Sarawak: Invasion of the Parrotfinches (Part One)

By August 25, 2013, clutching a clean bill of health from my doctor and the quickest ticket purchase I could manage, I was back with Eileen in Kuching.  The delay, though, meant I had only a couple of weeks before we headed off for a planned trip to Western Australia, so I didn't really expect to collect a lot of bloggable experiences (especially with a new grandson to fuss over).  Sarawak always has its surprises, though!

On August 29th I got an email from Anthony Wong inviting me to join him for a late afternoon run to Chupak, one of our favourite birding sites.  The lure: a recent sighting there by Daniel Kong of about 80 Pin-tailed Parrotfinches (Erythrura prasina), a bird we had been seeking at Chupak for years.  We had long suspected that these elusive, nomadic little birds must invade the extensive paddies when the rice was ripe for harvesting, but connecting with them at just the right time was another matter. This, we hoped, was our chance.

When we arrived, we could see that most of the rice had already been harvested.  This had the advantage, though, of concentrating any rice-eating birds into the few remaining patches.  Of course, when I say "advantage" I am talking about birders; the farmers detest the birds, and do everything they can to repel them.  Unharvested patches were easy to spot: we just had to look for the collections of white streamers, hanging articles of clothing, scarecrow and other devices set out to repel the marauders.

And there they were: in almost the first patch we visited, a busy flock of parrotfinches, diving in and out of the rice.  The light was behind them, so we could not see their brilliant colours to advantage: but their rich tawny bellies stood out enough to let us know at once that we were not dealing with the usual crop of rice-eaters (Chestnut, Dusky and Scaly-breasted Munias (Lonchura atricapilla, fuscans and punctulata respectively, all there too in abundance). 

The birds were not close, were constantly in motion and did not give us long before they swirled off to wherever was their next destination (and we soon had to vacate the area to avoid blocking traffic on the narrow road between the paddies).  These are unquestionably not ideal photographs: consider them as "record shots" only.  Notice, though, the unusually long and tapering wings (and, of course, the extended tail plumes), giving the birds a very different "jizz" from their munia companions.  And besides, they were Pin-tailed Parrotfinches, and they were in the bag!

Heartened, we moved on to the second find of the day.  Only a few weeks earlier, Baya Weavers (Ploceus philippinus) - a species not even on the official Sarawak list - had been found nesting at Chupak.  Presumably they were recent immigrants, moving into the area as more and more of Sarawak is converted to open country (as has another open-country species, the Long-tailed Shrike (Lanius schach)).  We saw three birds, a male that flew off quickly, and these two, which are either females or young males.

The usual attraction for birders at Chupak, though, are not finches (or finch-like birds), but waterbirds.  Migrants like these Wood Sandpipers (Tringa glareola) had already arrived from the north.

Residents include an assemblage of rails. This is a White-breasted Waterhen (Amaurornis phoenicurus).

The star waterbird is certainly the Greater Painted-Snipe (Rostratula benghalensis), already celebrated here in its own posting.  This is a female, the more colourful sex.

While Anthony turned his long lens on waterbirds out one side of the car, I stepped out on the other to investigate a patch of weedy open water, in a canal at the edge of the paddy, for dragonflies and damselflies.

I had already photographed a few common species while watching for parrotfinches; this is Orthetrum testaceum.
 

On the canal, female Common Bluetail damselflies (Ischnura senegalensis) were ovipositing on the surface vegetation (much as I had seen their North American cousin the Eastern Forktail (I. verticalis) do only days earlier in Ontario - see my last post)…

…while the males kept watch from above.

A female Diplacodes trivialis looked like a pint-size version of the commoner Orthetrum sabina.

As I said in a recent post about Ontario dragonflies, the male Brachydiplax chalybea is a remarkable ringer for the Blue Dasher (Pachydiplax longipennis), a dragonfly I have often seen in North America, even to the orange on the belly.  This one perched on a grassy stem…

…only to be constantly challenged by a dragonfly I had never seen before, a bright red insect with conspicuous white patches decorating its wings.

This was a male Tholymis tillarga, one of the most widespread dragonflies in the world.  It ranges from West Africa across tropical Asia to the islands of the Pacific.  Like the even more widespread (indeed global) Wandering Glider (Pantala flavescens), it is a long-distance migrant.

Why had I never seen it before?  Probably because I have rarely been at Chupak in the late afternoon.  Tholymis tillarga is a crepuscular dragonfly, only emerging from its resting place in the vegetation after about 4 PM.  Are its white wing spots an adaptive response to the need to be conspicuous in low light?  You could say the same about another dusk-haunting dragonfly around Kuching, Zyxomma obtusum, whose entire body is ghostly pale.

The male tillarga spent most of his time hovering over the open water, apparently guarding a yellow-bodied female, busy depositing her eggs in repeated short dashes over the water.  So swiftly did she dart back and forth that I was never able to photograph her.

The canal attracted other insects as well.  Water striders (Gerridae) skated over the surface...

...while Grey Pansy butterflies (Junonia atlites) fluttered about above.

Finally we headed triumphantly towards the road home, but not before I snapped a Cinnamon Bittern (Ixobrychus cinnamomeus) protruding from the grass.   Definitely a triumphant few hours - parrot finches and all.