Sukau birding basically means staying in a more-or-less snug lodge on the banks of the Kinatabagan river, and taking boat excursions on more-or-less rickety boats on the river. The mosquitos and the warmth and the sweat are free, the lodges aren’t. That is the way it seems to be like:
Or at sundown:
A species I didn’t come for from Shanghai is the Black-crowned Night time Heron. Sure, now we have them in Shanghai as effectively. Undecided why they spend time in Shanghai in winter once they might come right here although, however then once more, I normally don’t perceive many of the conduct of people both.
Blue-throated Bee-eaters construct nests on sticks protruding of the water. They appear crap however presumably supply some safety for the chicks, although not from one another (see the murderous actions throughout the nests in my earlier put up).
As a result of these nests look so unhealthy, I took a bribe from the Affiliation of Bornean Bee-eaters to not present them (truly, I simply forgot to take a photograph, silly me). So, simply images of the birds themselves.
The juvenile within the again has simply caught one thing. The mother or father have to be so proud …
The Sabah Partridge is listed as Close to Threatened. Its species title graydoni is in honor of Philip Newenham Graydon (1864-1940), a British planter in Sabah. Why that makes Mr. Graydon worthy of getting a chicken species named after him is a thriller to me.
The HBW calls it a “boldly-marked partridge” whereas eBird goes for “intricately-patterned partridge” which is sort of the other – examine for your self which one of many two descriptions is nearer to the reality.
And in case you are in Sabah, you too can examine whether or not the chicken is “unusual … all through its vary” (eBird) or quite “regionally frequent” (HBW).
Weirdly, a meta-analysis undertaken by Lim and Mojiol quoted within the HBW discovered “Sabah Partridge to be most considerable in industrial forest reserves, and fewer so in state-owned areas and guarded reserves”. A chicken with a powerful perception in personal property, perhaps?
The Giant Frogmouth is one in all these splendidly bizarre chicken species that make birding such a pleasure, when you recover from the warmth and humidity and mosquitos and leeches of Borneo’s lowlands.
It’s listed as Close to Threatened – the HBW states that it’s an “unusual or uncommon chicken that’s nearly definitely declining owing to destruction of its lowland-forest habitat”.
The HBW additionally remarks that there’s “no apparent sexual dichromatism, though feminine is alleged to be typically plainer and duller” – my recommendation to HBW employees is to not make such statements at events, as this would possibly make you comparatively unpopular besides with essentially the most boorish of male visitors.
If you wish to know what occurred on August 31, 1984, I can title at the very least one occasion: Within the Padang-Sugihan Wildlife Reserve in South Sumatra province, a Giant Frogmouth was mobbed by a Larger Racket-tailed Drongo, as described right here. At between 4 pm and 6 pm, to be precise. After all, many individuals nonetheless know precisely what they did when this occurred.
Apparently, when breeding, the 2 mother and father divide incubation duties, with one chicken taking up the daytime duties and one other one the nighttime. Consequently, a paper describing this talks of the “day shift” and the “night time shift” chicken. The paper can be value trying out for some quite cute images of the frogmouth chick.
For some, the glass of water is at all times half full. For others, it’s at all times half-empty (I, being extra real looking than most individuals, normally doubt there may be any glass in any respect). Anyway, the Latin title of the Mangrove Blue Flycatcher interprets as one thing just like the Purple-bellied Flycatcher (rufigaster is the species title). Completely different views.
Whereas it’s a very enticing chicken, its habitat in swamps and mangroves apparently makes it troublesome for armchair ornithologists to check it, so there are few or no papers on the chicken.
The hornbills of Sukau are featured in a separate put up – they’re one of many fundamental points of interest of this location although.
Ditto for Storm’s Stork.
Blue-eared Kingfishers assume that sustainability is essential. They incessantly reuse nest holes, thus saving very important pure assets although cleansing out the used nest gap takes about one week (supply).
Sadly, the Latin species title meninting doesn’t consult with a possible merciless Dutch governor with a sideline in naturalism however is simply the Javanese title for the Deep-blue Kingfisher. One good little story for my weblog put up misplaced.
