On 12th April 2007, Jeremy Lee wrote: “There is a pair of Spotted Doves (Streptopelia chinensis) just outside my window. They are nesting on a palm tree.

“The only problem is that I have never seen the pair together at all except during the nest building phase when one was bringing back some nesting materials for the other.

“Ever since then, it was always just one bird. Even at night. I searched the neighbouring trees for the other bird but to no avail. I remember as a kid we had a pair nesting on our mango tree (Mangifera indica) also outside my window. I clearly remember seeing two parents around.

“Initially I had suspected the worst… that one of the birds had been trapped by poachers. There is a former construction site next to my condo. The birds feed there and there are always people there trapping these birds.

“A couple of days ago I saw two eggs and now there’s even chicks in the nest. My maid swears that there are two different birds sitting on the eggs. I can hardly tell the difference between the male and female as the difference in the brown coloration on the chest is not distinctly different.

“I will be continuing to take pictures of the birds. Can’s miss an opportunity like this one and at the same time invlove the kids in this little episode.”

Then on 20th September 2007, Jeremy again wrote: “This is the second time a pair pair of Spotted Doves has tried to raise a clutch here. The first time round, two chicks successfully fledged from the nest about two months ago.

“This time round I cannot confirm if it is the same pair, but they built a new nest about 45 degrees counter clockwise from the previous position.

“Yesterday morning, I noticed three House Crows (Corvus splendens) attacking the nest. I rushed to my toilet and fired three cups of water at the nest to drive off one of the crows that was already perched right beside the nest and harassing the bird that was sitting on the eggs. I spent the next 10 minutes making my presence felt and opened all my windows and stared at the crows until every one of them left.

“The birds are still sitting on the eggs. I am just keeping my fingers crossed that the crows do not come back… or they might come back when there are chicks… which are probably harder to conceal than eggs.”

The final report came on 6th October: “The pair of Spotted Dove chicks are almost ready to leave the nest. This will make it the second successful batch on this relatively new palm tree in the condo. It seems that the doves are giving this particular species of palm tree their vote of confidence and many of the other palm trees are also being taken up by other pairs of doves.

“Not sure about the name of this palm tree but it is definitely not local. Looks a lot like the date palms of the middle east. Grows tall and fast. with some very wicked looking spines at the base of each frond. The spines give a lot of support to the rather flimsy nests of the doves.

“Back to the earlier account about some marauding crows attacking the nest some weeks back. The crows never made a second visit. Every time I wake up in the morning, I would check the nest. Sometimes when I come back from overseas trips, I half expect the nest to be empty.

“But today, the two young birds are already walking about a foot away from the nest on the fronds awaiting their first flight.

“Either I gave a strong message to the crows on the day they tried to get at the eggs… or they may be smarter and feel that they are better off combing another area with a better hit rate, then go all the way back to some area they had previously searched. What they can take would already have been taken the first time round. Probably better to visit again in a few weeks where new birds have laid eggs.”

The plant is an ornamental date palm (Phoenix sp.).

When “Tale of the Stock-billed Kingfisher” was written in 2006, describing the mythological story of how kingfishers’ family of Halcyon derived their names from; how a Stork-billed Kingfisher (Halcyon capensis) swallowed a huge fish bigger than the bird’s head, I did not expect to bump into their cousin’s nesting grounds and write about it so soon in my love affair with birds.

The White-throated Kingfisher (H. smyrnensis) is just about the most frequently seen and photographed species of kingfishers in Peninsular Malaysia (left). Yet, these very intelligent species have made their nesting grounds inconspicuous, breeding their young so discreetly that few birders have the opportunity and good fortune to discover, to observe and to document them.

The first day of 2008 could not have been a better start when a breeding female spooked me, as she flew out from a hole just after 8am, to stretch her wings and to feed. Equally taken aback, she applied her emergency air-brakes, changed direction and flew off in aghast.

The female has blown her cover – her secret nesting cavity on the side of a river bund (right).

The incident set the precedence and confirmation of my earlier suspicion what those cavities were. Rat burrows, lizards’ haven probably but I was not to assume them to be belonging to kingfishers until seen to be believed.

Taking my pooch (on leash) for regular, short drives and walks in the mornings and evenings, provided quality time spent with a pet. Having an obedient trained canine bodyguard provided the bonus. Her disciplined temperament gave me the opportunity to observe male and female breeding behaviours of White-Throated Kingfishers over regular periods of time to justify the need to document my observations.

The Alpha male’s role was purely of sentry duties, always perching within eye-shot of the nesting site. The female spent most of her time incubating, protecting her eggs from approaching rodents and remained in burrowed cavity when night falls.

For two weeks into the month, I took casual walks around the area and made no effort to remain longer than necessary to attract the attention of passer-bys or alerted the sentry’s suspicion of my interest in his family’s assets.

