Allan Teo visited Cameron Highlands, Malaysia on March 2008 and sent in this report on the 24th: “Over the weekend I photographed this rare Malayan Whistling Thrush (Myophonus robinsoni) and its two chicks (above). It makes its nest at the same time very year. This species is listed as Vulnerable and is very difficult to obtain a photo let alone nesting.”

This thrush is endemic to Peninsular Malaysia. It is a rare and internationally vulnerable species and is confined to the Main Range from Cameron Highlands south to Genting Highlands.

The habitat of this thrush is the understorey and floor of the lower and upper montane forests. It forages alone or in pairs among ground litter and around streams. Whatever information on its food has so far been speculative. A few nests have been seen, described as massive cup-shaped structiures constructed of vegetative materials attached to lianas and saplings. The eggs have been described in Wells (2007) but details of incubation, brooding, fledgling, etc. are, so far, unknown.

The nesting in Cameron Highlands at an elevation of about 1,600 metres could reveal a wealth of information. The nest, built inside a factory warehouse at about 5 metres from the ground, is a massive half-cup structure made up of dried plant materials, probably narrow strips of leaves, thin stems, etc. as the outside appears an untidy mass of dangling materials. The nest sits at the T-joint of two narrow wooden beams, one running along the side of a wall and the other across to the other wall. The side of the nest is attached to the wall surface, probably with the help of mud. The presence of mud can be discerned on the nest rim and inner surface.

There are two nestlings, probably around more that a week old (two weeks?) old as their eyes are opened, juvenal feathers are mostly in place and they are active all the time. They are also relatively large, the two nearly filling the nest. The food brought by the parents include small snakes and moths (left).

Allan is planning to video the nesting on a 24-hour basis using infrared lighting.

NOTE: Thanks to Ong Tun Pin, Tan Gim Cheong, R. Subaraj and Bruce Ramsay, the distribution of the Malayan Whistling Thrush has been corrected. The bird is actually endemic to Peninsular Malaysia and does not occur in Sumatra. [4th April]

References:
1. Collar, N. J.. (2005). Family Turdidae (Thrushes). Pp. 514-805 in: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A. & Christie, D. A. eds. Handbook of the birds of the world. Vol. 10. Cucuoo-shrikes to Thrushes. Barcelona: Lynx Editions.
2. Wells, D.R. (2007). The birds of the Thai-Malay Peninsular. Vol. II, Passerines. Christopher Helm, London.

The Black-naped Oriole (Oriolus chinensis) is a common resident of Singapore and Peninsular Malaysia. However, come winter, the population is increased by the arrival of migratory birds from the north.

During the breeding season, the shrill, flute-like whistles of these birds fill the air as the males defend their territories as well as attract females. There may be occasional aerial chases as the birds zig-zag round trees, sometimes ending in midair grappling.

The arrival of a female bird will be aggressively courted by the males, with high-speed aerial chase through and above trees. The birds may be so close that the male may almost touch the tail of the female.

In the case of the Northern Oriole (Zcterus galbula), courtship display consists of the male bowing in front of the female with wings lowered and fanned tail somewhat cocked upwards. The female may respond by either ignoring the male, singing or chattering. She may even lean forward and quiver her wings and vocalise in response.

Have birders from Malaysia and Singapore published any articles on the courtship behaviour of our local species of oriole? Or made any observations? If so, can you please share?

Reference:
Edinger, B.B. (1988). Extra-pair courtship and copulation attempts in Northern Orioles. The Condor 90:546-54.

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The posting of the Javan Myna (Acridotheres javanicus) chick attracted the attention of Gloria Seow. She had just picked up a myna chick displaced from its nest and contacted me. I reluctantly accepted it after the tragic end to the earlier one.

On the evening of 18th March 2007, the chick was delivered. This time around, I got a proper cage, after being made painfully aware of the dangers posed by neighbouring cats. This was a right decision as on the evening it was transferred to the cage, I found the same cat that took my earlier myna sitting patiently below, thinking of its dinner (left).

The current myna chick is a few days to fledging. The wing feathers are all fully developed. So are the tail feathers. The yellow oral flanges are turning whitish. It has also been exercising its wings. The bird can stand and hop around. In fact it did run away when I placed it on the ground.

It is well aware of the calls of the birds around, even those of the Yellow-vented Bulbul (Pycnonotus goiavier). It listens intently and at times even scrambling around the cage excitedly.

