This is a follow up to my previous post on the Oriental Honey-Buzzard in my neighbourhood. I actually took a couple of videos of this bird and here is one of them that I have uploaded to my Youtube channel.
Sorry for the slight shakiness in the video as I only own a budget tripod. Video was taken with my Canon Powershot SX530HS by the way.
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Blyth's Hawk Eagle? That was my first thought. But no. After much digging, it turns out be be an Oriental Honey-Buzzard in what seems to be a Tweedale Morph. My lucky day.
This bird first flew onto the lamp post right in front of me while I was weeding out in my front yard on one wet Monday evening. It then flew onto my neighbour's roof some 25 feet up. I didn't pay much attention to it thinking that it was just paying a quick visit. Some 10 minutes later, it was still there. This prompted me to get some pictures of this bird - and later, some videos.
I first used my Canon EOS 800D camera. But I soon realised that I do not have the reach with my Canon EF-S 55-250mm lens. That's the longest lens that I have on my 800D. So I switch to my old Canon Powershot SX530HS. Now that's better (thus the picture above).
No doubt the Canon EOS 800D would give better picture quality. However, I just couldn't afford those long reaching birding lenses (those greater than 400mm lenses) as I do not have deep pockets. I just can't justify it for now.
Buy Canon Powershot SX530 HS from Amazon.com
(Note: An Amazon.com affiliate link)
This is the first time I am seeing this. A bird nest in a tree branch. My, the bird is not even a woodpecker but a Coppersmith barbet instead. The old tree where the nest is sits on my neighbour's property. The place is quite tranquil, now a home-stay with not much human activity. Probably, this is what attracted the mother bird to this place.
Learnt something new today. These Chinese Pond Herons, they look different depending on the season. This blog post contains pictures of a Chinese Pond Heron in its winter plumage.
The two pictures in this blog post here is how it looks in its breeding plumage.
I was having lunch one fine Sunday afternoon when this bird, pictured above, flew onto my next door neighbour's roof. I was obviously excited since this is my first sighting of this species.
I thought them Brahminy Kites have left my neighbourhood last year. Guess I was wrong. They are back now. Just one initially a couple of months ago. But I can see a pair now, since last week. Not too sure if they are nesting yet. It would be nice if they do. In any case, welcome back.
The annual MY Garden Birdwatch Survey was held this year on the 5th and 6th June, 2021. As in previous years, I did my count from my home, starting from 7:51 A.M. till 8:21 A.M.
As usual, not all the birds species around my home were accounted for - the Black Crows, for example. There's nothing much I could do as I have to follow the rules that have been laid out.
The annual MY Garden Birdwatch Survey was held this year on the 6th and 7th June, 2020. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic worldwide, the bird count must go on. I don't have much of a problem with this myself as I always do my count at home. And besides, in early June 2020, the Malaysian government has already relax the lock-down rules somewhat, although social distancing must still be adhered to.
I conducted my count this year at 8:00 A.M on 6th June 2020. I only did one count as time was not at a premium lately.
It was not too long ago that I lamented about having to downsize my Oriental Honey Buzzard video from 1080p to 720p during post-processing. As luck would have it, the bird returned to my neighbourhood again about 3 weeks ago. With the help of my tripod, I managed to capture the bird again on video at 1080p resolution with my Canon Powershot SX530 HS camera. I am not sure if it was the same bird again though.
Digital zoom, another item that I have added to my box of tricks. Yes I know, digital zoom on my Canon Powershot SX530 HS is useless when taking pictures. But when it comes to videos, the result could be quite satisfactory in good lighting, surprisingly. The camera must be held extremely steady though since we are focusing at greater than 50x zoom. Having a good tripod is certainly most welcome here.
It was quite by accident really when I found out about this digital zooming capabilities while taking videos with this camera. All that I wanted to do was just to have the subject 'fill the frame' actually while taking the video of a bird.
They are back from the cold - Brown Shrike. I spotted one this morning in my garden.
A bit late I think compared to last year. I wonder if it has anything to do with the haze that is blanketing the country and region currently. The haze is so bad this year that I feel irritated while breathing. Rain, rain - we need rain to put out the fire at the neighbouring country some 800 miles away.
I have never seen this bird, a Paddyfield Pipit, around my house before. But they can be seem at about a hundred meters away from my home in the Jalan Sultan Abdul Jalil football field. A bit strange I think.