On 17th January evening, female parent was first seen with grub. She flew into her nesting site confirming hatching of eggs. Photographing to document this first part article series was kept to the minimum. It was carried out discreetly and hastily from a distance without stressing parents or inconsiderately making my presence felt. The waiting of long periods for any thrill opportunity shots of chick feeding was not practiced.

I informed no one of the location of my findings. WHY? Am I being selfish?

It is human’s nature to be curious. Want to know what I was looking at with my binoculars, where is the nesting site, how MANY EGGS there are in the nest and “I WANT TO SEE! I WANT TO SEE!” syndrome etc….

Generally amongst birding circles of pals, if bird species is known to be quite rare or rare, hordes of birders and photographers having received wind of information, would descend onto the site to observe and to photograph these lifers (a birding term to mean first encounter with the species) to add to their checklist or gallery of computerized bird images. There are also the over zealous minority that would baby-sit, park themselves and gawk for hours at nesting sites.

Such overly presence of humans, unintentionally attract predators like monkeys, stray cats/dogs and ignorant children to eggs or nestlings.

The presence of careless or new excitable and or inexperienced bird observers/ photographers overstaying their period of observations unfortunately, do compromise incubation periods and feeding of hungry chicks, resulting in high probability of either parents abandoning their nests completely or chicks die from hunger.

When this happens, other rodents like centipedes, ants and maggots become undertakers/scavengers to their carcasses. Diehards and those who never learn from their mistakes are quick to blame these creepy crawlies and the four legers for chick deaths or their disappearances.

It is for this reason that I made myself a personal pledge, as an amateur bird- digiscoper, not to reveal active nesting sites however common the species may be to anyone. I also keep a cardinal rule for not posting out any nesting images before chicks fledged (fly off) in the name of preservation and conservation of bird species.

The welfare of birds comes first, not my birding articles or showing the prowess of action or creative photography shots. (I must also add that methods and scientific studies of specific rare birds/surveys carried out on field assignments by researchers differ completely, for which I am not qualified to elaborate).

My favourite readers, you will appreciate better to enjoy an arm chair ride with me and visualise, as I journey you to the site in writing to witness Hector and Zena - a pair of very experienced White-throated Kingfishers breed and bring up their young.

My observation of nesting barbets, I thought their vigilance was thorough enough with their 3-step approach, but this pair impressed me with their vigilante skills and patience beyond doubt.

Visualise yourself at a river bund with Poinciana and Albizia trees abound. A handsome male White-throated Kingfisher with chestnut-headed plumage, wearing what looked like a large, white frontal bib perched on a branch, giving out loud ‘all clear’ signal calls sounding a descending staccato like - ‘quick quick, quick!’.

Zena, his mate flew in and perched on the same Poinciana branch as Hector (left top). In her beak, a huge, lifeless lizard lay sandwiched and waiting to be breakfast fed to the chicks (left bottom).

Met with approval by Hector, Zena double checked that no one was looking took a quick swoop and disappeared into the cavity. I expected she would take some time to feed such a big catch to 2-3 day old chicks. I hid behind a tree out of their view, no less than 10 metres away but she surprised me by flying out in less than 1min.

“Chicks eating on their own already?”

There had been times I was spotted first by the sentry upon my arrival. He squawked alarm bells keeping Zena at bay. If I got spotted by Zena, who appeared to be the only chick-feeding parent, would wait it out patiently until I hurried out and disappeared in defeat. There was once, she decoyed me by swallowing her catch and flew off in opposite direction to her nest! I felt so guilty.

Chick feeding began after dawn and peaked between 8-9am. Lizards and river snails appeared to be their favourite diet (above). Evening feeds don’t stop until dusk.

20th January saw discarded shells and regurgitated pellets at the entrance of the nesting cavity (right). There were also white streaks of bird droppings running down the side wall. Obviously, Zena had good housekeeping skills. One can only imagine - the chicks’ capability of reversing their rear ends toward the cavity entrance and pooped discreetly.

This image reminded me of a China’s visit to their public latrines in the mid-nineties. Do the squat over a flowing drainage system, see the contents of your bladder and guts saying ‘goodbye’ and floating away from you!’ Lucky too, if one finds a half-door latrine at Xian, then.

31st January morning was a bit special. It was 0900hrs.There was an unusual air of calm and one of the parents was around - within view.

‘Why no feeding this morning?” I thought.

My attention was drawn to the ‘tok, tok’ calls of a pair of breeding Coppersmith Barbets (Megalaima haemacephala) about 10 metres away from the nesting site. I pursued the direction of the calls. What issued was a good 10mins of ‘orni-porny’ observation and digiscopy of an exuberant pair of the smallest species of barbets, a good 25metres away across the river, high up in the skeleton trees. That was gift of good manna from heaven for my next article write up.

