Our garden birds

All free living creatures around our Homes & Gardens - enjoying helping them helping us
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fabindia
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Our garden birds

Post by fabindia »

It's been raining here since about 6:00 pm last night and it is now midday here now, so I've had a little time on my hands to sort out a few pictures of the birds we see in our garden here in Thailand. The photos aren't mine; I collected them from the web but nevertheless they represent those we do see.

1. Cattle Egret

This bird is very common here and we see them in the damp grass across the road from us and they also seem to like scavenging on the beach. They are very successful species, happy to live in close proximity to humans (and by association cattle). They originate in Asia but have spread around the world and can even be found in the UK now.

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2. White Throated Kingfisher

There is something about Kingfishers that makes them such a joy to see. We see them across the road from us and also on the beach.

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3. Brahminy Kite

Know as the red-backed sea eagle in Australia. We have seen many of these raptors on our travels in Asia. They tend to be scavengers but also are quite capable of swooping down and catching small fish at surface of the sea and lakes.

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4. Hoopoe

I have only seen a pair of these beautiful birds in our garden once, so not sure how common they are round here. They are stunning bird well worth keeping an eye out for.

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5. Common Myna

A member of the starling family, they are really common birds round here, very charming and curious little creatures. They are noisy little birds; screeching warnings to its mate or other birds in cases of predators in proximity or when about to take off flying. Common mynas are popular as cage birds for their singing and "speaking" abilities. Before sleeping in communal roosts, mynas vocalise in unison.

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6. Greater Coucal

We often spot these in garden and even more often we hear their distinctive calls. An interesting bird, which at first I thought was a type of crow with a black body but brown wings. Although it is the size of a crow, it is actually a member of the cuckoo family. It is, however, non-parasitic, meaning it doesn't lay it eggs in other birds' nests but rather both parents rear their young.

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Michael
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lancashire lass
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Re: Our garden birds

Post by lancashire lass »

How peculiar to find some of those birds were also common in South Africa (Kwazulu / Natal coast line) where we used to live - egrets, hoopoes and myna birds in particular were everywhere. I agree with everything you said about mynas - their behaviour is a lot like starlings here in the UK - very noisy especially at dusk when huge flocks would gather in the trees before settling down. They are also good mimics and add new sounds to their vocabulary such as electronic alarms. I suspect the mynas were inadvertently introduced to South Africa with the Asian population in the 19th and early 20th century (especially if they were cage birds and accidentally released into the wild) A tree in a friend's garden was chopped down and unfortunately there was a nest of chicks which I rescued and tried to rear - only 2 survived when the nest came down and not long after another died but the other lived long enough to grow all its feathers and was even making short flights .... I don't know why it suddenly died (maybe parasites?)
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Mo
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Re: Our garden birds

Post by Mo »

I've seen 3 types of egret in Cheshire in recent years. First the little egret, which surprised me when I was walking along by the Dee estuary at Parkgate 'what are those birds, can't be Herons because they are white'. Rspb site says they've been in UK since 1989. In the past couple of years my SIL, who is a keen birder, took me to see the great white, and the cattle. The cattle egrets were at the RSPB reserve at Burton, we had a job to see them at first, through the observation window, then the cattle were moved and the Egrets came with them - RSPB site says they eat things disturbed by their hooves.
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Sunny Clucker enjoyed Folk music and song in mid-Cheshire
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saint-spoon
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Re: Our garden birds

Post by saint-spoon »

there are a lot of little egrets around these days
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