Sunday, August 11, 2013

Week ending 11th August - IRRI

Back to the Philippines after our holiday, and lots of rain! The fields are very wet, and all the usual suspects are out and about. A surprise was a Little Grebe nest discovered by Richard soon after I got back. The nest was easy to find but it took me a while to locate the birds themselves. I eventually found an adult and two chicks.

Everything else is as normal. Lots of Rails and Painted Snipe around. Wood Sandpipers are starting to build up, but no other waders yet.

Little Grebe ssp philippensis with two chicks. The first time I've seen them at IRRI, though they have been reported, and photographed by others in my time here. Strangely elusive.
A Juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron by a rice paddy in the early morning.
Fan-tailed Cisticola
Male Painted Snipe...
...and a female.
White-throated/ Brown-breasted Kingfisher with a cloud of midges.
Buff-banded Rail
Common Moorhen


Posted by at

3 comments:

  1. AnonymousAugust 17, 2013 at 6:44 AM

    I have questions regarding these photos: except for the bill, the grebes look more like ducks. Are they anything like the grebes we have in Seattle, where a bare skin patch on top of the head turns red when the chicks are hungry? And, are the male and female painted snipes mislabeled?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Paul BourdinAugust 18, 2013 at 6:04 AM

    Little Grebe would be most like Least Grebe which is a bird of the Southern US. The grebes you have in Seattle would be structurally somewhat different, and generally larger.

    The male and female Painted Snipe are correctly labeled. They are polyandrous, the male is more cryptically coloured as it is the one which broods the eggs. There are several other species here with a similar biology, including both species of Buttonquail, in each case the female is more striking than the male.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousAugust 20, 2013 at 9:14 AM

    Striking shots!

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)