Like different kingfishers, Blue-eared Kingfishers nest in excavated tunnels – however in comparison with different kingfishers, these tunnels appear to be fairly brief with a mean size of solely 25 cm. A kingfisher with a considerably poor work ethic, I suppose. Or speluncaphobia?
The Stork-billed Kingfisher is far greater and simpler to see.
Some scientists at Chittagong College, Bangladesh noticed the conduct of Stork-billed Kingfisher and Pied Kingfisher at – guess the place – Chittagong College campus (presumably they’ve some issues expensing journey prices).
They noticed the Pied Kingfisher endeavor 8 actions whereas the Stork-billed Kingfisher was noticed performing solely 6. The 2 lacking ones have been hovering (too massive, too fats, too lazy, I suppose) and bathing. The final level makes me fear a bit about getting too near Stork-billed Kingfishers. Perhaps they develop into fairly smelly? I didn’t get shut sufficient to search out out although.
The Collared Kingfisher is much more frequent – it may well incessantly be seen sitting on wires and posts alongside the primary roads.
So frequent that my native chicken information truly gave the species for instance of a quite common chicken he was nonetheless joyful to see in the course of the COVID lockdown when it confirmed up in his yard.
The resident vogue critic of eBird will not be very impressed with the Orange-backed Woodpecker, stating that it’s “dressed all in patchwork”.
It has one of many extra stupid-sounding genus names – Reinwardtipicus, which is made up of the title of Dutch naturalist Prof. Caspar Georg Carl Reinwardt and picus, which implies woodpecker, with the ti that connects the 2 components probably additionally having some type of that means. That is solely partly compensated by the species title validus (sturdy), of which presumably the species is kind of happy with.
Maybe not fascinating to anyone besides me, the HBW profile of the chicken has a short part on the creator, Chuenchom Hansasuta, who obtained a Physician of Dental Surgical procedure from Chulalongkorn College in Bangkok. I do not forget that after I was nonetheless a analysis chemist growing dental supplies, I as soon as gave a presentation at that college, which was adopted by my receiving a hideous and really colourful plate as a present afterward. With an image of the then-queen of Thailand on it, if I bear in mind accurately. So, fairly probably that made me commit lese majeste after I conveniently “forgot” the plate in my lodge room when leaving Bangkok – a room in a lodge that was considerably distinguished by all vaguely enticing younger females getting into the lodge having to go away their ID playing cards on the reception. On reflection, it type of makes me surprise what picture the organizers who booked the lodge for me had of German tutorial guests …
A lot for my quasi-madeleine second, although in fact much less emotionally enticing than the one described by Mr. Proust. Again to birds.
The Oriental Darter is classed as Close to Threatened – the explanations are the standard ones: habitat loss, looking, and air pollution. Humankind, you probably did it once more, congratulations.
The Latin species title melanogaster highlights the black stomach of the chicken (melanos = black, gastros = stomach). A buddy of mine who’s a bit frightened of snakes thinks of it because the snakebird although, which isn’t unreasonable given the snake-like neck of the chicken.
The Pacific Swallow is the resident swallow right here – in winter, it’s apparently joined by an abundance of barn swallows that don’t benefit from the coldish winter in locations reminiscent of Shanghai.
In line with eBird, the barn swallow has longer outer tail feathers and a darkish line separating the throat and breast that are missing within the Pacific Swallow. Nonetheless, it’s best to not name a Pacific Swallow short-tailed as they could regard this as insulting, significantly the males.
Purple Herons aren’t quite common and fairly shy in Shanghai whereas right here, they behave like they personal the place.
The species title of the Scarlet-rumped Trogon, duvaucelii, makes it sound a bit like it’s sponsored by a battery producer however it actually simply commemorates Alfred Duvaucel (1796-1824), a French naturalist who probably was killed by a tiger in Madras (supply), although one other supply has him killed by a rhinoceros (in these areas, there are lots of such selections out there). I suppose he ought to have caught with the considerably much less harmful trogons.
