Birding at Home

This is a story about why I love birding and I hope to use my pictures of birds near my home (within 100 metres of where I stay) to share the joy of birding with you.

Birding is easy. All you need is a pair of eyes and a willingness to let nature awe you. Let’s start with parrot.

They are everywhere and they can be very irritating with all their squeaks as they fly. They are social creatures, often found living in large groups. Near my place, we often see a large school of them flying together. They eat primarily seeds and fruits and they live in trees. Sometimes you can also find them making nests on top of lamp posts. Parrots are probably the few smartest birds that live very close to us. And the above picture shows that they can make do with the unnatural structures we built near our homes.

A parrot relative also comes here very often, the white cockatoo:

See how it’s holding a fruit to its bill (mouth)? It is standing on one leg and the other leg is actually holding the fruit like our hand and fingers. I am sure you have seen birds standing on one leg and thought it must be very good in balancing itself. Actually, you should see the bird balancing act more like a standing fan. It only needs one leg to stand still and the other leg is only needed if there is some strong force on them (like strong wind). Its feet has claws that can wrap around any twigs or branches to hold on tightly.

Let’s move on to our next bird, the zebra dove. It’s a cute looking bird that often makes the “gu gu” sound.

They are camping here all year round. And their feathers look amazing with the zebra patterns over their chest. Zebra doves tend to be more friendly to us. We can walk close to them and they will just go about their business looking for food on the floor (ants and seeds).

Here is another cute pose of this wonderful bird:

Here is a relative of the zebra dove:

This is a more skittish dove. They don’t let you come close (will fly away if you come too close). See how beautiful its feather pattern is.

Let’s look at another pretty bird that comes here often:

This is a male common flameback woodpecker. You can hear how it calls here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1p1K-NEDbk

It will often peck at the trunk of trees to look for worms underneath. But for palm trees, it is setting up a trap for worms and insects that would be attracted to the sap that leaks. I often see the pecker come back to the same tree over days.

Now, birding is fun not just from knowing the bird and shooting great pictures. Sometimes you can see a story happening. Here’s a couple of Asias Glossy Starlings:

They are foraging food together and they have found this nice fruit and devouring it happily.

Unfortunately, the seed inside dropped out.

The lady was unhappy and so the guy flew down to start looking for it.

He looked around intently to search for the seed.

Spotted it on the floor where I was standing near, and …

Flew to it and stared at me.

Then it shouted at me to go away, and …

Picked up the seed and flew back to its partner.

Birds are no different from us, they have temperament and interact with each other just like us.

Here are two Mynah siblings, strutting on the ground. One of them has found something to eat.

But I happen to come by and pointed my camera on them.

He stared at me intently for a while, and flew off. Leaving his partner bewildered …

But he just continued to strut along. The two birds are often seem policing around that area. So I presumed they are siblings.

Some birders enjoy keeping record of rare birds. They took pride in the rarity of birds they have seen or shot (photographically). Here is a rare visitor to my place:

This is a Swinhoe White-eye. It’s a small bird that flies around the tree rapidly, hardly stopping for a few seconds.

We even have chicken near my home:

Someone has let in this jungle fowl and there is a chick that one of my neighbour is keeping (to avoid being eaten by an Oriental Honey Buzzard that patrols around here; unfortunately I could not get a picture of it).

Love is also in the air with this couple of Yellow-Vented Bulbul. I will be looking forward to look for their nest as they have been flying together for a few weeks.

This picture gives you a good hard look at its yellow backside.

Many birds frequently come around my place. Here are some other residents.

A little sparrow that stays near the rubbish dumb. Sparrows are known to be very adaptable and lives easily with us.

And we also have this noisy fellow (Asian Koel) who often calls very loudly in the morning. You can hear its call here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb3SGuhSKj4

The above pictures were taken in the last few weeks. There were still other birds that visit here at other times of the year, such as horn bills, king fisher, yellow-naped oriole, etc.. I hope that you find birds interesting and take more notice of them around where you are staying. Thank you for reading this article. It’s my pleasure to take these pictures and share with you.