Balcony Birds

Directly across the soi (small street) from my hotel are a pair of tall trees, their tops, roughly parallel with my 6th floor balcony, are 40-50 feet away.  During the wet season they are leafed out with a thick canopy, but now, moving into the heart of the dry season, they are nearly bare, dry seed pods about the size of silver dollars more numerous than leaves.   In the mornings and evenings especially, they are visited by a variety of birds that come to search for insects, redefine their territories, warm themselves in the first rays of the early morning sun, or to gather before heading off to their roosts for the night. 

The two Black-Collared Starlings are regulars most mornings and evenings.  These, I think, are a pair.  They stay close to each other as they move about  in the morning, usually staying around for up to an hour.  This summer I think it was this pair that built a rough, hanging nest about the size of a football and raised two chicks.  The entrance was just out of sight from where I watch but I got to see the whole mating ritual, nest building, feeding activity and finally the young ones  doing flight school atop the nest.  Sometimes there are three or four these days and I think the other one or two are the hatchlings still keeping company with the parents.

They have a wonderful range of calls- long strings of song rising and falling in pitch and volume, that usually begin around eight in the morning.  They sing in the evening too but for a shorter time.  During the day they are elsewhere searching for insects- their main food source, says my bird book!  Sometimes I will see one grooming the other, and more often I will see them touching bills as they energeticly give voice.  It looks as if they are fighting but I see this pair all the time and the bill touching and singing seems more like mating or bonding behavior than aggression. 

This is another pair I see every day.  They are Red-Whiskered Bulbuls and they like to perch on the very highest branches.  They too have a beautiful song that reminds me of the thrushes and vireos we hear summer evenings in Vermont. They are always together, sometimes here mid-day and they usually stay around longer.  They mate during the dry season so I am keeping an eye out for their courting!  Berries, fruit and insects are the preferred fare says my bird book.

There are many doves around- mornings perched in the high canopy to warm in the sun, during the day atop electric poles or balanced on the wires, and late day flapping straight up and then gliding down in long graceful spirals.  The last, courting displays I think.  This one is a Spotted Dove.  It's call here is similar to doves everywhere.. Coo, coor, coor.   Like the pigeons, they are mostly ground feeders, searching for seed and, like the pigeons, always availing themselves of the rice that the Thais scatter everywhere for the birds- especially the chickens.  Speaking of pigeons, I've always kind of held them in low regard- they crap everywhere, build loose, twiggy, ugly nests, feed at the bottom of the pile, and don't even have a notable song.  But from my balcony I have a different view of them and I've changed my tune.. They are some great flyers- very fast, acrobatic and graceful when it suits them!

I mentioned my bird book..  For awhile there was a great bookstore close by.  But Thais don't read much and bookstores as we know them survive on visitors mostly.  I found a sweet hardcover bird book there- Birds of Thailand for just a couple of dollars.  Not all of the birds I see from my balcony are in there but enough so that when I take my tea or cereal out there in the morning I also bring Birds of Thailand, my binoculars and my bird journal.  If the light looks promising I take my camera too.  So far I've identified twenty-one different birds and also entered descriptions of several that weren't in the book.  No serious "birder" am I but it's satisfying to learn more about them. 

Also, having a great camera (Nikon D7200) that has high resolution paired with a zoom lens (Nikon 70-200 f4) that is mind-boggling sharp, has seriously opened things up for me.  Expensive they were but never have I regretted getting them.  They are treasured tools!  I took the bird photos this morning, hand held- no tripod, and then have cropped the files way down to bring up the birds.  I'm so amazed and thankful at how well some of them turn out!