The crest is a group of elongated feathers on the crown of a bird’s head. And depending on the species, the feathers may be raised or not at all. In the Malayan Night Heron (Gorsachius melanolophus), the black cap that is more or less white-spotted in the adult, projects down the nape as a drooping but erectile crest. But a black crest is absent in the juvenile.

The black crest of the Malayan Night Heron photographed by Dr Jonathan WK Cheah is just developing, indicating that the bird is a juvenile.

In the above-right image, the crest is erect, showing the blackish feathers with white spots. At the same time the coverts are ruffled.

A few years back, Lena Chow heard a flock of the usually loud discordant White-crested Laughingthrushes (Garrulax leucolophus) singing softly on low branches at Bukit Batok Nature Park for at least 10-15 minutes.

“I’ve heard the subdued songs of a flock of White-crested Laughingthrushes, like they were whispering/whimpering to each other, most unlike their usual loud garrulous selves. Wonder if anyone else has heard this? I did a random search on the net, and found this article, suggesting that this quieter song could be their contact subsong,” writes Lena.

The article referred to by Lena is by S. Chinkangsadam & N. Sitasuwan of the Department of Biology, Chiang Mai University, Thailand. The two researchers studied the vocal communication of these laughingthrushes, recording their vocals to generate sonograms that were used to analyse for song patterns.

Two types of vocal communication were found, calls and subsongs. Subsongs are shorter and less complex in structure than true songs. Unlike true songs that are used to defend territories and to attract mates, the two subsongs detected in this case were used in mobbing other flocks or species that approach food source and to keep in touch with one another in flight and during flocking. The four types of calls detected were for alert, alarm, excitement and begging.

The soft ’song’ that Lena heard may well be a contact subsong.

Image by Lena Chow.

On three separate occasions Dato’ Dr Amar-Singh HSS had the opportunity to make observations on the nesting behaviour of the Scarlet-backed Flowerpecker (Dicaeum cruentatum cruentatum), as detailed below.

Tambun Interior, Perak, Malaysia - 18th July 2009
“A female flowerpecker collecting nesting material (above). She was peeling strips off the bark of a Kaffir Lime tree (Citrus hystrix, local name limau purut). It appears as though she has returned a number of times from the appearance of the bark.”

Canning Garden Home, Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia - 3rd November 2006
“A female flowerpecker peeling strips off the bark of a Pride of India tree (Lagerstroemia sp.) (above). She took pains to collect a lot of material before flying off.”

Tambun, Perak, Malaysia - 1st & 7th June 2008
“A pair of flowerpecker was spotted building a nest on 1st June 2008. Did a follow up visit a week later. On the first visit both partners were just starting to build the nest with the female taking more responsibility. The first picture (above left) shows the female with red moss in the beak about to jump up to the nest. Second picture (above right) shows that she used dried grass as well (in hind sight this could be peelings of bark from various sources). Third picture shows the nest – an overview, one week later, completed (left). It was about 1.7 meters off the ground and 7 cm in length, globular structure with opening at the top. Camouflaged by a dried leaf in front. The pictures below show the close up and longi-section of the nest.”

Dato’ Dr Amar-Singh HSS
Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia
November 2009

Rey Aguila a.k.a. stingRey documented a Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea) swallowing a larger than usual Common Snakehead (Channa striata) at Singapore’s Chinese Garden in Jurong (above). It was at 8.25 am in late December 2009. At first sight it would appear that the heron might not be able to totally swallow the snakehead. But swallow it did (below left).

The adult Grey Heron stands at a height of 90-100 cm. It has a slender crest, a distinctive long neck and thick yellowish bill. It feeds in shallow water, often waiting motionless for long periods for passing fish and frogs, as well as insects and anything else it can catch. It also takes small mammals and reptiles. It also stalks prey in slow motion movements.

