A Mountain Symphony

Black-collared Starlings by Yurie Ball

(January 30th Mae Hia) 0700 temperature 11c – Three Rufous-winged Buzzards seen roosting in red flowering tree (Butea monosperma), two Crested Serpent Eagles seen flying overhead, the black and white stripes along the trailing edges of there wings and black and white barred tails very obvious. Also they were calling to each other with their distinctive call ‘hu-hu-hu pleew pleew’, sometimes only using the last two notes. Two Crested Honey Buzzards also seen along with a Common Buzzard and a Eurasian Kestrel, a good morning for raptors. A flock of Ashy Minivets, along with Inornate Warblers and various other small birds passed through in a feeding wave. A flock of 100+ Asian House Martins seen feeding low over a tree, obviously some flying insects were up there.

(January 31st HTT) I don’t often see the Zebra Doves and Eurasian Wrynecks at HTT (many of the former and some of the latter at Mae Hia) but today saw four doves and one wryneck in the same small dead tree. Two of the doves were mating. One Bombax ceiba tree (I think it’s known as the kapok tree or Cotton tree) that I hadn’t noticed before was brought to my attention by the noisy chattering of some Blue Magpies, Rufous Treepies and two Greater Racket-tailed Drongos, it was beginning to lose its red flowers so will also lose its popularity when they have all gone.

(February 5th HTT) A solitary Rosy Minivet seen and scores of Asian House Martin in the last couple of visits. A Banded Bay Cuckoo seen and heard using both of its repetitive calls. Five Black-winged Stilts spotted flying round the lake. In normal years the water level of the lake would be much lower leaving mudbanks for waders to feed and roost. So not may waders around this year.

(February 7th Mae Hia) Flock of White-rumped Munias and two Common Rosefinches feeding on dying bamboo. I believe that bamboo of a certain type, or the same type, all die at the same time and their ‘swan song’ is the seeds that it produces at this time. I heard a story about this phenomenon in China. It appears that all the bamboo that the pandas prefer were all dying off at the same time and so the pandas were also dying, can anyone enlarge on this? Another instance of the Golden-fronted Leafbird being a bully. One was seen chasing off smaller birds, including a Verditer Flycatcher, from its favourite tree, it really goes into a tantrum at this time and that is most of the time. Three Little Grebes seen, two in their plain winter plumage and the other in breeding plumage. I have come across many that stay in their breeding plumage all year round, sometimes not quite so bright. The Common Koels are really in good voice, they have been for the last week. This brings to mind their host parents, the Black-collared Starlings. All year they fly around in pairs, doting couples, and they foolishly bring up the young of another species, doesn’t seem fair!

(February 12th KMP) Two new species for the area, the Eurasian Wryneck and the Gould’s Sunbird, a very colourful indivdual. The birds were busy along the Ka Mu Phuket road this morning, they just kept coming until almost 11am. The most obvious one’s were the barbets, the Great Barbet, the Blue-throated and the Blue-eared. They provided the rhythm section and the myriad songbirds provided the melody, it was a pleasure to just sit and listen to this symphony. All we had to do to get a variation in the melody was to move a couple of kilometres along the road. One constant in the melody were the ubiquitous Silver-eared Mesias! The only problem this morning, there was much more traffic along this usually quiet road, I hope it hasn’t been discovered by the general public.