Birds of Thailand

[PeteC]

I saw a pair of new arrivals this morning. Don't know what they are, but have a dull yellow colored head of short almost down type covering, and a greenish/greyish body. Medium length beak. I'll see if I can find an on-line photo later.

Before I forget, I assume Thai birds don't like or know what a bird house is? We had a variety of sizes and entrance holes up on a trellis for almost two years, secluded spots as well. No potential tenants seemed interested.

How about bird feeders here? I know in Hawaii birds will only eat seed off the ground, never an elevated feeder....same here? Pete

[Takiap]

Pete, I don't know about bird houses, but we did have some really tiny birds use nests which we bought and hung up in the garden.


Also not sure if bird feeders are appreciated by birds here, and I don't think I would be able to even experiment because the pigeons would clean the feeders out everyday, and what they don't eat would be eaten by those small finch-like birds - the same ones you here going crazy by the traffic lights in Hua-Hin. We seem to have hundreds of them at our place, and they're just as greedy as the pigeons.

What always amazes me is just how quick they all are at spotting danger from above.......lol. One minute they're all chirping away, and the next minute they all vanish into bushes and there's a deathly silence until the resident hawk (I think) moves on. Just amazing how they know the difference between a dangerous bird and a harmless one.


BTW......does anyone know what bird that is at the small restaurant near Billy's Bar? It's black and very plain looking, and has a rather good human vocabulary, but seems to only speak Thai......lol.

[PeteC]

I've never seen finches along the eastern seaboard here, and that includes all the way from Chonburi to Cambodia. Perhaps they're here in the hinterland, but not along the coast.

I always enjoyed watching them in Bangkok each year, I think at the beginning of the cold season, on the wires along Silom at the Rama IV intersection. Thousands of them, and it used to make the Bangkok Post front page each year "Finches Have returned! It all just stopped one year, driven out by development and simply too much pollution I guess. The flocks you now have down there Takiap may very well have migrated from Bangkok. Pete

[Frank Hovis]

BTW......does anyone know what bird that is at the small restaurant near Billy's Bar? It's black and very plain looking, and has a rather good human vocabulary, but seems to only speak Thai......lol.

Hill Mynas are what used to be exported as talking birds. Mostly black but with an obvious bit of yellow/orange round their head. Slightly larger than your standard Myna. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Hill_Myna This is not a picture of the Thai race, but it's very similar.

[dtaai-maai]

Yes, I remember one of these in a cage outside a pet shop near Clapham Junction in the 60's. Spoke well and did an excellent wolf whistle. I was quite disappointed to find that not all mynas can talk...

[Nereus]

There is a bird around my house in Bor Fai that I have not seen before. For the past week I have been hearing this low "beep beep" sound that I was convinced was some type of electronic noise. It sounds like a low pitched tone that some alarm system, or low battery alarm, would make. It has been driving me to distraction trying to figure out what it is and just where it is coming from.

I asked a Thai lady that was visiting, or rather her Falang husband that was of the same opinion as me asked her, what she thought it was. A very scornful immediate answer: "it`s a Nok"!

Well, yesterday it was perched up on the roof ridge of the next door double storey house, and what a pretty fellow it is. Light brownie colour with distinctive white stripes on its wing, about the size of a Myna, or a bit bigger. But the most unusual features are a very long curved beak and a long thin crest on its head.

Anybody know what it is called?

[barrys]

Hi Nereus

One of these by any chance: Comon Hoopoe

[Nereus]

Hi Barry. Yes, that looks like it. Do you know if it chirps like I described?

[barrys]

This is the nighttime call:




And the daytime call:

or at

http://birdcinema.com/view_video.php?vi ... dc3ad3316c

[Nereus]

Yes, that`s it Barry. Thanks a lot. Strange that I have not run across them before. One place on the Internet wrote that although they are called "common", in many places that they are known to be, they are not that common.

[barrys]

We see quite of a lot of them around Pak Nam Pran - but I believe they are migratory birds so we don't see them all year round

[moja]

We have a pair on the land behind us - they are raising their young at the moment. Both parents seem to spend all day flying back and forth with food.

[Takiap]

Yes, we have two that come and breed on our property every year. Not sure if it's once or twice per year though, and once the eggs hatch, both the male and female spend all day, every day, bringing food back to the nest.

[PeteC]

What's up with seagulls here...or the lack of them? Everywhere I've ever lived near the sea they were in abundance. Is the coastal small fish supply so depleted here that there isn't enough food for them? Pete

[johnnymac]

I was thinking the same the other day Pete. I've seen the odd one but never flocks of them and I've traveled a bit as well

Perhaps the Thais have a taste for them