You will find that birds are individuals and show some disparities, even within the same species. Some are more tame than others; during moulting the plumage might not be quite the usual colour, while some species include colour morphs—the Oriental Honey-buzzard varies from all-brown to almost snow-white. In fact you can learn to recognise individual birds which regularly visit your garden or balcony.
Some birdwatchers go on to study the subtle differences of subspecies. Others keep databases of all their observations, most importantly a world list of all species seen. Before you know it, adding to this list becomes something of a compulsive urge, and a so-called 'twitcher' is born—a birdwatcher who travels the globe in restless pursuit of new bird species.
Some birdwatchers carry tape recorders and collect bird calls, while others produce photographs and video recordings. Photographing birds is no easy task. Many birdwatchers have found out that twitching for new species or undertaking a serious survey is totally incompatible with the production of quality photographs, which requires that you walk slowly (the heavy equipment alone slows you down) or that you stay absolutely still in one place. At any rate, you seem to get the best results if you stop chasing the birds and let them come to you instead—by staying motionless or hiding by a fruiting or flowering tree, a forest clearing, in a tree canopy, by a pool of water, a nest or some suitable place that will attract one or more birds. You do not see that many different species this way, but you will get to know the ones you do see intimately, and most importantly you may produce rare documentary material that can be shared with others.
But strictly speaking, apart from binoculars, a birdwatcher really only needs one other tool to successfully pursue his hobby: a field guide identifying the birds in his area. This guide should be complete with all species that one could possibly come across illustrated in colour. Luckily, several such guides exist for parts of this region, notably Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong.
Other important books are handbooks which are, in fact, large books with more detailed accounts of the bird habits than identification field guides provide, e.g. Handbook of the Birds of the World. Monographs featuring particular families also give more detailed information on a smaller selection of birds.
And then there are the photographic guides such as this volume. Complete photographic guides featuring every species are available for areas like Europe and Australia, but one for Southeast Asia, with over 1,400, species would not really be practical and, besides, photographs of all species are simply not available. What a photographic guide can do here is supplement the plates based on drawings in national field guides with photographs from the field. Even the best illustration will contain small discrepancies. Look at the bulbul plates in Birds of Thailand by Lekagul and Round (1991) and compare the Olive-winged Bulbul, Streak-eared Bulbul, Cream-vented Bulbul, Grey-eyed Bulbul and Buff-vented Bulbul there with what the birds really look like in this book and you will see my point. Photographs provide an invaluable source of reference, especially for hard-to-identify groups of bird with many similar species like bulbuls, babblers, warblers and shorebirds. In fact illustrators use (among other things) photographs when they produce field guide plates.
Photographic guides mainly feature those birds most likely to be met in the field—precisely because these are the species that will be available in photographs. The birds in the photos appear exactly as you will encounter them with no artistic adjustments.
Habitats
One of the most fascinating aspects of birdwatching is the study of the way birds depend on their surroundings and the way birdlife changes with conditions. These changes are often gradual and many birds move between habitats—the Scaly-breasted Munia, for instance, can be found both in gardens, open country, wetlands and even beach-side grasses. Furthermore, definition of habitats are not always easy—the many types of lowland forest in this region, for example, makes it unsafe to generalise too categorically.
However, one also encounters many strictly stenotopic birds (birds confined to only one habitat), especially forest birds, mangrove species and birds occurring within narrow altitudinal ranges. Knowing which birds to expect within different habitat types makes the 'work' of identifying the many species much easier. We still find the habitats described in Strange and Jeyarajasingam (1993) the most relevant. There are five main categories.
Gardens and Parks are the most disturbed and artificial of all habitats of course, but they are highly productive, especially if managed sensitively. If you have your own garden, much can be done by planting a selection of fruiting trees to attract pigeons, bulbuls, starlings, the Black-naped Oriole and Coppersmith Barbet, and parrots if forest is nearby. Do not spray against insects if you can avoid it, to allow warblers and flycatchers to settle. Bushes with nectar-rich red flowers will attract sunbirds and if you are lucky a pair of Olive-backed Sunbirds might build their pouch nest in your garden or even in a potted plant on a balcony high above the roar of the traffic as they have been known to do.
Birds in parks and gardens often become used to plenty of human activity and become almost tame. Even shy raptors like the Shikra or the Japanese Sparrowhawk will visit parks, simply because of the abundance of small birds for them to catch. At night listen for the call of the Collared Scops-owl and the Large-tailed Nightjar, and during the winter season keep an eye out for rare visitors from the north, including certain forest birds that might turn up during migration.
Open Country is bee-eater, munia, coucal and shrike territory, although some birds such as the White-throated Kingfisher and others occur in both areas. Swifts and swallows fly overhead. A totally different avifauna inhabits the terrain around wet patches or open fresh water. Many species of heron, rail, duck and snipe are mainly or only found here. No wet field in Southeast Asia is complete without a party of foraging Cattle Egrets. If you are lucky you will locate a weaver colony— the Streaked Weaver prefers the tall grasses and low bushes, the Baya Weaver builds higher in trees and coconut palms, but either species provides captivating, non-stop action with birds calling, displaying, building and flying constantly to and fro.
At the Coast birds abound, especially on sheltered mudflats, and often where a large river joins the sea. Some species also occur around fresh water wetlands but most will be different species. Unless removed by developers, mangrove forests thrive along such sheltered shores and are home to a few specialised birds such as the Mangrove Pitta, Mangrove Blue Flycatcher, Ashy Tailorbird and Copper-throated Sunbird. Other mangrove birds such as the Pied Fantail, Mangrove Whistler, Collared Kingfisher and Laced Woodpecker are less specialised and turn up in nearby woodlands and gardens as well.
Storks are rare in this region, but this is the place to see them. At low tide, storks and many herons and egrets flock to feed on the exposed mudflats in front of the mangroves. Almost all shorebirds (plovers and sandpipers) in this region are migratory. The diversity can be somewhat confusing for the beginner (and for the experienced birder for that matter), especially since it is difficult to get close to shore-birds feeding far out on boggy mudflats. In fact, some birdwatchers get hooked on shorebirds and find the similarities and the differences a challenge. Exposed sandy seashores and rocky coastlines are less productive, but some plovers and sandpipers prefer this habitat, as does the resident Pacific Reef-egret. The Little Heron is likely to turn up wherever there is water.
Tropical Asia has few gulls, but further north in China they become more numerous although no species Stay to breed in this area, except terns, which breed mainly on remote offshore islets. If you have a friend who owns a boat, catch a ride offshore in the South China Sea. Swim to some remote reef during April or May and there you can walk among the breeding sea birds, with terns screaming at you overhead, boobies with their young on the ground, and the majestic White-bellied Sea-eagle soaring in the distance—another of the great birding spectacles this region has to offer. Do not stay long though as the hot sun might damage exposed eggs and young.
Lowland forests are the prime habitat of all Southeast Asia. More birds can be found here than in any other environment and furthermore most are sedentary residents found here all year round, a great number of which are restricted to this region and parts of Indonesia.
Yes,