17 June 2007

From yesterday afternoon, there has been an amazing amount of birdsong in the trees around our house. This morning, the repertoire was truly amazing--whistling, singing, calls like a mynah. I couldn't resist the whistling and ran out to see. It turned out to be racket-tailed drongos. It's been raining most of the day. So I couldn't stand outside to see them too clearly. But during a lull in the rain a particularly lengthy song pulled me out. Then I spied a pair mating & I realised that all the singing was amorous! Even during a heavy downpour at noon(when I went out to feed my dog) the singing was going on. Later I watched one of them perched on top of a coconut tree--during another lull--making the most amazing variety of sounds. He was presumably a younger one, because he didn't have such a splendid tail though he had his head crest. It's only now--at about 5 pm--that the singing has stopped. Here is a picture of one from Answers.com. By the way, the bird is fairly small, only about the size of a swallow I guess; much smaller than a crow.

6 comments:

  1. Wow! What a handsome bird!

    Here's one of my favorites around here: http://www.birding.com/topbirds/6275eb.asp

    ReplyDelete
  2. forgot to mention that it's a small bird-about the size of a swallow I guess

    ReplyDelete
  3. Somehow .. do you get the feeling that I envy you ??Look out for some property for me at Kottayam
    Oh you can give Blogger the credit - I could never manage HTML

    ReplyDelete
  4. Cool. The birds out here were noisy yesterday. I was listening to them and watching them cock their heads on the telephone line. I was thinking about the saying "a little bird told me" and wondered how much gossiping they must do. lol. It's a mating call. I forgot about that. The males try to outsing the other males so that the females are attracted to them, right? How could I forget that?

    BTW, beautiful bird!! Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I love to hear the birds singing. I have a huge birdfeeder in my front yard and smaller ones hanging on my back porch so I hear their singing a lot. So many different sounds and all are pretty to listen to.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I love early morning walks in the forests, i am under a tree hearing sounds of the birds hundreds of them like an unruly class room without a teacher but can't spot a single bird. Where are you people hiding ? 'Passion green' is the blog where i post pictures of the birds. Lotsin Thattekkadu,
    Alua-Perumbavur-Kothamangalam-Thattekkad. Or Angamal-Perumbavur

    ReplyDelete

I love comments! Do give your feed back.