31th December 2012 (Monday)
A Cold Morning of Birding
The last day of the year, also the coldest, was forecast to be sunny as it turned out to be so. I found it to be truly chilly at four degree Celsius.
The birds seemed to have started active before I arrived at seven ten. Black kites, four of them, were already soaring on warm thermals, again as usual in winter towards the north, perhaps against the northerly wind to increase bouyancy. A male Grey-backed thrush was the second bird seen on the steps before the top of Pineapple Dam, and Daurian redstarts were heard and seen. It was interesting to note that the females utter two kinds of calls, one is of the 'ut, ut' kind and the other is sharp one-note whistle, making them identifiable by call down to sex level.
The catchment, which was drying up, attracted more Magpie robins than Grey wagtails, which were kept down to the winter minimum of two. I failed again to locate the male Plumbeous redstart, which I heard and saw last Friday -the day I went for the Siberian thrush and White-tailed robin. Its size, dark sihluette at dusk , distinctive high-pitched single-note whistle shorter and some keys lower than either Blue whistling thrushes or Slaty-backed forktails and its quite unique way of tail fanning are helpful in dark light.
Red-flanked bluetails,two males and three females were seen. Three kinds of thrushes, Grey-backed,Siberian,and Pale were seen in that order.Three species of flycatchers, Grey-headed, Asian brown and Red-throated were found in that sequence. Leaf warblers, the genus that had increase inidentification problems more and more due to splitting, posed in me great caution. Pallas’s and Yellow-browed which were vocal were surely present,especially the former which had increased significantly and far our-numbering the latter since mid-December, were heard every now and then. A good candidate for Goodson’s with whitish underbody was seen.
The photographers at the Siberian –thrush place were seen baiting four Peking robins with biscuit/bread crumbs and surrounded them at alarming close distance when the thrush had flown elsewhere.
The last notable bird was a male Black-winged cuckoo-shrike which had an almost whitish rump – throwing me into an alarmed state but quickly problem-settled by its undertail white- blotted feather ends.
S L Tai
NB I have changed the Red-breasted fly. to Red-throated fly now. Apology for the typo mistake.
[ Last edited by tsheunglai at 1/01/2013 21:21 ]