Baya weaver nest maintenance

The baya weaver will add more leaves to strenghtened its nest from time to time.



sometimes, it overcooked it..



side reinforcement?



this nest is blown by the wind and get stuck, somehow the parents tied the lower end to a branch and get this horizontal nest..

Oriole hunting lesson.

This black-naped oriole have been fully grown and hunting on its own.



hunting is hard, have to search carefully.. Notice that the beak is black not pink as the adult, there are also small black dots at the breast.

got it



seems like a bug or roach..

lunch have to be prepared first!
it banged the bug against the branch to remove the unwanted parts.

Looks about ready..



oh! still have the antenna


it fly away to another tree and continue banging its prey



the cleaning up after eating.
it brushes its beak against a branch.

Reed warblers from last season

I first saw the Oriental Reed Warbler in Dec 2008. They stay at the same area as the local Yellow Bellied Prinia. Hard to spot them as they are always in the reeds as the name suggest. Is is in april that i notice they always return to one area in the late afternoon around 6.30pm. So I stake out that area for the warbler

and got this



and



Cekup Paya Besar
Oriental Reed-Warbler
Acrocephalus orientalis

This is as clear a photo of this bird, hope to get better next migrant season.

another one is this species, which i spotted only once



Cekup Paya Kecil
Black-browed Reed-Warbler
Acrocephalus bistrigiceps

Baya weaver: Feeding time

With the chick in the nest, for sure cannot see! but can see what its parents feed it.

seems like a baby praying mantis.

another grub, look like a caterpillar.


with food in its beak, the parent will perch on a near branch..

then a quick stop at the nest, the chick will make noise..


then drop and up into the opening at the bottom..


after feeding, the parents will fly back out..

below,it seems the parent having trouble with its overzealous chick

tugging until chick almost gotten out.

Stork Island

I accidentally found out the nest of the Painted Stork when we are having dinner at the restaurant on 12/7/09.

Me: Eh! burung upeh tu ada baby lah! Kalau ada kamera mesti dah ambik gambar nih..
Hey! the storks have babies! If I have the camera sure have taken pictures..

She: Salah saya lah ni, suruh bawak beg saya tadi. dah tak bawak beg kamera ..
Its my fault, I asked you to carry my bag, so you left your camera bag..

Me: Takper, next week saya bawak tripod, kamera shoot dari sini (the restaurant)
Nevermind, next week I bring the tripod, camera and shoot from here.(the restaurant)


Well, thats what I did on 18/7/09

The chicks maybe 2-3 weeks old, I think..


This is shot with my manual focus Tair Phs 300mm F4.5 coupled with Kenko 1.4x TC

just to show the difference using Tamron SP AF 2x TC


not much different, but using the 2x tc sure relieves my eyes for focussing job, but loose extra 1 stop of light.

from my point of view, I saw 5 nest with 1-2 chicks inside.



for the location of the island click here