Dreamstime

Saturday 10 December 2016

Asian Brown Flycatcher

Asian Brown Flycatcher - Head And Upper Body

Must be my lucky year 2016. I mentioned that I had a new avian visitor last September. A few weeks later in mid-October, I had another one - an Asian Brown Flycatcher. I was excited, obviously.

Taking a snap shot of this bird was easy. A rather bold bird, it greeted me by flying closer towards me when I was out and about at my backyard. It flew away briefly when approached, but it then flew back towards me a few second later. I suppose there must have been something about me that had piqued its interest. The closest it got to me by the way was about 8 feet away - an ideal distance for taking closeups of small birds.

Asian Brown Flycatcher - Front View

Difficulty Identifying

Identifying this bird though proved rather challenging to me. Little did I know, at first, that this flycatcher species looked so similar with the Dark-sided Flycatcher. I got confused obviously. After spending much time examining other birders' pictures, videos and the book A Field Guide to the Birds of Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore , I am quite positive now that what I have here is an Asian Brown Flycatcher.

The Dark-sided have "proportionately shorter and all dark bill" and "throat and half collar together with underparts whitish" as described in the aforementioned book. An Asian Brown Flycatcher has none of these features.

Why These Visit?

I do wonder sometimes, why I have 2 new avian visitors to my house so far this year? Is it because of the change in global climate? Or is it because of my neighbours unkempt backyard with overgrown tall shrubs (some thing that was not there in previous years) behind my house that attracted them here? Honestly, I do not know. But neither am I complaining. Or maybe a little on the climate change bit - it's getting unbearably hot these days, this year especially .

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