The *Common Snakehead, also known as aruan, is commonly found in forested and rural streams, canals, drains, ponds and reservoits. It has great economic importance as the Chinese relish the flesh for its supposedly wound healing properties. However, the fish has to be killed just before cooking with a strong bash on the head. Adults are dark brown with faint black bands across its entire body. It takes about two years to reach a size of around 100 cm, but given the chance, it can grow to a metre long. The head reminds one of a snake’s head, thus the common name. [Please see Addendum below for the correct identification of the fish.]

The heron would have stabbed the fish, shaken or bashed it to render it lifeless before attempting to swallow it. As in most cases, the fish is swallowed head first, as otherwise, the spines or rays may be in the way. In this snakehead, spines are absent, making swallowing less of an ordeal. As posted earlier, the heron generally washes its catch before swallowing, but whether it did so with such a big catch as this was not reported. Usually, after swallowing its prey, the heron would drink a few times before moving off.

The bird has a powerful digestive system that would dissolves most of the fish except some of the more indigestible bones, etc. that would be compacted in the crop and eventually cast out as a pellet.

In Singapore the Grey Heron is a common resident, but it is nationally vulnerable due to loss of nesting sites and human disturbances.

*Addendum:
Thanks to Marcus Ng, the fish has now been correctly identified as a walking catfish, possibly the introduced African species, Clarias gariepinus. We thank Kelvin PK Lim from the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research, National University of Singapore, for sharing his expertise.

Reference:
Wang, L. K., M. Chan, Y. M. Chan, G. C. Tan & Y. C. Wee, 2009. Pellet casting by non-raptorial birds of Singapore. Nature in Singapore 2: 97-106.

This post is a cooperative effort between NaturePixels.org and BESG to bring the study of bird behaviour through photography to a wider audience.

“Sunday morning, 13th December 2009, while asleep in my bed, I received an awakening call from a friend Rahul Kolekar, currently working on a research project in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, saying that he is forwarding my number to his friend Sameer Patel, who has a raptor with him, which he had rescued from his workplace Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Colaba, Mumbai.

“The raptor was attacked by crows some two days ago. I thought it must be just a Barn Owl, for which I had been receiving quite a number of rescue calls in the earlier two to three weeks, this being the prime time of the year when many juveniles are found attacked by crows…

“I soon received a call from Sameer. He said, it was a falcon and he thought it to be probably a juvenile Saker Falcon (Falco cherrug). …I rushed to his place to find that it was an Amur Falcon (F. amurensis) (above). On inspection it seemed to be in good condition, not injured; it flew well and was eating well too … and decided to release it as early as possible - as Sameer fed it meat (the only option) and it being not its natural diet, being largely insectivorous on migration, it could have affected it’s health…

“I decided to leave the bird with Sameer, asking him to give it water, to avoid any further discomfort to the bird as it had plenty of space to fly over there and a caring nature lover to look after, and returned home for the day as we had planned to release it on the next day.

“The very next day, I went to Sameer’s place. We provided water to the bird and then three of us, myself, Sameer and Sameer’s friend Yashoda Narvankar went to Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Mumbai, to release the bird in the wild at around 1030 hrs. As we released it, it flew well and perched on a nearby tree (left). It preened itself for almost 10-15 minutes while we monitored the bird from some distance. And finally it took off its perch flying away with agility and probably also tried to hawk dragonflies once. We watched it for a minute or two before it finally disappeared after letting us enjoy some spectacular flight display leaving us with some memories of this magnificent bird and some questions in my mind about bird behaviour, instincts and their migration patterns.

“Thanks to Sameer and Yashoda for all the help while taking identification photographs.”

Saurabh Sawant
Mumbai, Maharshtra, India
14th December 2008

Note:
The rescued Amur Falcon is female, possibly a sub-adult bird, showing adult-like underparts, underwings, tail pattern, buff thighs and orangish legs and beak along with other most adult-like characters but still showing buff edges to upperwing coverts like juveniles. The bird is an autumn passage migrant to the Indian subcontinent