White Whiskered Laughingthrush in Taiwan for Saturday Critter

 

I only learnt the name of this bird until a former mate in Perth Australia told me about it.

Extraordinarily plumaged songbird with white facial markings that lend it an almost comical whiskered appearance. Brown overall, with accents of yellow, buff, purple, plum, blue, and orange throughout the plumage. Inhabits montane forest edge with dense shrubbery or grassy cover, but often emerges out onto roadsides and paths to forage, often crossing the road close to vehicles. Moves in noisy flocks or in pairs, giving soft contact calls and harsh rattling and whistling calls when alarmed. Song, a melodic tinkling, is simple but pleasant.

Sony A7RV

Sigma 105mm macro 

Linking Saturday Critter

Reptile that I don't want to meet for Saturday Critter

 

Respecting it from a distance

Panasonic G9

Leica 100-400mm f5.6-6.3

It was hissing from a distance underneath a rock in the shade on my walk

Linking Saturday Critter

Saturday's Critter - Koala Napping

 

In a wildlife park near Healsville, she is conserving her energy as usual. I feel like that whole week!

Sony A7RIV

Canon 300mm f4 L

This is linking to Saturday's Critter

Longhorn Beetle

A little flash stun gun does help.

Blue Fairy Wren - a thought

The image is taken by Pentax A* 300 f2.8 with 2 teleconverters in King lake national park.

For some years, I had been an avid bird watcher and photographer. Apart from the usual boring exotic myenas and native rosella, a lot of the native Victorian birds were rarely spotted.

Due to real life commitment to various daunting chores, this hobby had been neglected for a number of years. However, I spotted blue fairy wren every now and then after a plentiful raindrop this year. Yeah, thanks to El Nina that these wrens were somewhat more prevalent in my local reserve parks!

Therefore, I googled a bit of information on superb fairy wren and discovered something very interesting shown below...

"The Superb Fairywren is notable for several peculiar behavioural characteristics; the birds are socially monogamous and sexually promiscuous, meaning that although they form pairs between one male and one female, each partner will mate with other individuals and even assist in raising the young from such pairings. Male wrens pluck yellow petals and display them to females as part of a courtship display."

So what does it mean by socially monogamous and sexually promiscuous? It seems to apply to male gender in general after all. I do love that phrase "socially monogamous" being socially isolated? Then "sexually promiscuous" as animal instinct disinhibited?

No wonder male wrens look very colourful while females look very dull. Again, male wrens tend to hop around in a very agile fashion. Any photographers in South Eastern Australia would know photographying wrens is an incredible task even with autofocus lens. So this image has been something like a milestone after I could get some clarity out of this image using manual focus ring!!

Now I am hesistating about micro 4/3 system where there is little range of telephoto selection for an avid bird photographer.

Birds are really interesting entities where all their organs are packed inside that tiny bodies and move so quickly that make it almost impossible to capture them on cameras.

Roe