A Canadian in King Parakramabahu's Court » Birds

White-Rumped Munias Building a Nest

Laurie — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 00:19:42 +0000

There’s been the makings of a nest between the eavestroughing and the house since as long as I’ve lived here, which is over three years. Until now, I’ve seen no activity involving it – no birds coming and going, no building, no spring cleaning, no little chickies, nothing.

And honestly, that made me sad.

Then the beginning of February happened. That’s when the Munias decided to move in. Good for them, I say. Squatters or no, I’m glad they’ve taken over the vacant space.

Heaven knows we don’t want to encourage vandalism or graffiti in the neighborhood, you know? It brings property prices down…

Erm…

These pictures are taken from the end of February.

What I find interesting is that the munias are not discriminating birds – they’ll take grass stalks or rice for building materials. No two by fours or steel stud for these guys, nope. Grass stalks and rice stalks. And dead palm leaf strips. And, you know, other plant matter…

Here, you’ve got a great underside view of the nest. Photo taken from ground level, whereas this is on the second level.

Then you can see a munia – mommy or daddy I don’t know – busy doing stuff with the nest, which, interestingly enough to me, opens from underneath the nest. Not a construction choice I would have thought of in a nest, you know what I mean?

And you can see a munia leaving…

Fly, munia, fly!

And here’s a munia relaxing after a hard day of nest restoration and remodelling work. Can’t say I blame him (her?) for taking a break…

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Green Parrots in Flight

Laurie — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 04:09:22 +0000

I’ve mentioned before that we have green parrots in our neighborhood. Heck, I’ve posted a whole bunch of rose-ringed parakeet photos here.

These parrots entertain me, and not just because they are stunning in their bright green, so bright green that they’re difficult to find when they’re staring right at me in plain sight from 12 feet away on the orchid tree that they match perfectly.

While they haven’t been visiting the now-dead orchid tree on the road or the banana plants in the next-door lot, they have been flying around, amusing themselves.

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White Bellied Drongo – Help me, Obiwan!

Laurie — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 22:35:10 +0000

I’ve previously blogged about the white bellied drongo, which is what I think this bird is, although I don’t have a positie identification on the bird yet. The white bellied drongo (Dicrurus caerulescens) is also known in Sinhala as Kauda.

The two Sri Lankan forms, leucopygialis and insularis, are darker than the Indian version, but I don’t know the differences between Dicrurus caerulescens leucopygialis and Dicrurus caerulescens insularis, so I don’t know which of them would be the one I have photos of, if it’s even one of them.

In the first two of my pictures, the feathers atop the head look like a very dark green. But in other pictures, the feathers look dark blue to blue-black. It could be the lighting, time of day, angle of the sun, that sort of thing. Or for all I know, it could be the difference between the two subspecies.

What do you think? Are these birds the white bellied drongo? Do you know which of the subspecies they might be? Or are they something else entirely that I’m missing?

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Common Myna

Laurie — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:07:09 +0000

This little bird is the common myna (Acridotheres tristis melanosternus), known locally as myna.

The myna visits us every now and then, not surprising given the myna is native to this region.

The myna is in the top 100 most invasive species and is a serious thread to Australia’s ecosystems. Oddly enough, one of the other two birds on that invasive species is the red vented bulbul, also native to this region.

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Silhouette Birdies

Laurie — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 23:15:28 +0000

We have a LOT of birds in our neighborhood. Stand out on the balcony in the morning for five minutes, and I’ll see at least four or five different types of birds that I can recognize and identify. Then there are all the other birds hanging out, flying around, chirping or otherwise singing their noises, but out of sight, and, well, I really have no idea how many there are, but it’s a LOT.

These shots are just a few examples of what I see from my balcony on a typical morning.

Enjoy!

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Tightrope-Walking Power-Line-Playing Doves

Laurie — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 11:00:57 +0000

The local wildlife sometimes just cracks me up.

