Being yet not in Thailand but in winter Georgia, I got an idea that I should try real birding when I am in Bangkok. "Hey, these are the tropics, there are bright birds there for C/Feathered Friends", I thought.
There is a big green area with a bird-watching tower called Bang Krachao (my recent post about the place) which I visited many times in the 2010s, and I thought this would be a good place to start.
Dreams Become Research
I began with research on thaibirding.com where I found lists of birds spotted in Bang Krachao keeping in mind that, in a high degree of probability, you can apply this data to any large park in Bangkok. I was watching and listening the birds on ebird.org and was choosing one that must become my first goal in Thailand.
My first thought was a kingfisher (any species), I saw previously in Thailand and India. But this bird can be spotted in many countries including Europe so I decided to choose something less well-known. I really liked a bird that called Ρoppersmith barbet (Psilopogon haemacephalus) for its colorful garment and the voice which is easy to recognize and remember. It resembles one of the cuckoo but sounds more like a countdown of a time bomb π
It's amazing how this pure fantasy, born of a person hiding under three blankets (it was bloody cold in winter Georgia!)... how it has come true. π€
Fantasy Comes True
Spoiler: I have found this bird! π
But it wasn't easy.
First of all, I discovered that this time bomb voice is quite common in Bangkok parks. I heard it in Bang Krachao and Rama IX park (my post about the place) here and there, many times. The bad news was I couldn't spot the bird, never.
I consoled myself with hope that, if I got up early in the morning, I would find a world of birds in the park that do not hide from humans, and my coppersmith barbet would be among them, waving to me with his wing. π But I never went to the mentioned parks early in the morning - the thought of a long trip on 5 am with the prospect of not seeing anything interesting was not very motivating.
Pink trumpet tree blossom in Ram2, on Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G
It could happen I would never find the bird if not good luck. Several days ago, just 5 minutes from my Bangkok home, I found beautiful trees - check my recent post Pink Trumpet Tree Blossom in Bangkok. I heard the voice of coppersmith barbet again there and even spotted - for a fraction of a second - a bird with the red cap.
#featheredfriends found a place for birding in Bangkok. 5 min walk. I spotted this. + I heard voice of Coppersmith Barbet + I saw bird with red cap (cpprsmth?) I had 50mm, g bck wth 70-300mm - my thread on leofinance.io
But the biggest luck was that, unlike most Bangkokian plants, pink trumpet trees are deciduous, and this helped me much to spot the sparrow-sized bird thereafter.
How It Was, Diary of a Newbie Bird-Watcher
I came to the place (Ramkhamhaeng University, Bang Na Campus on the google.maps) on 3 pm with a telephoto lens (Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6) and immediately heard the barbet's voice from an evergreen banyan tree. I was twisting my head for a quarter of an hour until I finally recollected that I have osteochondrosis. A voice inside me began saying, "You will not see anything, this damn bird cannot be spotted, you'll only break your neck". π
The pond with a pink trumpet tree at Ramkhamhaeng University campus, on Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G
The next was a pink trumpet tree, a largely bare. I could hear the barbet's voice there too and, this time, I tried to find out, at least, on which side of the tree the bird is sitting. All my attention turned to hearing. I noticed that when I was standing by the road, the song of the bird often stopped, and when I was standing by the pond, it often resumed...
So, I stood on the road and started attentively watching through bare branches...
But nothing.
And again nothing.
And here we are!
How to Spot Coppersmith Barbet
This is a sparrow-sized bird that prefer sitting high on branches and never lands on the street. When you spot it on the tree, it prefers leaving if it's not enough high. That's why I never saw it although I spent around four years in Southeast Asia in the 2010s. Maybe, I could see some bird - for a fraction of a second - with the red cap but I never could focus on it, otherwise, I would remember it.
For a total newbie like me, a flying coppersmith barbet looks like a sparrow so it's easy to not notice this bird. In its quick flight, it's hard to catch sight of the red cap, and too often you see only the bird's silhouette.
But coppersmith barbet very often cuckoos (in February - March at least) and this is your chance, dear bird-watcher. π This is how its song sounds on ebird.org.
Find a tree (better a bare one!) where the barbet's "time bomb" often sounds - this is where it may have hollows. And try to spot that tiny feathered bastard. π My (very small) experience proves that they can spend much time near their hollows and branches around (February - March at least) but they visit other nearby trees as well.
(Let me tell you a secret, I have already watched the bird three times at the time of finishing this post, and I confirm that they love the banyan tree.)
When I was searching the bird and couldn't find, I had no idea that its hollows can be so ridiculous.
A broken-off bough hanging among other branches (able to fall at any time), perforated by the "Thai woodpecker" in several places.
Coppersmith barbet climbs into a hollow
I call it a woodpecker for a reason: it not only wears the red cap and pecks trees, it also belongs to Order Piciformes, which "includes the woodpeckers and close relatives" (wiki).
When a coppersmith barbet is singing like on the image above, its neck swells and beautiful spotted feathers appear under its beak. This is the moment of its beauty in its full scale.
How to photograph of coppersmith barbet. I had 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 on a full-frame DSLR Nikon D750. 300mm isn't that much to shoot this bird from the street. All images in the post are cropped. The lens also doesn't create a too beautiful image like prime lenses. But, yes, it's much much better than a mobile phone so no complains from my side. I will try to catch the best light, composition, and environment to produce better images of this feathered critter.
To Be Continued
This was a story of my first real birding. π What do I mean saying real? Real means it wasn't taking images of random birds that I came across on my way to somewhere. This time, I had a separate walk specially to observe and take images of birds including coppersmith barbet which I studied and, then, tracked. And that's a little reason to be proud of myself π€
Thank you for stopping by! Comments would be appreciated as always. π
More Bangkok stories are ahead! Check out the previous ones on my pinmapple.com
I took these images with a Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 on a full-frame DSLR Nikon D750 on March 15, 2023 in Bangkok, Thailand. The two street images are taken with Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G on the same camera on March 11, 2023.