Strange living places

Yesterday, a volunteer observer told me about a Black Drongo (Dicrurus macrocercus) nest at a metro station near where I live. So in the morning, I rode the train backwards one station to see it for myself. The nesting bird was indeed there, right across from the metro tracks. What a strange place to live.

Black Drongo (Dicrurus macrocercus) in the brooding stage. I love its tail!

Before arriving work early, I hang around the Lotus Pond in TBG and took some pretty nice photos.

Beautiful Water Lily

Black-crowned Night Heron fighting for bread crumbs that tourists are throwing to feed the fishes in the pond.

Common Moorhen had to join in on the action as well.

Afterwards, I headed back to office to start working on my paper report. Most of my morning consisted of analyzing and describing photos of nestling developments. During lunchtime, I came outside again to check out a new nest site that my co-workers have been monitoring for a while now. The nest site is located adjacent from the TBG, so it is not actually inside the garden. Nevertheless, the data will be worth having since this is a new nest tree with a new pair so that we can have a complete set of data of this particular nest.

While I was there, the male adult came close to the female and mounted her! What horny birds, according to my colleagues, because this pair has sex quite often.

Since I was just visiting I did not take part of the endoscopic observation. So I can finally photograph and show you how we do it.

The above photo is the nest entrance. As you can see, the nest is again inside a Camphor tree on a sidewalk of a busy street (second strange living places of the day). The below left photo shows one person handling the extended pole with the endoscopic equipments attached to it while another has a small screen attached to the camera and takes photographs of the latest nest status [the photograph showed 3 eggs already]. So why copulating again? The below right phot shows the camera (and LCD lights) extending into the nest cavity to record the status. Isn't it fun? This nest is relatively close to the ground so using the pole is enough. But imagine a nest at least 10 meters above the ground. That's when it gets dangerous and tricky.

Still the same...

Observing the barbets & Dinner with old friends

I did mostly paper researches in the office today. After lunch, we finally went outside to check on the status of the nests and I did a shift of observation on my own.

Female Muller's Barbet (Megalaima nuchalis) making sure everything is safe and sound - because all of her eggs have hatched!

Right outside the nest, the presence of a Black Drongo (Dicrurus macrocercus) makes things feel unsafe.


Right underneath the nest, a couple of stray cats can be found.

On another nest site, things aren't as fortunate as one newborn had been stuck by the egg shells for several days. We presume it's dead - but why has the adult not yet take the dead chick out of the nets? Perhaps it's a first-time parent? Furthermore, two other eggs haven't hatched yet. We also think the eggs are dead. Now, we just have to think of ways to retrieve the eggs high up in the tree to examine them in detail.

In the evening, old friends from the zoo last summer gathered for a group dinner. It was awesome to see everyone again and have a great time. I miss the good old days.
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More common Taiwanese wildlife...

More wildlife watching in the backyard again yesterday. I believe this is the Jamides alecto dromicus again. The common name for the general species is Metallic Cerulean, but in Chinese, it is translated as White Wave Mark Little Gray Butterfly, quite literally.

More Eurasian House Sparrows again. This one standing on a metal pipe.

One of the most exciting findings yesterday was this Swinhoe's Japalura, a common reptile all over Taiwan and found nowhere else in the world except Taiwan.

It was exciting because I saw it catching a beetle and eating it right in front of me. Then I spend a good 30 minutes or so (under the blazing afternoon sun) just simply observing it resting underneath the shades of a tree.

In the afternoon, I biked along a ditch (don't ask me why I like to bike along dykes or ditches) and saw this Black Drongo (Dicrurus macrocercus) perched right on top of me. Sorry for the poor photo, but this was the only photo I got. It is distinguishable by its metallic blackness and the deeply-forked tail, and likes to perch on wires, trees, bamboo shots, and even cattle backs.

I also saw a pair of Red-collared Dove (Streptopelia tranquebarica). I think this is a female as the wings on the males are darker than the females, who are more grayish brown.