However, it still needs to be hand-fed. Only then will it gape widely for food to be introduced into the mouth. Initially this was accompanied with high pitch screeching but not so now. It appears to recognise me and is more relaxed, allowing me to remove it from the cage for feeding. This is unlike the earlier chick that willingly gaped for feeding.

And unlike the other chick, this one does not beg for food when hungry. It remains quiet most of the time, except in the beginning when it panicked when approached. Another difference is that it has no confident perching on a branch, unlike its younger counterpart.

Although about to fledge, it still needs to be hand-fed. It has yet to learn how to pick up food to feed itself. Without this skill, it will be difficult to survive when released.

Now how do I teach it to handle its own food?

We have been looking at birds for more than two decades now. We have been paying attention to bird identification, fascinated by the plumage, as seen in the Black-naped Oriole (Oriolus chinensis) on the left. Currently there are many birdwatchers who are good at bird recognition. The Bird Group of the Nature Society (Singapore) has done an excellent job in this respect. This was done through courses, field trips, bird races, annual bird census, etc., all put in place in 1984 by Clive Briffett and his team.

The formation of the Bird Ecology Study Group in 2005 injected a little science to the mainly recreational activities of birdwatching. BESG, as this group has become known, introduced the study of bird behaviour.

While birdwatchers were previously mainly looking at birds, enjoying the diversity of bird life and compiling lists of species from different habitats, they have now been encouraged to observe birds. Observations on what food birds take, how they catch their food, their nesting habits, breeding ecology, interspecific interactions, etc. were collected and published in this blog (right).

Making such observations easily available to all was deemed crucial in encouraging birdwatchers to participate in data collection. In this respect we have been successful as evidenced by the ever increasing visitor number to our blog.

Although bird photographers were mainly sending in their photographic evidence initially, we now have traditional binocular-toting birdwatchers making behavioural observations in between listing species.

Three years into encouraging behaviour-watch, we have succeeded in making birdwatchers aware of the necessity of not just looking at birds, but also watching them. We are not stopping here but moving on. We hope to encourage birdwatchers to also listen to birds, not just looking and watching.

Birds make a series of calls and sing wide-ranging songs. Through the work of Sutari Supari, we have recordings of bird sounds. This is an excellent basic compilation. We need to improve on this, to record the entire repertoire of calls and songs of each species. Many species have more than one call and/or song. Only recently, Gloria Seow mentioned to me that she has noted that the Black-naped Oriole has a repertoire of at least seven songs.

We also need to slowly find out exactly what each call and song means. Are they made to defend territory, to attract mates, to warn others of predators?

We invite birders when out in the field to listen to birds, make notes and publish them to share these observations so that we can, together, build on our scarce knowledge of bird vocalisation.

March is a busy month for the Yellow-vented Bulbuls (Pycnonotus goiavier). This is a time when their chicks fledge and the garden is filled with the never-ending chick-chick-chick of the hungry fledglings. They are constantly begging for food. And they need to be fed, come sunshine or rain (above).

The parent birds are always around their hungry chicks. When one flies off to forage, the other is always nearby. The fledglings have yet to be wary of humans and they remain on the branch, not flying away when approached. But one thing they know to do, and that is to stop their begging cries.

My being around the fledglings always makes the parents nervous. They fly around me making their loud calls, desperately trying to distract me.

They have a rich repertoire of scolds, from the gurgling chok-chok-chok or chok-chok-chok-chick to kritek-kritek-kritek, or with a kroor added after the third kritek. At times the scolding includes kritek-tik-tik. If only I know what they are saying!

It has been raining these few days in the afternoons. The chicks are huddling together under shade of the leafy terap tree (Artocarpus odoratissimus). Their feathers are fluffed in an effort to keep warm and they look like cute bundles of stuffed birds. The moment a parent approaches, they become active, begging loudly and gaping wide to highlight the reddish gape lined with yellow oral flanges (above).

While one chick is fed, the other waits patiently for its turn the next time around. There is much begging but no violence – the parents know exactly which one is the next in line to be fed. The garden is full of ripening fruits and they need not go far in the rain.

I was watching the feeding in the light rain at around 1700-1740 hours from a distance and just before the sky darkened further, a pair of noisy birds landed nearby and the chicks immediately moved off to another, more leafy branch.