These two doves – at least, I think it’s these two doves – have been hanging around our neighborhood a lot lately. I have to admit wondering if it’s mating season for them, but I’m too lazy to look it up just at the mo’.

Anyway, here they are, playing around. On the power line. Not just on the power line, but at the junction thingie on the pole where all the wires connect up and stuff.

Me, I’m afraid of, you know, electrical wires that just hang around. And disturbing them and stuff.

These doves? Yeah, not so much, I think.

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It’s a new bird! Nitamba Sudu Vikurulla

Laurie — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 10:59:03 +0000

This bird looks like it might be the white-rumped munia (Lonchura striata), known in Sinhala as Nitamba Sudu Vikurulla.

The adults tend to have a blacker head and throat, while juveniles are browner, so it seems to fit.

I only noticed this bird hanging around the last few weeks or so, and then two of them started hanging around, and then one of them started working on building a nest up on top of a rainwater drain pipe between the eavestroughing and the roof in a nice little corner.

And now I haven’t seen it for a couple of days again.

I hope they come back and use the nest they’ve been building.

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Favourite Photos of 2007

Laurie — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:38:43 +0000

This is one of our neighborhood purple-faced langurs, aka purple-faced leaf monkeys (Trachypithecus vetulus). He’s sitting on the telephone line just outside the window where I sit, using my computer. He’s close enough that I could have touched him if I stood up and opened the window. Well, and if he reached over to me…

Honestly, I have no idea how in the world the telephone line is still hooked up to our house given the weight of that monkey. I really don’t have a clue.

I thought the adult monkeys were close to a hundred pounds, but it looks like their weight is closer to 10kg, or 20 pounds or so, which seems unbelievably low to me, especially in light of Oberon being 15 pounds, nearly 16 at his heaviest.

And in the process of learning all that, I also learned that the purple-faced langur is also an endangered species.

I wish I knew what kind of parrot this is, but I haven’t been able to identify it yet. If you know, please give me a heads up?

This parrot became a pet at his office, a friend of the security guards. The parrot was, of course, free to come and go as he pleased, but inevitably, he hung out with his buddies.

When Fahim and I attended a wedding-related function for one of his relatives, one of his cousins was giving many of the other younger women and teenage girls henna tattoos. She asked me if I’d like one, and I jumped at the chance. Why not?

You know how I scream at geckos and spiders? I also scream at wee little frogs.

This little froggy lives behind the tap fixtures in the bathroom at Fahim’s parent’s house in Kurunegala, along with his/her companion/partner/whatever. In other words, there are at least two of them.

Cute little guys.

Yeah, I married a strange guy.

Happily, I like him this way.

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Favourite Photos of 2006

Laurie — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 11:28:54 +0000

Cows are everywhere here. Cows that wander freely through neighborhoods and even in heavy traffic are common here. Vehicles driving around cows in traffic are common here. Even cows that trot through traffic and neighborhoods are common here.

Right. Getting the picture? Cows + Sri Lanka + roaming free = normal. Yup.

Yeah, about Fahim… He’s not entirely normal. Y’all know that, right?

I’ve mentioned that ants are also everywhere here, yes? And, back when I had cats, ants would find where the cat food dish was and they’d haul off pieces of dried cat food. Like the first picture.

And that bright green worm you see? That’s what I find in my cauliflower. Lovely, right? I mean, the worm’s a pretty green colour and all, and pretty interesting looking in a way. Just wish he wasn’t in my cauliflower.

In the first picture are four rose-ringed parakeets sitting on the power line. We sometimes have dozens in the neighborhood at the same time. In the second, we have three hanging out in the banana plant and environs.

The ones with the ring around their necks are males. If there’s no ring, they’re female.

Then we have ripe jambu fruit, waiting to be picked, and in the second picture, we have a hand, reaching up to pick jambu fruit off the tree. Fahim’s hand.

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Project #365 Day 89 Vichuli Visits

Laurie — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 11:18:00 +0000

The oddly-coloured (to me) blue and brown bird, aka white-throated kingfisher or vichuli came back for a visit today.

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