A rather timid bird in my opinion. Not really easy to photograph them as they get rather edgy when I stop and point my camera at them. Matters are made much worse now these days as the field is now fenced up and secured under lock and key. While the bird favourite usual spot is in the middle of the field. See my problem here? Not even my superzoom at maximum 250 mm focal length can save me here. The bird in the picture above (with some cropping) was about 30 feet away from me when it was taken. Not the best picture I know.
The annual MY Garden Birdwatch Survey was held this year on the 8th and 9th June, 2019. I did my counting at my home, as usual, on the morning of 8th June 2019, time 8:30 A.M. I normally do at least 2 counts and pick what I consider to be the best to better reflect the diversity of birds in my neighbourhood. But not this year though.
Spotted this rather big bird on a neighbour's roof a couple of weeks ago. I may have even seen it flying overhead a couple of times. But it was a bit too high up to identify this bird correctly without any binoculars.
This is my best guess. I suppose this bird is a Chinese Pond-Heron. I stand corrected obviously. Well, it has light greenish legs and brown back feathers.
Breeding plumage, non-breeding plumage. Urgh! So confusing.
Something extraordinary happened at 3:50 PM 8th October 2018. I accidentally caught sight of a small flock of about 10 eagle-like birds when I glanced out towards my Northern bedroom window. In the past, the norm was to have no more than 3 birds at any one time. "This is unusual", I thought to myself. And so, I attempted to photography them.
Having failed to capture any decent shots, I looked around and waited hoping for this flock to return. Nothing happened. I looked out on the Southern side of my bedroom window and I got excited when I saw, which I thought initially was the same flock. After taking a few shots, I then noticed that there were actually more birds in the sky than what I saw earlier. A thought then popped into my mind: Raptor Migration!!
It has become somewhat of an annual ritual for me. Come September of every year, I will wait patiently for the return of the Brown Shrikes. Two years ago in 2016, they were first spotted for the season on 16th September. In 2014, it was on 22nd September. This year it was 14th September.
The yearly MY Garden Birdwatch Survey was held this year on the 2nd and 3rd June, 2018. About 2 weeks earlier than usual when compared to previous years, as far as I could recall.
I did my counting at my home, as usual, on 2nd June 2018, time 7:30 A.M. Yes early in the morning as I was afraid I might forget. You will find my count results below.
It was not too long ago that I complained about the absence of Asian Glossy Starling visiting my backyard. I do see them but they were always overhead, flying pass my house and me.
Well, something changed. There are lots of them now. And I mean lots of them, something like 30 to 40 of them sometimes around my house at any one time; out front, out back, on the trees and on the electrical and telephone wires. The noise that they create sometimes can be quite deafening.
29th September 2017 9:45 AM: It was just like any ordinary morning. Nothing unusual, nothing out of the ordinary, I thought. But when I glance up the rambutan tree, as I would do from time to time out of habit while having breakfast, I noticed something odd, something peculiar: a long big tail sticking out from the tree tops. Sitting up and taking a closer look, to my amazement I noticed an eagle-like bird - a Crested Goshawk. Only one thing to do: grab my camera - and fast.
Finally I have managed to capture a decent picture of a Lineated Barbet. This is something that I have been trying to do for quite a long time now. Even better this time, an up close shot. The picture above is a cropped out from a larger 4608 x 3456 sized image (which is available for sale at Dreamstime). I actually took four shots, handheld, and this picture was the best of the lot. Because of my excitement two pictures came out blurry. The bird flew away almost immediately after the fourth shot was taken when it noticed what I was doing. A distance of 15 feet between us is a bit too close for comfort for this bird I suppose.
I am quite sure I have never seen this bird before while growing up in my neighbourhood. Or perhaps I was just not observant enough while I was younger. Anyhow, as far as I could recall, I only became aware of this bird some 3 or 4 years ago. My first impression then was "what a rather ought looking bird with some rather interesting looking plumage around its head and neck". In fact, at one time I had even assumed that it belonged to the Kingfisher family of birds (which it is not, by the way) because of its rather large beak.
Note the rictal bristles, i.e. the 'whiskers' around the base of its beak. This is the second bird that I know of that have them. Brown Shrike is the other one.
