Brown Shrike at NCKU.

Today, I went to check the Malayan Night Herons in NCKU, surprisingly I saw many immature Malayan Night Herons there in the campuses. Since April, the highest number of Malayan Night Heron at NCKU that I have counted in a day was 8 birds, 3 adults and 5 immatures. I noticed many immatures have been arrived in the campus and competing for the feeding ground with the resident adults.

After the count, I saw a Brown Shrike (Lanius cristatus) actively searching for prey on one of the trees near to the library. Here is the digiscoped picture of the shrike, (click on the picture for the enlarged view):

Happy Birding.

Birding in Ipoh

Besides that, I also spotted an adult Tiger Shrike at Bercham in Ipoh, after I came back from Cameron Highlands. I had seen the juveniles in many locations, but this was my first encounter with the adult Tiger Shrike, probably the last month for the shrike to stay before migrate back to the north. CLICK HERE to learn more about Shrikes.

out of focus

Here are other birds that I spotted and digiscoped during my stop at Ipoh:

Black-tighed Falconet, one of the world's smallest raptors.

Rufous Woodpecker. CLICK HERE to see my other Woodpecker pictures.

Rufous Woodpecker eating ants using its tonge. Click on the picture to enlarge.

Pied Fantail:

Pied Fantail preening its feathers:

Common Iora:

weird action performed by the Iora:

Paddyfield Pipit, just outside Aerden's house.

Happy birding and digiscoping.

The Year of Tiger Shrike

This year's Lunar New Year is on 14th of February, will be celebrated by more than a quarter of the world's population. The Lunar New Year is an official and major holiday in the East Asia region, from as far north in the Heilongjiang in China and Mongolia to the south of the island city of Singapore, and from the east of Korean Peninsula to Xinjiang and Tibet of China.

If you are interested to understand more about the Chinese New Year and the Chinese lunisolar calender, I strongly recommend a paper "The Mathematics of the Chinese Calender" by Helmer Alasksen, a professor from the National University of Singapore (NUS). This calender has major cultural and social influence to Chinese, Mongolian, Manchurian, Korean, Vietnamese and Okinawan (Ryukyuan), and minor influence to Japanese (Japan adopted Gregorian calender after the Meiji restoration).

The animal zodiac for this year's lunar new year is the Tiger. Thus, I would like to select a bird to represent the year of Tiger - the Tiger Shrike (Lanius tigrinus), (虎纹伯勞). Tiger Shrike is a monotypic species, it is a winter migrant in peninsular Malaysia and Singapore.

The majority of shrikes are large-headed, hook-beaked and sharp-clawed. Only raptors, owls and shrikes are sharp-clawed birds. The sharp claws are their lethal weapon when preying. Occasionally, I classify shrike as a "raptor of passerine" (haha...) due to their sharp claws and their hunting behaviour which are closely similar to the raptor, especially the falconet. Following are my observation of Tiger Shrike and other species of Shrikes.

A juvenile Tiger Shrike eating wasp:

Shrikes are principally birds of open country, prefer to perch on the prominent lookouts such as posts, stick or tall bushes to search for their preys, which ranges from small birds and mammals, to insects, lizards and frogs. I learned they also know how to use thorn or bamboo branch (tools) to tear the meat.

Check out this LINK to learn more on how shrike preying on small bird.

There are 30 species of shrikes widespread across Europe, Asia and Africa, only two species in the North America. There are three main species of shrikes occur in Peninsular Malaysia and all are the winter visitors. The species include the Tiger Shrike, Brown Shrike and Long-tailed Shrike.

Brown Shrikes, Lanius cristatus (红尾伯勞) are the most widespread species, they breed in the northern Asia and winter in South Asia and South-east Asia. It is the most common shrike in Penang.

There are four subspecies of Brown Shrikes, namely superciliosus, cristatus, lucionensis and confusus. L.c. superciliosus has warm rufous-brown upperparts, broad mask from forehead to ear-coverts bordered by broad white supercilia joining on the white forehead. It is a common shrike in Japan, but I have yet to see any of this subspecies.

L.c. cristatus is like a pale superciliosus with colder, sandy-brown crown, white supercilia has less contrast, forehead narrower. Here are the cristatus subspecies I spotted in Taiwan.

L.c. lucionensis subspecies (灰头红尾伯勞), has ash-grey on forehead with variable white above black mask, crown and nape grey, mantle greyish-brown. I spotted this subspecies in Taipei Botanic Gardens, Taiwan, it was my subspecies lifer with distinguishable grey head.

L.c. confusus subspecies resembles lucionensis, but head browner and broader white forehead.

Check out this LINK to learn more about the distribution of the Brown Shrikes.

Long-tailed Shrike, Lanius schach (长尾伯勞) is the rarest shrike in Malaysia, it has many subspecies, which include the longicaudatus, schach, bentet, formosae, tricolor and etc.

The bentet subspecies is the common Long-tailed Shrike in this region, it has grey scapular with whitish outer edge, I spotted this subspecies in KLT, Ipoh, was my subspecies lifer.

