Tuesday 1 October 2013

Of Shrikes and Nightingales

Is it not amazing how, once one has learnt to identify the bird call  of a particular bird, that one suddenly ends up spotting it everywhere?

Can you identify the tree? 10 points to the person who can identify the tree this shrike is perched upon (Clue : It is a tropical tree endemic to Philippines)


I spent no more than ten minutes today, looking at the trees, listening keenly, armed with my new found knowledge of what a brown shrike sounds and looks like, and how to spot the difference between the  brown shrike and yellow vented bul bul (they look surprisingly similar from a distance the uninitiated - that is me!)

 Listen to avocet's recording of the brown shrike's incessant chatter in the Philippines here

And there - to my glee - I spotted no less than a dozen (well, actually it might have been closer to six each - always alone - but it felt equally good!) brown shrikes and yellow vented bul buls, perched on different branches at different times.



Here are some photos I took. Yes, they are all taken in Washington Sycip park - a patch of greenery right in the midst of Makati, a suburb of bustling Manila (Philippines).


And all over, all I could hear (in the midst of the gurgling sounds of the bulbul) was the cheep cheep bird call of the brown shrike (always sounds like an alarm call - even when not in alarm!)






Arkive reminds me of how similar the brown shrike (Lanius cristatus) looks to the eurasian sparrow - both are equally cute! Avibase has some cute photos and bird calls of this masked bandit (!). I like the maps posted on Xeno Canto - but can someone please remind them to add Philippines as one of the places where the brown shrike is seen?

Surprisingly, the brown shrike did not make it to ebon's list of Ten most common urban birds (the bulbul did make it to this listing)

Oops - 
By now, avid birders must have spotted the error in the title of this blog - the bulbul is not the nightingale (a common mistake, though not as common as mistaking the maya bird for the eurasian sparrow!).  The nightingale is really Luscinia megarhynchos, while the Bulbul we see commonly in Manila is the yellow vented bulbul (Pycnonotus goiavier). 

But "of shrikes and nightingales" sounds far better as a blog post than "of shrikes and bulbuls" - don't you think? Or do you have different views? Do let me know. Twenty points to the most diverse opinion.


A note to the ultra particular birder : 

Staunch birders will probably (correctly) correct me that this bird (and any brown shrike spotted in the Philippines, for that matter) is more precisely called  Lanius cristatus lucionensis. Yes - the ones we see in Philippines belong to lucionensis - one of the four subspecies of the brown shrike.

Thanks - 

  • To Birdguide, for the excellent photos of the brown shrike 
  • To the other websites mentioned (and linked) above which gave me useful knowledge on the brown shrike. 
  • And of course, to the always evolving encyclopedia at wikipedia
   
Further reading -  Why do birds sing?