Male & female Olive-backed Sunbirds by Johan Svensson

Olive-backed Sunbird (Nectarinia jugularis) is one of those species that gets widely overlooked when birdwatching in Thailand; it is small, it is not particularly colourful (although the male is attractive enough) and it is commonest in habitats such as parks and gardens in which birdwatchers don’t spend much time. It is, however, quite remarkable for its adaptability, being found in virtually all habitats from mangroves, to forest edge: in fact, Olive-backed Sunbird is so ecologically tolerant that it is common even in plantations and cities, making it Thailand’s most abundant and widespread sunbird as this range map and accompanying text from A Field Guide to the Birds of Thailand indicate.

Olive-backed Sunbird in Bangkok’s Parks
For those intending a birding vacation in Thailand, Olive-backed Sunbird is almost certainly going to be seen, but it is by visiting a park that the best and most protracted views are likely to be obtained, where the species is very common: Lumphini Park, Suan Rot Fai and Suan Luang in Bangkok are all good places to study this interesting little bird. 

Olive-backed Sunbird in Gardens
Olive-backed Sunbird takes nectar from flowers, as the scientific name suggests, as well as taking insects from leaves and spider’s webs and it is interesting to see that it pierces the base of the flower to “steal” the nectar rather than taking it from the flower’s aperture and effecting pollination. I quite often get the opportunity to watch this interesting behaviour as I have my breakfast in the morning when a pair of Olive-backed Sunbirds visit some flowering plants in our yard; sometimes it feels like we are having breakfast together. The flowers they favour in our yard are tiny, clustered affairs that don’t seem to have an opening and piercing the flower is the only way for the sunbirds to get in to the nectar.

Sunbird-attracting Flowers by Nick Upton

In fact that Olive-backed Sunbirds make it into our tiny front yard at all is proof of how ecologically tolerant the species is: we have a small corner filled with pot plants in a street where the only vegetation is in the form of similar collections of pot plants in people’s yards and balconies. The area I live in is quite built up but there are a few areas of wasteland and fruit orchards remaining within a few hundred metres or so, however, this pair of sunbirds nests in a neighbour’s yard and seem to spend their whole time in this one street.

The small collection of plants in my yard that attracts sunbirds

The street I live in along with a pair of Olive-backed Sunbirds

The two above photos give some idea of how adaptable Olive-backed Sunbirds are in their habitat requirements: this is one of the few species that, happily, can live alongside humans in urban areas. Species such as this are important in connecting city dwellers with nature; this pair have certainly engaged my wife’s niece and nephew who wait for the sunbirds to appear on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

Observing & Photographing Olive-backed Sunbird Behaviour
Rather unusually for a small bird, Olive-backed Sunbird’s usual cluth size is just 2; one would assume that the energy expended in collecting enough nectar and insects for more than two young would push the parents beyond their limits of endurance. The nest is an untidy but complicated sac which hangs from vegetation and can frequently be found in gardens in Bangkok – the abundance of this species would certainly make it an interesting subject for armchair ornithologists to study: certainly photographers find it a good subject as these lovely photos by Peter Ericsson prove.

Female Olive-backed Sunbird by Peter Ericsson

Male Olive-backed Sunbird by Peter Ericsson

For more photos of Olive-backed Sunbird check out Johan Svensson’s beautiful collection of pictures of this species: Olive-backed Sunbird.

Those interested in learning much more about Olive-backed Sunbird and other sunbirds should get hold of a copy of Sunbirds: A Guide to the Sunbirds, Spiderhunters, Sugarbirds and Flowerpeckers of the World (Helm Identification Guides), it is available for less than £10 ($20).

Acknowledgements: Some of the information here comes from Phil Round’s book The Birds of the Bangkok Area.

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Craig Robson’s Field Guide to the Birds of Thailand, published in 2002 did a great job of updating older field guides, particularly with the inclusion of species which had been added to the Thai list since publication of Lekagul & Round’s Guide. However, since then even more species have been added, so many that the Robson guidebook is beginning to look rather out of date already. A revised version of lekagul and Round is available in Asia Book Stores in Thailand which depicts many of the most recent additions to Thailand’s avifauna, but for non Thai readers, the bad news is it is only available in Thai – still, the pictures and range maps are clear enough for all.

On thaibirding.com I keep a list of the newest additions that I know of here: Recent Additions to Thai Checklist, there are notes on all the species mentioned.

The most recent addition is Slaty-backed Gull; read more about its discovery in Thailand here: Slaty-backed Gull.

1st Winter Slaty-backed Gull by Alex Vargas

The additions to the Thai checklist since the publication of Robson, as I know them, are:

• Pallid Harrier
• Long-tailed Wren Babbler
• Chestnut-cheeked Starling
• Mew Gull
• Greater Scaup
• Isabelline Wheatear
• Demoiselle Crane
• Red-headed Bunting
• Red-billed Starling
• Lesser Black-backed Gull
• Grey Phalarope
• Large-billed Reed Warbler
• Grass Owl
• Mekong Wagtail
• Spotted Wren Babbler
• Little Gull
• Mongolian Gull
• Black-necked Grebe
• Long-tailed Duck
• Slaty-backed Gull

For more information on the additions take a look at the annotated list here: Recent Additions to Thai Checklist.

