rear view)

Happy Birding.