When the show was over, I started walking back. A quick glance had my eyes glued on a kingfisher that was smaller than the usual. My scope said something else. At the receiving end of my 82 mm diameter field scope, a stoic looking White-Throated Kingfisher fledgling was seen perched on a low fallen branch across the river.

“Oh my goodness, the chick is out!”

The time was 0913 hrs. and my digital camera went, ‘click, click’ to capture my first shot of a fledgling male as he began extracting oil from his preening gland to preen himself (below left).

I named him, ‘Allegro’- the fast learner.

I scanned harder. Behind some branches, perched half-hidden was another chick. Two chicks (above right)!

This chick turned out to be the smallest. I named it, ‘Piccolo’.

The parents had coaxed them out of their nesting site when I wasn’t looking. Instinctively the fledglings headed 12 o’clock towards a water source.

I missed the grand finale exit. Perhaps, it was the design of their Grecian Gods - protector of all kingfishers living by the waters edge that their births into the world are not designed to be witnessed by eyes of Homo sapiens.

On the way out, I thought it was odd that the perch of one fledgling seemed higher. It turned out to be the 3rd fledging named, ‘Modesto’. This chick seemed fascinated by the flight of an over towering Pond Heron (Ardeola bacchus) taking off, sending a confused Modesto clinging for life and swaying with the branch.

The three fledglings appeared to be healthy as shown in the following image profiles (above). Their soft parts - being their beaks, eyes, featherless areas and feet and toes are worth looking at closely to compare their features with adult parents, as surprisingly they are not described in many bird guide books.

The beak is greyish black and yellow tipped to match with yellow feet and toes dashed with grey on the anterior aspect. Fledglings also have white eye rings with chest and breast splashed white and mottled. White supercillium (eyebrow) is also noted.

At 0936am, 31st January ‘08, a record of the emptied nest cavity site was photographed with tissue wrapper for size comparison (left).

The diameter of the nesting cavity is… readers’ guess.

Do join me again for the 2nd part article to enjoy the promise of many images, showing how Hector and Zena, descendants of King Ceyx, raised their brood and LET them go.

.
AVIAN WRITER DAISY O’NEILL PENANG MALAYSIA
© BREEDING KINGS

The Olive-backed Sunbird (Cinnyris jugularis) that was hard at work collecting fibres for weeks from a piece of fabric in front of my house was actually building a nest in the garden of my front neighbour. I did suspect that the bird was building her nest there as she would fly immediately into the compound after collecting a few strands of fibres. But I paid scant attention as these nests are common in urban and suburban gardens, even in the small balcony gardens of high-rise condominiums.

Imagine my surprise and dismay when my neighbour Sheng Lau mentioned to me on 9th February 2008 that the nest was totally destroyed a few days back.

Apparently, five Long-tailed macaque (Macaca fascicularis) descended onto the scene one day and one of the macaques simply ripped the nest from the branch and threw it away. There were two eggs in the nest but it has not been established whether the eggs were eaten by the macaque.

Another failed nesting by a pair of Olive-backed Sunbirds. Failure due to various causes is common (1, 2, 3, 4) . But all is not lost.

I was surprised to see the female bird hard at work continuing collecting fibres from the same tree in front of my house (left). This time she did not fly directly into my front neighbour’s compound. Instead, she flew into the next house, obviously to restart building her nest elsewhere, hopefully in a safer environment. Does this mean that she will be laying more eggs once the nest is rebuilt?

A persistent female sunbird indeed…

In birding as in any other activities, there are those who are conservative and those who are ultra-conservative, preferring the status quo.

This is exactly the situation with the controversy on the existence of the Himalayan Swiftlet (Aerodramus brevirostris).

As early as the late 1980s, Richard Ollington was one birder who was totally convinced of the presence of the Himalayan in Singapore. A highly respected and well-quoted birder, he published his observations in his privately circulated Singapore Bird Reports (1992, 1993). Circulation was restricted but copies were made available to ornithologists. Chantler (1999) and Wells (1999) quoted him, with the latter recording that Himalayan Swiftlets were seen making “active passage over Singapore.”

R Subaraj, another experienced and well-respected birder, has also been convinced of the Himalayan’s presence for a long time now. However, most other birders simply ignored the controversy, as swiftles, especially Himalayan, are not all that easy to study and ID.

Ollington and Subaraj did not officially provide details of the swiftlet to the Nature Society’s Records Committee. They refused to work within the system as, according to Subaraj, “it is a lack of faith in the bird records committee” and it would be “a waste of time to submit anything.” Also, the committee was said to have adopted “highly debatable methods of acceptance and decision-making in the past that were simply unacceptable!”

So the Himalayan did not make it into the official checklist.

