Friday, May 16, 2025

Eurasian Tree Sparrow

The Eurasian tree sparrow breeds over most of temperate Eurasia and Southeast Asia where it is known as the tree sparrow. It has been introduced to the U.S. and other countries where it has been named the Eurasian tree sparrow and German sparrow to differentiate it from the American tree sparrow. There are three subspecies but they differ very little from each other. Its crown and nape are chestnut; it has white cheeks with a black kidney shaped ear patch; the chin and throat are black; the upperparts are light brown streaked with black; the brown wings have two narrow white bars; the legs are pale brown; and the bill is lead blue in summer and almost black in the winter. 
Eurasian tree sparrow illustration from Birds of the World.
I got some truly horrible photos of this bird, due to my broken, water-soaked camera, in Bukit Lawang, Sumatra, on the edge of Gunung Leuser NP. We were staying in a hotel and these sparrows were all over the grounds.
The blue bill is visible in this blurry photo. 




Below is the range map from Birds of the World:

Thursday, May 15, 2025

Great Argus

In July 2023 we were hiking in Gunung Leuser NP in the northern part of the island of Sumatra, part of Indonesia. We were primarily looking for Sumatran orangutans and had already seen at least three of them. We heard a very loud call that rang out through the trees and our guide said it was a peacock. We headed toward the call. We eventually found the "peacock" and it was the most unusual peacock I'd ever seen. Its very long and bulky looking tail had what looked like a serrated edge on the bottom, almost like a machete. We sat down to watch it for quite awhile, as did some other hikers. It just stood there, not moving much and occasionally letting out its loud call. This was a day or two after my camera was damaged by water and I took many photos of which only one or two were decent. 
It was not until I got back home that I identified it as a great argus.

An illustration of a male great argus from Birds of the World. 
The name "argus" comes from the eye-like pattern on its wings, with reference to Argus, the hundred eyed giant in Greek mythology. Males have a small and almost naked blue head and neck, black hair-like feathers on the crown and nape, red legs and feet, brown plumage and a rufous upper breast. It has twelve graduated feathers with the central pair sometimes up to four times the length of the outermost feathers, with twisted tips. 
This photo from Wikipedia shows a great argus strutting like a peacock, but it is actually a large pheasant. 
It is found in the jungles of the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and Borneo. There are two subspecies. We saw the nominate subspecies, Argusianus argus argus found on the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra. The other subspecies is found on Borneo. 
Range map of the great argus from Birds of the World. 

Wednesday, May 14, 2025

Pacific Swallow

My Pacific swallow photos are other horrible products from my Indonesia trip where my camera got soaked and the auto focus got messed up. I was working on manual focus and even that was not working well. We were on Rinca Island, part of Komodo NP, looking for Komodo dragons.  



Now an illustration from Birds of the World to see what one really looks like. This is the subspecies Javanica.
Hirundu javanica javanica, the nominate subspecies is found in southern Myanmar, the Andaman Islands to south Vietnam, east to the Philippines, south to the Moluccas and Greater and Lesser Sunda Islands. The following is a range map from Birds of the World for all six subspecies.

Tuesday, May 13, 2025

Orange-Footed Scrubfowl

In July 2023 we were taking a guided walk with a ranger on Komodo Island, one of the Lesser Sunda Islands in Indonesia, looking for Komodo dragons. My camera was barely operating as I'd gotten it very wet in the rainforest on the Island of Sumatra and the auto focus was not working. I was having to do manual focus. We saw a group of orange-footed spurfowl, also known as orange-footed megapode. They were too far away for me to get photos with my cell phone and too fast for me to use my auto focus. I got one horribly blurry, terrible photo, but it is an extremely cool bird. 
Orange-footed scrubfowl. The orange legs really stand out as does the bluish neck.  

Orange-footed scrubfowl illustration from Birds of the World.

The orange-footed scrubfowl has a long-pointed crest at the back of the head, grayish-blue plumage with a chestnut tinge on the back, orange legs and feet and red bare facial skin. It is about the size of a domestic chicken. 

It is found on many of the Lesser Sunda Islands, southern New Guinea and northern Australia. Birds of the World specifically notes, "On Komodo, breeds in coastal woodland or scrub, or in similar habitats alongside dry riverbeds; mounds sometimes only c. 100–200 m from human habitation, though usually well hidden."  