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Whilst waterbird counts are conducted in midwinter in Asia through the Asian Midwinter Waterbird Census, the numbers of waterbirds present in the wet season doesn’t seem to attract much attention in Thailand. Having been visiting Muang Boran Fishponds for years I am fully aware of the large numbers of waterbirds present but having read more on the subject, the possibility of it holding significant numbers of some species appeared to me.

On Saturday 7th June I visited the site with the express purpose of counting waterbirds. The full results can be seen here along with some other notes on the observations: Waterbird Count at Muang Boran Fishponds.

The highest numbers were recorded for:

• Cattle Egret – 91
• Indian Cormorant – 83
• Little Grebe – 72
• Pheasant-tailed Jacana – 66
• Bronze-winged Jacana – 65
• Little Cormorant -61
• Javan Pond Heron – 54
• White-browed Crake – 47

Further counts will be conducted over the next few months.

Other Birds
Whilst I focussed my attention on waterbirds, it would take a particularly tunnel-visioned birder not to notice other species. On this visit I saw a total of 50 species in just over 4 hours, with some of the nicer ones being 9 Asian Golden Weavers, 1 Chestnut Munia, 12 Striated Grassbirds, 1 immature Brahminy Kite and juveniles of Oriental Pratincole and Black-winged Stilt.

A couple of birds were of interest due to their timing. 1 Barn Swallow was seen as was a singing Oriental Reed Warbler. Neither of these is normal at this time of year, but neither are they unprecedented; small numbers of Barn Swallows can be found year-round and there are a couple of other rainy season records of Oriental Reed Warbler.

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On the morning of 5th June I joined Gabby and Alex Vargas for a trip to Bang Pra in Chonburi province in the hope of finding some Quail. Unfortunately, we arrived rather later than hoped which reduced our chances of finding these tricky birds due to the human disturbance that had already begun. However, in the fringing woodland we managed to find 2 Asian Barred Owlets, a pair of Rufous Treepies feeding young, several Greater Racket-tailed Drongos and a group of splendid White-crested Laughingthrushes: Bang Pra is one of the easiest places to see this common but secretive bird.

Finding Quail
Rain Quail, Barred Buttonquail, Yellow-legged Buttonquail, Small Buttonquail and Blue-breasted Quail all occur here, but seeing them is becoming increasingly difficult due to severe habitat degradation. Raised water levels, over grazing, over use by locals and vegetation compaction by birdwatchers’ vehicles has seriously reduced the amount of quail habitat at this site. The below picture illustrates the poor condition of grassland and marginal habitat.

Even with these problems it should be possible to find some of these species by walking around the grassy areas and scanning amongst the vegetation for the birds coming out to feed. Listening out for the call of the Rain Quail is also a good tactic. However, it takes some considerable effort and in the heat and humidity at Bang Pra it can be difficult to persevere; this was the case on this occassion and after a few Indochinese Bushlarks, a single Australasian Bushlark, Zitting Cisticolas and Paddyfield Pipits enthusiasm was low. Patience, perseverance and tolerance of extreme heat and humidity are the keys to finding difficult birds in Thailand so that our brief stroll only produced common birds such as Oriental Pratincole, Great Egret, Little Egret, Black-winged Stilt and Red-wattled Lapwing.

Large Waterbirds
A number of large waterbird species are present at Bang Pra, either feral colonists from the nearby zoo or as releases from the nearby waterbird breeding facility. On this visit we saw a single Spot-billed Pelican circling in the sky and 5 Painted Storks in the shallow water, both of these species have established breeding colonies after escaping from the open zoo at Khao Khieo.

Other good waterbirds seen in the past include Oriental Darter and Malayan Night Heron but on this trip we had to settle for the common birds such as Little Cormorant and Cattle Egret; we did get some nice views of Yellow Bittern however.

Some Common Birds at Bang Pra
Leaving Alex in the car to recover from the heat, Gabby and I walked along a trail to see what we could find. In fact it amounted to very little as by this time it was 10am – hot and low on bird activity. We found a number of the more common birds for the location:

• Long-tailed Shrike
• Sooty-headed Bulbul
• Streak-eared Bulbul
• Plain Prinia
• Common Iora
• Green Bee-eater
• Green-billed Malkoha
• Spotted Dove
• Peaceful Dove
• White-throated Kingfisher
• Asian Pied Starling
• Common Myna
• White-vented Myna
• Pied Fantail
• Greater Coucal
• Oriental Magpie Robin
• Yellow-vented Bulbul

We did find a few less common species too, an immature Chinese Sparrowhawk was most impressive, perched in a tree consuming prey before flying away and a few Brown-backed Needletails amongts the House Swifts and Asian Palm Swifts, soaring overhead.

This relaxed pace did give me time to take a few photographs of the habitat at Bang Pra.

With that we found it was time to leave for some food and refreshment. Arriving late, walking very little and leaving early is not the best policy for birdwatching in Thailand but with so many birds available it is always possible to see something of interest.

Another interesting e-mail arrived in my inbox today, this time from Alex Vargas to let me know that he had spent some time updating his photo galleries on pbase.

Alex has a growing gallery of not only Thai birds but others from around the world. However, his Thai birds photo gallery is the one I spent most time looking at and he has some really nice photos of some really nice birds. Of course, the nature of birdwatching in Thailand means that he still has many species to add to his catalogue, which should allow him to maintain an interest for a long time to come.

I have reproduced here a few of Alex’s photos of birds of Thailand.

Take a look at all of Alex’s photos: http://www.pbase.com/alex_vargas

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