However, Subaraj wanted to make his point that the species was abundant and could be seen regularly, as well as to “…inspire some others to look harder at swiftlets…” So at every Bird Race he listed Himalayan Swiftlet with accompanying notes as one of his observations, even though he was sure the arbitrators would reject it. The arbitrators did reject his team’s entry at every race as the species was not in the official checklist - see Alan OwYong’s comments.

So birders have always been aware of the controversy but none were willing to meet the challenge… until now. KC Tsang, at the encouragement of bird group activist Alan OwYong, went into the field and brought back crisp images of what he believes to be Himalayan. This is the first time local birders are confronted with such images of this swiftlet.

Referring to his past inclusion of the Himalayan at every bird race, Subaraj added: “This was all in vain or was it? If Alan OwYong pushed KC into photographing swiftlets, it may have something to do with this, as he was the bird race coordinator in 2006.”

KC has, on 8th January 2008, officially submitted his records to the Nature Society’s Records Committee for consideration. Faced with KC’s official submission, the Records Committee is at last forced to act. It needs to deliberate and come to a decision soon. Unfortunately, none of the committee members are familiar with the Himalayan, with the exception of Yong Ding Li, an up-and-coming young and energetic birder. Ding Li is also the editor of Singapore Avifauna (see 1, 2, 3 and 4), a privately circulated newsletter of the Nature Society’s Bird Group.

Ding Li is one of the few birders brave enough to recently come forward in support of the Himalayan Swiftlet. He has, in fact identified the species in the field, around the fig tree at the summit of Bukit Timah and at *Panti Forest in neighbouring Johor, Malaysia.

I have been informed that members of the Records Committee are trying hard to get assistance from experts overseas based on KC’s images. Hopefully the controversy can be resolved officially one way or the other. The decision can only be: yes, no, or don’t know.

Whatever it is, the committe needs to come to an official decision, and soon!

*You need your Yahoo ID and password to access this OrientalBirding site.

References:
1. Chantler, P. (1999). [‘Family Apodidae (Swifts)’.] Pp.388-457 in del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A. & Sargatal, J. eds. Handbook of the birds of the world. Vol. 5. Barn-owls to hummingbirds. Barcelona: Lynx Editions.
2. Chantler, P. (2000). Swifts. A guide to the swifts and treeswifts of the world. New Haven & London: Yale University Press. (2nd ed.)
3. Lekagul, B. & Round, P.D. (1991). A guide to the Birds of Thailand. Thailand: Saha Karn Bhaet Co. Ltd.
4. Ollington, R.F. & Loh. E. (1992). 1991 Singapore Bird Report. Privately circulated.
5. Ollington, R.F. & Loh. E. (1993). 1992 Singapore Bird Report. Privately circulated.
6. Ollington, R.F. & Loh. E. (1996). Karimun Besar recent birdlist, updated to 01.04.96. Birdline Singapore Monthly Newsl. 43.
7. Wang. L.K. & Hails, C. J. (2007) An annotated checklist of birds of Singapore. Raffles Bull. Zool. Suppl. 15:1-179.
8. Wells, D.R. (1999). The birds of the Thai-Malay Peninsular. Vol. I, Non-passerines. Academic Press, London.

Flowerpeckers are tiny birds that dart around the forest trees with lightning speed. Because of the rapid movement and being solitary birds, they are difficult to see. However, they always make their characteristic metallic clicking sound and with a little patience, the location of these birds can always be pinpointed.

The Orange-bellied (Dicaeum trigonostigma) (male and female, above left) and Scarlet-backed (D. cruentatum) (male, above right) are found locally and easily seen but one needs to travel to Peninsular Malaysia to view the Crimson-breasted (Prionochilus percussus) (male, below). All three species of flowerpeckers shown here are feasting on melastoma fruits.

The birds take flower nectar, fruits and occasionally small insects. Figs are a favourite, as well as the berries of the sun-loving shrub, melastoma (Melastoma malabathricum). It is easier to view these birds around melastome as fruiting is throughout the year. On a sunny spell, the metallic clicking of these birds can be heard, heralding their presence.

Melastoma, sometimes misleadingly called Singapore rhododendron, is a weedy shrub that proliferates in disturbed areas. In areas that are fired regularly, these plants soon form semi-pure stands as they survive the fire while others do not. If left alone, they grow into small trees.

The plant flowers throughout the year. The pinkish mauve flowers last only a day, opening early morning and closing late afternoon. They attract bees, especially the large carpenter bees that assist in pollination.

The fruits split open at maturity to expose the soft, dark blue pulp dotted with tiny, orange seeds. They are sweetish and children love them, staining their teeth purple in the process of eating them. Squirrels, monkeys and birds love them, and in the process help to disperse the seeds.

Images from the book “A Passion for Birds” courtesy of Ong Kiem Sian.