Thaibirds and more

The first really long rains kept falling through the night making me decide against going out this morning. But after rains birds sing! First one as usual is the ever so noisy Asian Koel. I don’t think there is a single birder that doesn’t know it by sound. The distinctive whistles of Malaysian Pied Fantail follows. We have a resident pair in our garden and it is always fun to watch these little buggers hunt insects. The Eastern Jungle Crows, (Large-billed Crows) fly over our house in the early morning and some of them make a little stop on the rooftops or trees across the road. The loveliest singer of them all starts singing really early. Magpie Robin whereof we have several pairs in the immeditate surroundings. They often come for a drink of water or on the lawn to look for grubs. Greater Coucal is also mostly active in the early morning and you can hear its low pitched booming call. It must be a master of disguise cause as large as it is and as common as it is

The Oriental Reed Warbler is a form the Great Reed Warbler. It is the most common Acrocephalus in Thailand and quite easy to spot in the morning. It also is very vocal and  thus readily found.             It also enjoys to forage in trees some thing that Thick-billed Warbler also likes so caution           to be taken as to the ID. These 2 birds song sound a lot a like though the call note is quite           different. Also the ORW has a prominent eyebrow but is lacking in Thick-billed Warbler.          ORW is found primarily in Eastern Asia. It breeds mostly in China and southern Russia but          spend the winter in the warmer areas of primarily SEA.           Call note commonly heard:  https://www.xeno-canto.org/462181           Song:   https://www.xeno-canto.org/462826           THICK-BILLED WARBLER            A bird often associated with water but not always reeds. Can be found in more wooded areas.             The taxonomy is still confusing

This is a bird that I badly wanted to photograph.  It took me a long time to even see one well, let alone have one come out in the relative open.                                                                                   Eventually it paid off and these images were taken from my car as the bird emerged from            the reeds into the scrub.            These birds are real skulkers and this was actually only my 3rd proper sighting of the species.            I had seen it at Bangpra, Chonburi and at Num Kum, Chiang Mai prior to this. Rather heavy streaking on the breast.             Baikal Bush Warbler is another Locustella found in Northern and Central Thailand.     It breeds in the southern parts of Far Eastern Russia and northern parts of North Eastern China.     I don't hear it often in mid winter but towards March/April it starts to vocalize a lot more. Here is the normal song: https://www.xeno-canto.org/549297 And here the rath

  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 consisted of