Thread: Thailand bird photos

Originally Posted by Troy

You need some luck

Day before I leave and I spot a nest being built on the right side of the hedge. It didn't take long to set up my camera and tripod inside the kitchen and wait. It was early morning so I have to use a high ISO setting to get any reasonable shots. I had to boost the colours a little because they were a bit washed out.








The female was very wary and I had around 3 seconds per visit to get a shot.

I owe Nev several beers for ID'ing a sunbird nest a few years ago.

I managed a couple of shots with a fast enough shutter speed to 'freeze' the wings in flight.





I spotted the male, but it was not possible to get a picture as he doesn't help build the nest. He has been hovering outside both my kitchen windows though, checking on progress.

Nice photos, Troy.

Originally Posted by Troy

I managed a couple of shots with a fast enough shutter speed to 'freeze' the wings in flight.

Excellent pics there Troy.

A regular around the house in recent days, a Green bee-eater.







































































Another pic was photobombed by a Fantail.

A work colleague is a very keen bird watcher and introduced me to an app I think members here might like. It is called Merlin from CornellLab and you can download onto your android or iphone in the usual way, just search for Merlin bird app.

The app can identify birds from their songs, calls etc. You can download a database for your location. I have for Europe and Thailand.

I tried it out in my garden and walking through the woods and it identifies the birds quite accurately. My colleague has an external mic for better direction finding but it's okay as is.

Looking forward to trying the app out during my next visit anf will report back.

^ I tried out the Merlin App this morning and was very happy with the results. At the moment, my phone is picking up sounds from all directions and I need to get an external mic because I was having difficulty working out where some of the bird sounds were coming from.

What I have discovered is that there are many more species of bird in earshot than I have seen let alone photographed.

Here are just some that I need to visually ID...

Small Minivet - picked up in two sound recordings pointing phone towards the rice fields
Ashy Woodswallow - picked up several times in the same direction
Asian Palm Swift - I think I saw a couple of them flying over the fields
Common Kingfisher - I've photographed before but not sure where this one was. Possibly in the trees surrounding the neighbour's pond
Yellow-browed Weaver - in the garden somewhere
Common Tailorbird - Hear them all the time but haven't got a visual yet
Brown Strike - In the rice fields but couldn't locate.
Osprey - I think in the woodland in front of my house

I guess I'm going to need some binoculars now...

^ Thanks Nev, yes a yellow-browed warbler.

I am only over for a week, so left my main camera in Germany.

I was just surprised how many birds were picked up with the app. Quite a few more ID'd from their songs/calls, but I managed to ID them visually.

If you do decide to use the app then take the bigger database of SE Asia rather than simply Thailand. I ended up having to do so in order to ID the Asian Green Bee-eater.

I've already got the app. Got it a couple of years ago. I haven't used it for sound ID yet but I will give it a try after hearing of your positive results.

The databases are rather large in size. I'm not sure which ones I have so far. I'll have to check that.