Asian Golden Weaver

The rain season is the best time to find these lovely little birds. Restricted to a fairly small range and being threatened by loss of suitable breeding habitat help to make them sought after.

They are fairly easy to take note of as they are very active in their breeding colonies. I often see them in colonies of up to 20 pairs. Birds fly in and out and vocalize a lot. I have started seeing more nesting birds in small groups of 2-3 pairs. Possibly an indication of the increasing difficulty in finding suitable habitat?

The male is strikingly golden whereas the female have more of the traditional colors of a sparrow.

Here is the female bringing some nesting material. From what I have observed it is only the males that build the nest and it is up to the females to accept or reject. I often see empty nests in a colony so obviously not all nests pass inspection. The female seem to be the one to patch up the inside if the nest.

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Wut Tum Prathoon, Chonburi

About an hour and 20 minutes drive from my home in Bangkok there is a temple on a little hill. The hill is surrounded by a forest that hold both resident and migratory birds. At the temple there is a permanent hide with seating for about 8 people. The hide is for free. A hose with dripping water and a bath is set up for the birds. This hide has some regular species that make use of the water as continuously. I have visited the hide a few times, mainly mid day when birds are hot and come to bath. Here is a sample of birds I have seen of late. Siberian Blue Robin, female Emerald Dove Amur Paradise Flycatcher Streak-eared Bulbul Black-headed Bulbul Racket-tailed Treepie Sooty-headed Bulbul Eye-browed Thrush Chestnut-flanked White-eye Orange-headed Thrush Black-crested Bulbul Verditer Flycatcher Oriental Magpie Robin

Emerald Cuckoo

This shiny little bird always causes excitement. Quite easy to observe at Pah Gloaymai campsite at Khao Yai during the right time of year. It is simply very busy gleaning grubs from the fairly low trees found at the campsite.

Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler and Lanceolated Warbler

It took me quite some time to develop an interest in various types of Warblers. There are so many other more obvious birds full of color and easier to see then this often rather skulky group of birds. But evidently one starts to wonder what is making all those sounds that eminate from the reed beds so armed with curiosity and a lot of trial and error the quest began. This spring before these bird migrated to their breeding grounds in Siberia etc I spent more time getting to know them and trying to learn both sounds and behavior a bit better. One of the more attractive one is the Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler aka Rusty-rumped Warbler. It belongs to the family of Locustella warblers but this family which now has been split in to 2 clades. Helopsaltes is a genus of passerine birds in the grassbird family Locustellidae . A comprehensive molecular phylogenetic study of the grassbird family Locustellidae published in 2018 found that the genus Locustella consist...

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