A brief video clip of a wintering male Red-flanked Bluetail captured Saturday 05.01.2013 at the Botanical Gardens, Hanoi. For optimal resolution, please select 480p under Change Quality settings.
This guy seems to enjoy a lot its holidays in the city...
Showing posts with label Red-flanked Bluetail. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Red-flanked Bluetail. Show all posts
12 January 2013
11 January 2013
A little brightness amid the gloom
Another cold, grey and miserable winter month. I sometimes get obsessed by the crappiness of the winter weather in Hanoi. It can be so depressing. Fortunately there are always some nice birds to brighten up the gloomy atmosphere. For example this stunning male Red-flanked Bluetail.
I also enjoyed this week (7th -> 12th January) prolonged views of a gorgeous Scaly Thrush. What a pattern and hues this bird has ! When disturbed, it ran briefly and then stopped motionless. Very funny to watch it running instead of flying!
The camouflage is remarkable making it difficult to see even when you know it is here. Its very slow foraging behavior does not help. Other interesting facts about this species is that it prefers to walk than hop, and often patter its feet on the soil to encourage worms to the surface – I did not notice this behavior with the other Thrushes.
In the city parks Scaly Thrushes can be very tame. But in the forest, I found them skittish and difficult to approach. A really tough bird to shoot !
A bird that ends up in an inner-city park like the Botanical Gardens has 2 alternatives: get out or adapt. Adapt to a man-made environment and, above all, adapt to the presence of humans at close range. This park is packed from 6 to 9 am, 4 to 6 pm, with loud aerobic music, joggers and pedestrians everywhere... Probably not a high percentage of the individuals can accept this - only the less shy ones.
My Scaly Thrush found itself adapting. It had to become less secretive, less skittish.
For these reasons, ironically, it is sometimes much easier to shoot certain species within the city than in more natural habitats.
But my best bird of the first week of the year was this female Rufous-gorgeted Flycatcher, found at the Botanical Gardens. A great bird for the city.
Nice salmon bokeh! (this guy was in front of a wall, unfortunately...)
a much better background...
11 December 2012
The two species of Bluetails on my patch
The last few weeks, I photographed 2 adult males Red-flanked Bluetails at the Botanical Gardens (Hanoi). They were quite different: one had dark blue (Prussian blue) upperparts and shining blue eyebrow; the other one had lighter blue upperparts and white eyebrow.
After some research it appears that they belong to 2 sub-species, respectively rufilatus and cyanurus. But recently, rufilatus has been elevated to species rank as Himalayan Bluetail (Tarsiger rufilatus) on the basis of its more intense blue colour and its migratory behaviour (short-distance altitudinal migrant, not a long-distance migrant). A patch tick and a lifer for me!
8 November 2010
Thrushes in Botanical Gardens
Lots of Thrushes in the Botanical Gardens this morning, at least 10 in the two usual spots.
A few easy Japanese Thrushes but also quite a few that were difficult to me, I think most were 1st winter Japanese. One looked like a Black-throated (very dense and dark streaked throat, less dense streaks on belly and flanks, grey sides and upperside of head and neck).
Further a Rufous-tailed Robin (lifer!), a Red-flanked Bluetail and an Ashy Drongo.
Florian
A few easy Japanese Thrushes but also quite a few that were difficult to me, I think most were 1st winter Japanese. One looked like a Black-throated (very dense and dark streaked throat, less dense streaks on belly and flanks, grey sides and upperside of head and neck).
Further a Rufous-tailed Robin (lifer!), a Red-flanked Bluetail and an Ashy Drongo.
Florian
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