Male (pink breast) and feminine (orange)
The Scarlet-rumped Trogon is classed as Close to Threatened regardless of being apparently nonetheless pretty frequent on Borneo. It’s the smallest of all trogons.
Its blue eyebrow makes it seem like it both is consistently uncertain about one factor or different, or a long-time participant in some type of cosplay.
The Frequent Iora (species title tiphia) apparently will get its title from Tiphys of Greek mythology, the pilot of the Argonauts. And the Argonauts have been a band of heroes in Greek mythology, who within the years earlier than the Trojan Conflict accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to search out the Golden Fleece (please search for for your self who Jason was, the place Colchis is and what the Golden Fleece was).
Tiphys died both of a snakebite or of a mysterious sickness however he was not killed by both a tiger or a rhinoceros. Fortunate him, proper? Although he ended up lifeless anyway.
My unfounded guess is that there is likely to be a hyperlink between the Golden Fleece and the yellow colour of the Iora – goldenfleecii would sound type of silly as a species title, and why not showcase along with your classical training when there’s a probability to take action?
Then, there are raptors. The Bat Hawk primarily eats bats, because the title suggests – in a curiously exact assertion, Wikipedia claims that 49.3% of its hunts are profitable. Different helpful info within the Wikipedia article consists of the factoid that it exhibits very fast ingestion charges, taking up common 6 seconds for the prey to succeed in the abdomen after seize (motto of this weblog: We learn Wikipedia for you so that you don’t have to).
A Crested Serpent Eagle, wanting a bit ridiculous after a rain.
This can be a juvenile Gray-headed Fish Eagle, except it’s one other fish eagle just like the Lesser (the shortage of any gray head makes me doubt the identification a bit, however it appears juveniles can not afford a gray head but).
A paper on the Gray-headed Fish Eagle states that it “most popular nesting nearer to everlasting water than anticipated” – which makes me surprise who on earth has particular expectations about the popular nesting distance of the eagle from water. Properly, it appears such individuals exist.
This can be a Jerdon’s Baza – the HBW warns that it could simply be confused with a number of different raptors, and I’m not that good a birder.
The ebook “Raptors of the World” describes it as a “sluggish-looking” chicken, which strikes me as a bit bizarre for a raptor.
The baza is known as after British zoologist Thomas Caverhill Jerdon (1811 – 1872). His Wikipedia entry has its justifiable share of ineffective however amusing info on him: “In his private issues he was stated to be careless and forgetful. He typically had hassle together with his collectors and in the course of the time of his demise, he was discovered to be bancrupt. Jerdon has additionally been famous as being rash. On one event, he tried catching a cobra by the tail and acquired bitten on the tip of finger which he slashed with a pocket knife. He was additionally practically strangled by a pet python that he stored.
One other “perhaps that is” species: a attainable Wallaces Hawk-eagle. I’ll write extra about it in a later put up, as I noticed it nesting at Sepilok.
The ultimate chicken of this put up is the White-bellied Sea-eagle, a species that the HBW happily describes as unmistakable. The creator of the HBW entry is identical feminine Thai dentist named within the Woodpecker part – she appears to have an nearly scary obsession with plumages, going to nice lengths to explain the totally different ones. I assumed this sort of obsession was restricted to gull lovers, however it appears I used to be fallacious.
Lastly, I’m joyful to share some helpful hints for photographers with you. Right here is one: when taking images of elephants, an 800 mm tele lens will not be the perfect gear. Even when – as in Borneo – the elephants are comparatively small (they’re truly known as Borneo pygmy elephants).
If that triggers you to go looking your mind for long-lost data and give you the time period “insular dwarfism“, congratulations – you as soon as discovered one thing, although it was in all probability a very long time in the past and doesn’t have any sensible use for you now as it’s not even incessantly requested for in crossword puzzles.
If not figuring out this info any longer and thus suspecting you is likely to be affected by dementia, there are at all times another animals round to facilitate assisted suicide.
Then again, you could take consolation from the truth that you’ll by no means be as ugly as this distant relative of yours.
