Honey4Boyz

January finally arrives in the vale of Asia, Out of nowhere, an annoying sound alerts our ear. We looked out of the window, And saw a bird we know. The bird is called the Koel, And its description is easy to tell. Black all over its body, And red on its eyes only. Its morning call, (Made by its mouth and jaw) Would awake us instantly, And drive us crazy. We nearly made a petition, To shoot the Koel with some ammunition. We were irritated by the female Koel especially, And her call made us rest uncomfortably. February, March, April and May passed slowly. As slow as a tortoise can be. Suddenly, as June is approaching, The bird stopped its provoking. We immediately knew the Koel had moved on, And had gone to another patch of dirt by dawn. We walked into the garden, huddled together, “Good riddance to that bird!” we shouted altogether.                           ...

Besides the paddy fields, bird-watching is the next best attraction in Sekinchan. You don't have to look for them like in a treasure hunt. They're an open secret - tree birds, water birds, migratory birds; in flight or nestings in pairs on naked tree branches or having a fiesta in the fields or simply watching the day goes by on the electrical cables. A Cinnamon Bittern in the field.  We saw them often, in pairs usually, feasting in the paddy fields. A black-crowned night heron amongst the little egrets. A juvenile black-crowned night heron. I believe this is still a juvenile black-crowned night heron in transition to adulthood. A pair of black-crowned night herons at peak of breeding season. Can you spot the difference? An adult version We've taken so many pictures of the  black-crowned  night herons, but there're so many variations. The stocky bird has short neck, is usually active only at night, thus the name 'night heron...

After the tree sparrow episode, we thought that it's a once in a blue moon happenstance. Lo and behold, the boys found a baby robin a few days later. It's learning to fly, but for a baby, it looked rather huge and fat. The robin parents were around and they made very loud, harsh threat calls like hissing krshhh whenever we went near the little one.  "Let's be friends!!" Unlike the poodle, Cookie was very aggressive towards the little Robin-hood. We tried as much as possible not to intervene, except to keep Robin-hood away from Cookie and harms. Cos it remained on the ground, hopping around, it's in constant danger. Fence or no fence, it did't stop Robin-hood from crossing into Cookie's territory. Can you see it squeezing thru? And that spelled trouble!!!! It's very interesting to observe the difference between the little sparrows and Robin-hood. The little sparrows flew almost immediately after they're fledged. Little robin, ho...

We've been hibernating at home in this crazy tropical heat, which sometimes peaked to 40C. One of those things you couldn't avoid during this El Nino heatwave is 'air-conditioning'. We tried to spend some time in the backyard, so we didn't have to coop inside all the time. Only two of the boys were on holidays, so we couldn't really go away, and mainly cos of the kitchen renovation too, which took 3 weeks. Apart from eating out, we gotta bear with the dust, noise and mess in the house. The boys have to look for their own entertainment in gym, playing football and watching our guests in the garden. Once we're excited by 3 bird eggs on our mulberry tree. The nest was badly built, like half-done. We tried to strengthen the nest, but our action caused the parents to abandon it entirely. Sadly, the eggs were destroyed in a bad storm one night. We also saw a hanging nest, like a wasp nest on a tree branch. But nothing prepared us for the thing that's gonna ha...

What a feast we had when a Mother bulbul built a nest on our neighbour's bamboo plant! We're reading about Birds from the Charlotte Mason's Parables from Nature - and what joy to find exactly two chicks and two adult Bulbuls in our backyard! Two beautiful cute chicks in the nest! Could not contain his curiousity anymore! Yellow-vented Bulbul looking for food nearby. Mother Bulbul feeding the chicks - it's very frequent feeding at first, like every 15-20 minutes, then the interval got longer as they grew. They're a busy and noisy lot. Hungry nestling birds waiting for Mama! Papa and Mama close by to make sure chicks were safe. They're very protective of the chicks. Once, a few robins and tailorbirds (yes, right in our backyard) came and there was a terrible fight. Soon the other birds got the message and left. See the little nestlings looked nothing like the adult Bulbul. A fledgling now, fell from its nest and ho...

It's so easy to overlook Taipei cos it's not in the top must-see places. Hubby and I, minus the kids, went for a short trip to Taipei and we went without any expectation. We arrived very early and couldn't check into our hotel rooms yet, so we dropped by Chiang Kai Shek Memorial to get some fresh air. It's spring, and the air smelled like fragrant flowers. The park was very well-maintained, with info signs to educate us on different types of trees, flowers and birds. But the biggest surprise was to see the blooming cherry blossom trees!  Dozens of bird enthusiasts clicking away, but the pink cherry blossoms were not the Star, it's the white-eye bird! It was quite a sight to see all the expensive telephoto camera lens aiming at those small, active birds.  We enjoyed the walks very much - maybe it's the fresh spring air, the sakura season, the beautiful trees or the carefree holidays without kids... I loved it so much that I came ...