The Yellow-Vented Bulbul (or YVB) makes another appearance here, but this time let’s present its younger, cuter version.

Comfortably nestled in the upper branches of a flowering santol, this YVB tyke posed gamely for nearly five minutes. This gave me the luxury of taking over 60 pictures at close range, and most of them turned out quite well with the focus crisp and clean.

Thus (for a change) I had a wide selection from which to choose the best of the lot for posting.

I ended up picking these four because I liked the combinations of light and shadow as the morning sun fell through the leaf canopy on the bird’s face.

You can tell this YVB’s a juvenile because it’s still somewhat plump and has fluffy down. Pretty soon, it will develop the sleeker and sharper outlines of an adult.

Right now, though, this little one seems to be in no hurry to leave its youthfulness behind.

Posted in: Better Earth, Photo Gallery | Comments(0) | November 2009

Whizz in, pivot, hop, hop, hop, crisscross two or three twigs and pivot again, hop once more, then zip away!

Small and spry bundles of pure adrenalin (like some of our Little Farm House pre-schoolers) – that’s what golden-bellied flyeaters are. They’re much quicker and more active than the similarly-sized white-eyes, dashing in groups of up to half a dozen or so from one treetop to the next.

It’s hard to catch up with the little speedsters. They seldom stay put in one place. Tracking them is a chore, made more difficult by the fact that I’ve had no choice but to manually focus the camera ever since the AF function of the zoom lens conked out again a few months back (and I’m not about to spend another couple of thousand pesos to have it repaired anew).

But good things come to those who stalk and wait. These guys (or gals) paused just long enough for me to rattle off a series of shots, and about a fifth turned out decently clear.

Not really uncommon in these parts, the golden-bellied flyeater (also known as the yellow-bellied gerygone or the yellow-breasted flyeater, among other aliases) is, however, usually too fleet of wing and foot for one to get more than a glimpse of it.

Feel the need for speed to know more about it? Then click on these links to the Mangoverde World Bird Guide and The Internet Bird Collection site.

Posted in: Better Earth, Photo Gallery | Comments(3) | November 2009

Chalk up another species to my growing list of bird sightings.

Perched on the apex of the roof above Riana’s room and on the frame of our water tank were these Blue Rock-Thrushes. From our bedroom’s balcony, what I could see were mostly their heads, chests and underparts as they paced back and forth for about a minute before flying off.

Also known as the Red-Bellied Rock-Thrush (for the subspecies monticola solitarius philippensis that resides here and in some other Asian countries), the bird’s coloring differs depending on its age and sex, and on the season. According to Wikipedia:

“The summer male is unmistakable, with all blue-grey plumage apart from its darker wings. Females and immatures are much less striking, with dark brown upperparts, and paler brown scaly underparts.”

Based on this information and after viewing other images on the internet, my guess is the first and last pictures are of an immature cock, while the second and third photos are most likely of a hen.

I could be wrong, of course, but I like my chances. After nearly a dozen posts I’ve made on various birds, I’m getting quite handy with identifying these winged creatures. If you haven’t noticed, Celebrity Sound Alike has (accidentally) morphed into a quasi-ornithology blog (which is what I mentioned to T. Connie on houseonahill.net just a few days before these pictures were taken).

As you can see, there wasn’t any of the usual foliage backdrop for these shots, just a clear cloudless early morning sky. Hence the title for this post.

You can find videos and sounds of the Blue Rock-Thrush at The Internet Bird Collection site, which has become one of my favorite internet resources for species data.

I’ll be back soon, with more to add to my virtual aviary.

Posted in: Better Earth, Photo Gallery | Comments(5) | November 2009