Soon after months of prolonged rains ceased, last couple of months in the last year Oriental Magpie-Robins (Copsychus saularis) in the area began to sing getting ready to commence their breeding season. The Magpie-Robin is a prolific songbird and is the familiar garden songster amongst our garden birds. It has a large variable song repertoire, and the songs are musical.
The male of the pair that occupies our garden too within its territory, was singing from a couple of gardens away from ours and was in full. Below is a part of its songs captured with a parabolic reflector microphone setup.
Below is a recording made when the male was singing from a close by tree.
The singing male.
Male of the pair of an adjoining territory was too singing a few gardens away in a different direction. Captured a part of its song in the parabolic reflector microphone setup while its singing about 100 meters away.
Chirping Red-vented Bulbuls (pycnonotus cafer ) in my vicinity
I couldn’t to attend to record much of bird sounds in my garden during last few years. Noise in the environment, particularly man-made, has improved a lot and it makes great difficulty now taking a clean recording over even a minute! I have been listening to the chirping of Red-vented Bulbuls (pycnonotus cafer) in early morning last several days and thought to capture their early morning rather soft chattering sounds soon they have flew out their night roosts. A small gathering of them on tree at a boarder of my garden provided the recording below. Soon most of them fly away to their usual feeding areas leaving the few pairs staying in my area.
Calling of the bulbuls captured next day at the tree they gather.
A bird of the resident pair in my garden on the ‘gathering tree’. (Photos by DW)
A couple of pairs retaining in the area keep calling from tree tops in vicinity, before they descend for their breakfast for the day.
Bar-headed Goose – my 400 bird species in the country!
On 30th December morning I managed to see this beautiful goose at Korakulam wetland in Mannar. Following the directions given by my friend birder Sudheera who saw it in the previous days, I found the bird by the small water hole at the location. I enjoyed my 400 ‘life bird’ with prolong scope views while it was feeding and resting by the water there. This goose was first found and photographed by Ravi Darshana (a member of Ceylon Bird Club) on 19th Dec. at this site and the sighting became the first confirmed record of the Bar-headed Goose (Anser indicus) in Sri Lanka. Thanks to Sudheera for providing the photo featured here. Bar-headed Goose at Korakulam. Photo by Sudheera Bandara.
I had been looking for a Blue-throated Flycatcher in Sri Lanka for a very long time as it had been known as an extremely rare migrant here. Due to the close resemblance of the male Blue-throated in the general appearance of plumage to the resident Tickell’s Blue Flycatcher (Cyornis tickelliae) a male can easily be overlooked by being mistaken for the latter in the field. Thus, a rare occurrence of a Blue-throated in the country can possibly go unrecognized and unrecorded. This may have been the reason why this migrant flycatcher did not come to our attention in the past many years.
Early last year there was a pair of Blue-throated Flycatchers photographed in Wilpattu National Park. But I had no chance to visit the site. Then in October of the same year I very closely missed one in South India, which was moving in a small ‘bird wave’ seen by my colleague Uditha while photographing birds at a site where I was too busy recording bird sounds. On our subsequent search for the bird there we failed to find it again.
Thereafter, on 12th January this year on a visit to a forest patch in Tanamalwila I noticed a small flycatcher capturing insects near the ground. Close observation of this bird revealed that it was a male Blue-throated Flycatcher! I was thrilled. Finally I had managed to find one by myself. I managed to get a few photographs and make some recordings of its songs on the second visit to the site on 14th.
The two photos above feature the male I came across on the first occasion.
Its songs are reminiscent of the song of Tickell’s Blue but richer and more “musical”, and varied too. The sound clip below features a couple of songs of the Blue-throated, that from the recordings I made.
Although I spotted the flycatcher closely at two sites and managed to get a few photos on both occasions, on my second visit I did not realise that actually two males were involved in the sightings. My fellow birders (and bird photographers) Dulan Ranga, Gehan Rajeev and Uditha Hettige who visited the site later found that there were two males. It was confirmed by the difference in their markings seen in the very good photographs they took.
On my third visit to the site on 25th January, together with Palitha Antony and Gehan Rajapaksa and my family, I managed to make out the two birds by the small differences in their plumage. Below is a (poor) photo I was able to take of the second male.
I missed participating in the International Dawn Chorus Day this year, which was on Sunday 1st May (http://idcd.info/idcd/). While participating in the 2nd Global Big Day (http://ebird.org/ebird/globalbigday) on 14th May at the Talangama wetlands, together with a fellow birder Dr. Senaka Abeyratne, I thought experience the dawn chorus there as it was the place where I was on the IDCD last year. We reached the wetland just before dawn and began to count the bird species for the Global Big Day event. At the same time, while the dawn was disappearing I recorded calling of birds at the location. Sound track below features a part of the recording I made.