The formosae subspecies (棕背伯勞) has thicker rufous scapular, whereas the schach subspecies has thinner rufous on the scapular as compared to formosae. I spotted the formosae subspecies in Yilan, Taiwan, it was my subspecies lifer.

There are other subspecies of Long-tailed Shrikes, longicaudatus and tricolor occur in South Asia and Northern part of mainland South-east Asia, nastutus in Philippines and East Sabah. I wish one day I will be able to see them, including the adult Tiger Shrike.

Tips to identify and to differentiate the Brown, Tiger and Long-tailed Shrikes:

1. Brown Shrikes have rufous-brown tail, wing is longer than tail.

2. Tiger Shrikes, mantle, wings, rump and tail rufous-brown/chestnut, mostly with distinct black scaling. Mostly with distinct slightly over-sized bill.

3. Long-tailed Shrikes, with black, grey, white and rufous plumage, long black graduated tail, and rounded tip.

I hope the reader will learn something about shrikes and its subspecies, hope that more birders will pay more attention to shrikes, especially the multi-subspecies of Brown Shrike and Long-tailed Shrike. Hope one day, we will have more information about the type of subspecies that occur in Malaysia and Singapore. Kindly feedback to me if you find any mistake in the subspecies identification.

Last but not least, please view this video clip:

      

Don't let this be the last year of the Tiger, join TX2 to save the Malayan Tiger.

Happy Lunar New Year, 新年快乐。

** I would like to thank Connie Khoo for the Long-tailed Shrike and Tiger Shrike in KLT, Ipoh, both were my lifers. Thanks to Eu Meng as a birding companion for my second Tiger Shrike in SBG.

Migratory Birds of Singapore Botanic Gardens

Singapore Botanic Gardens (SBG) is one of my favourite birding sites in Singapore. During my last week's visit (14-20 Jan), I spotted many migratory birds in the garden, included the Hooded Pitta, Orange-headed Thrush, Malayan Night Heron, Tiger Shrike, Common Kingfisher, Blue-tailed Bee-eater and Red-legged Crake.

The most fascinating migratory birds I spotted in the garden were the Hooded Pitta and Orange-headed Thrush. In my last visit in December, I managed to digiscope the Orange-headed Thrush, but sadly, the pictures were spoilt by the excessive flashes used by the paparazzi. The thrush in my digiscoped pictures became a "Halo-ed Thrush".

This time, the paparazzi were gone, but both birds were still there together with a new migratory bird, the juvenile Malayan Night Heron.

The Hooded Pitta has very distinctive multicolours, with black, white, brown, green, red, blue and yellow. It has very close similar plumage colour as compared to the Fairy, Mangrove and Blue-winged Pitta, with the distinguishable blackish face, brownish cap and greenish chest and belly.

Let me share with you the colourful Hooded Pitta through my digiscoped pictures.

These pictures are my first digiscoped Pitta, they were digiscoped in the shady place without using any artificial flash light, but with the moderate ISO level, lower shuttle speed and taken from a distance with minimum disturbance to the bird. So, if possible, please leave your flash gun at home.

I saw two Orange-headed Thrushes in the garden. It was a wonderful moment for me to observe their distinctive behavior of taking their evening bath. Here are their pictures, but I couldn't distinguish which is male, which is female? If you can, please tell me by leaving your comment here.

The first thrush:

The second thrush:

This species of thrush has the similar daily bathing behavior as the Blue Whistling Thrush in Kek Lok Toong, Ipoh, I noticed that both species prefer taking bath in the free running water, eg. waterfall. Thrushes could be one of the cleanest birds on earth based on my observations of their distinctive daily bathing behavior.

Orange-headed Thrush taking its evening bath (courtesy of Khng Eu Meng):

The Malayan Night Heron that I spotted in the garden was the juvenile, it has very different plumage as compared to the adult, it is grayish in colour. The adult can be viewed in my earlier blog about the Taiwan's Malayan Night Heron, CLICK HERE to view, you will then be able to distinguish the differences between the adult and the juvenile .

The Tiger Shrike that I spotted in the SBG was a juvenile bird as well. I wonder why there were more juvenile migratory birds that I spotted in the SBG, could it be the juvenile cannot compete with the adult birds for their feeding ground and were pushed further south to Singapore.

front view:

side view:

and back view:

Another beautiful migratory bird I spotted in SBG was the Red-legged Crake, it was my lifer, unfortunately I missed the chance to digiscope it, but thank to Meng Meng for his fast reaction to record this bird, here is the picture (courtesy of Khng Eu Meng):

I spotted both the Common Kingfisher and Blue-tailed Bee-eaters in the SBG during my last visit in December, and they were still there in the garden after a month. Here are the pictures I took in my recent visit to the garden.

I had a wonderful and memorable visit to the Singapore Botanic Gardens, this garden has provided me many precious moments to observe and digiscope the migratory lowland birds, especially the Hooded Pitta and Orange-headed Thrush. I learned that a well planned and well managed Botanic Garden can serve as an important shelter to many avifauna, not only to the resident species, but also the migratory ones. Well done to Singapore Botanic Gardens.

Check out my previous BLOG about Birding in Singapore.

Special thank to Meng Meng for taking me to this wonderful birding place in the city of Singapore.