Birds in Action 240209

While walking to the bus stop with my mum and sis, I caught sight of an Olive-backed Sunbird (cinnyris jugularis) that was darting to and fro. Its smaller than usual size (sunbirds are already one of the smallest birds around!) led me to wonder if it was a juvenile. Soon, it stopped darting about and hid underneath a palm frond by hanging upside down from the stem!

Bird acrobatics in action!

Later on, in the Tiong Bahru area..there came the very loud and familiar cries of the Asian Koel (Eudynamys scolopacea). It wasn't their common call of 'ko-el, ko-el, ko-el!' but the 'wreeep, wreeep, wreeep' call that they sometimes produce. Indeed, for their cries to be that loud they surely had to be nearby! Would I finally be able to catch a glimpse of the noisy yet elusive koel?

Yes!! However, I didn't manage to get a good shot. Before I got there, the guy living in the unit just beside the tree bellowed a highly irked "Go away!" at the koels. But they stubbornly remained on their perch. Lol. Kinda wish I were the one in the apartment unit and he, the one standing on the pavement across from the tree (just so I could get a good shot). Haha!

The male is on the left and the female is on the right. They can be distinguished by their plumage. According to Backyard Birdwatch, "[t]he male is glossy blue-black with a red eye and a long rounded tail. The female is the more showy of the pair with cocoa-brown, white-spotted back feathers, a lightly striped, white to chestnut underpart, black face, red eye and a white whisker mark above a black throat stripe.".