In the bird chorus above calls of the following birds can be heard in order of their appearance on the sound track: Red-vented Bulbul, Pheasant-tailed Jacana, White-browed Bulbul, Common Myna, Asian Koel, White-breasted Waterhen, Lesser Whistling Duck and Common Moorhean.
This March I spent several days bird watching on two occasions at Sinharaja rainforest. Every day early morning I heard Spot-winged Thrushes (Zoothera spiloptera) start singing their melodious songs as they were breeding at the time. Some already had young ones either still in the nest or fledged and hoping on the ground behind mother, calling a soft trill requesting to be fed. Males of the pairs mostly spent time singing of their beautiful songs while their females incubating on the nest or feeding young.
One evening while it was raining, not heavily though, I came across a male thrush singing on top of a small tree nearby a stream. It carried on singing despite the rain continues till late evening. I captured its sessions of singing on my new sound recorder I have been putting on test during my field visits.
At one time there was a ‘mixed-species feeding flock’ moving in the canopy above the tree where the thrush was singing, trying to find last bit of food for the day before dark. A part of the recordings of its songs is produced below. Calls of Orange-billed Babblers and a few other birds in the flock heard in the background of the sound clip below.
[Photo by Uditha Hettige]
New Zoom H6 digital recorder that I’m trying on recording nature sounds.
Sunday 3rd May is the International Dawn Chorus Day. The birds that utter their sounds in the early morning make the dawn chorus. This day is marked to enjoy this nature’s daily wonder and thereby understand importance of the natural world and its conservation.
On this day people can experience the dawn chorus either in their home garden or at another habitat nearby. Listening in the early morning you can learn what birds mix their sounds in to the dawn chorus this time of the year. Also, you can enjoy melody and pleasant nature of the sounds of these birds. We are in the tropics can experience the birds that breed in the area this time of the year would be the first to come to sing in the chorus. If you wish, you are welcome to share your experience of dawn chorus that you will hear on the day, in this blog by emailing your relevant notes, etc.
Enjoy the dawn chorus in your area on the Sunday 3rd May.
Below is a part of recording of dawn chorus that I made at Nilgala forest a few years ago.
In this chorus the following birds are present (roughly in order of they appear along the sound track): Pale-billed Flowerpecker, Coppersmith Barbet (in background), Marshall’s Iora, Common Iora, Purple-rumped Sunbird, Black-capped Bulbul (in background), Black-headed Oriole, White-rumped Shama (in background), Grey-breasted Prinia, Black-headed Cuckooshrike, Cinereous (Grey/Great) Tit and Brown-headed Barbet (in background).
There is an active heronry at Diyawanna Oya near the Parliament, where Black-headed Ibises, Black-crowned Night Herons, Little Egrets, Intermediate Egrets, Night Herons and Little Cormorants are still continue nesting. Breeding activities of waterbirds at this heronry has been going on for a several months now. Before Sinhala New Year my friend Plaitha, a wildlife photographer, and I paid our second visit to this heronry mainly to photograph some of the birds in their breeding plumage.
Black-headed Ibises, Black-crowned Night Herons, Little Egrets, Intermediate Egrets and Night Herons at the heronry.
While Palitha was photographing the birds I tried to capture sound at this heronry. Though passing traffic was quite loud I managed to get some sound recordings of the nesting site. Track below features some selected parts of the recordings.
Palitha had also captured the sound recordist at work.
The sound of Koha ( Asian Koel, Eudynamys scolopaceus) begins to come to our notice somewhere in the period of February to April in every year. It is generally believed that this distinctive sound connects with oncoming Sinhala New Year in April. Hence the author of this sound is popularly known as Avurudu Koha in Sinhala. The familiar sound of the Koha is the song of male bird, which the males sing to attract their females for breeding.
Asian Koel, male
Asian Koel, female
The song of Koha:
The Koha is one of the few birds in our country (amongst a few other cuckoos), which does not build its own nest for laying eggs. Instead, the females lay eggs in nests of crows. Nests of both House Crows (Corvus splendens) and Large-billed Crows (a.k.a. Jungle or Black Crows) (Corvus macrorhynchos) are victimized by the Koels . So, the male Koels begin to sing when the crows start building their nests in an area. The nesting season of the crows is around April and so is the time for male Koels to sing for their mates to inform to get ready for egg laying.
It’s now Sinhala Avurudu season and so we have started to hear the sound of AvuruduKoha from various parts of the country.