Monday, May 12, 2025

Wallacean Drongo

Of all my horrible photos of drongos, my Wallacean drongo photo is probably the best. It is clearly identifiable from the photo. Interestingly, when I submitted it to iNaturalist I identified it as a black drongo. Two responded that it was Wallacean. We were in Indonesia on July 11, 2023 and landed on Rinca Island, part of the Lesser Sunda Islands, to see Komodo dragons. We came to the island by boat and after getting off walked past some mangrove trees next to the water. The drongo was hidden behind some limbs and leaves which partially obscured it and made the focus off, but the shape of the head and the body color and tail are definitive. 
Wallacean drongo on Rinca Island.
One of the fun things about it is its limited range. It is only found in a portion of Indonesia and East Timor. It has six subspecies, all limited to one or a few islands. I saw the subspecies Dicrurus densus bimaensis, known as the Bima drongo, apparently after part of the subspecies name, which is found on the islands of Flores, Rinca, Komodo, Pantar, Alor, Gunungapi, Solor, Adonara, Lembata and Sumbawa. 
The name Wallacea comes from a geographical designation for a group of islands separated by deep-water straits from the Asian and Australian continental shelves. Wallacea includes Sulawesi, the largest island in the group, as well as Lombok, Sumbawa, Flores, Sumba, Timor, Halmahera, Butru, Seram and many smaller islands. Alfred Russel Wallace was a Welsch naturalist who recorded the differences between mammal and bird fauna between the islands on either side of the continental shelves. The island of Bali is the island just left of the first shaded island to the left. This range map of the Wallacean drongo is from Birds of the World. 
It is found in subtropical and tropical moist lowland forests, mangrove forests and moist montane forests. The general coloration is dull blue-black with a greenish gloss, except the mantle which is entirely dull. It has feathers at the base of the bill which extend forward, a long and deeply forked tail and a thick, heavy bill which is highly arched and ends in a downward curve. 
Illustration of Bima subspecies of Wallacean drongo from Birds of the World. The colors in the illustration do not do justice to the coloration differentials in photographs. 

Sunday, May 11, 2025

Bronzed Drongo

Another horrible photo of a drongo which I identified as a black drongo on iNaturalist and another identifier indicated it was a bronzed drongo.  This is a case where the illustration doesn't do it justice. Photos of the bronzed drongo show its body has a very shiny metallic glossed surface with spangling, which means small sparkling objects, except for the area around the eye which is more of a flat black. It has a long forked tail. "Bronzed" typically means a tanned brown, but that is not this bird at all. 
Illustration of the bronzed drongo from Birds of the World. 

My photos of the bronzed drongo from the Eastern Range of Kaziranga NP in Assam, India. The photos are poor, but do show the shiny metallic gloss. 

It is found in the western and eastern ghats of India (the western and eastern coasts of the Indian peninsula), the lower Himalayas from western Uttaranchal eastward into Indo China and Hainan, the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and northern Borneo. 
Range of the bronzed drongo from Birds of the World. 

Saturday, May 10, 2025

Hair-Crested Drongo

I've got one photo of a hair-crested drongo near where we stayed at Diphlu Lodge next to Kaziranga NP in Assam, India. I believe my guide, Bablu, indentified it as such and I have it written in my notes I kept while with Bablue that day, but no one has confirmed the identification on iNaturalist. 

There are eleven subspecies and this appears to be the nominate subspecies, Dicrurus hottentottus hottentottus. It is found in peninsular India, the Himalayan foothills from Jammu and Kashmir, eastern Punjab and Himachal Pradesh east to Bangladesh and northeastern India (Arunachal Pradesh and southern Assam hills, northern, central and southern Myanmar, northern Thailand, southern China, Cambodia, southern Laos and southern Viet Nam. 
Range of the hair-crested drongo from Birds of the World. The grayish-blue is year-round and the orange is breeding.
It has long hair-like feathers springing from the forehead, extending over the hindcrown and upper back, black plumage, highly glossed metallic blue green, a noticeably pointed and down-curved bill and distinctive nearly-square-ended tail. 
Illustration of the subspecies hottentottus from Birds of the World. 
 
This has the large square-ended tail which looks very similar to a photo of one I've seen in a similar angled photo, a long down-curved bill, metallic blue-green on the side neck and upper chest and hair-like feathers springing from the forehead.