Can't Think Of A Creative Title (East Asia #4)

Black Drooooooooooooooooooooongos get first prize for Most Dramatic Bird Name. Despite the glamorous title, Black Drongos are rather stodgy, common birds that munch on mosquitos and sit by the roadside, which is disappointingly un-splendid. 

Here's a dramatic photo of one. "NO!!! I dropped my insect!"

Just when you thought birds couldn't get more un-glamorous. Eurasian Tree-sparrow here. EUTS think it's funny to go CHIRPITY CHIRPITY CHIRPITY CHIRP AT 3 IN THE MORNING.

Plain Prinia, the only prinia out of the three in Taiwan that is impossible to miss seeing, unless you're blind, or worse, a non-birder. And it's impossible to photograph, too. It took me a full five minutes to procure this crappy photo. 

As if Nutmeg Mannikins and Pin-tailed Whydahs weren't enough, Japanese White-eyes have been introduced and established in Orange County now. Soon we'll have the whole goddarn Eurasia of birds in Southern California. 

Rest assured, this photo was taken in Taiwan where Japanese White-eyes are native and thriving. 

Red Turtle-dove. Remember the one that was standing in the space-gravity vortex? It got sucked in and teleported on the tree branch you see in this photo. It will now attempt to brainwash you with the Magic of Purple Dove. 

This adorable Brown Shrike grabbed an insect carcass from its thorny larder lair, tore and ripped it from head to limb, and regurgitated (or was that just its call?) chunks of it to its fuzzy chicks in a nearby death bush.

Chirp, chirp.

-chiccadee

Apology!!

WARNING: Following post contains no pictures and lots of text. Readers who are easily bored may spontaneously erupt at the reading of this post. Proceed at your own risk. 

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Some of you more astute readers may have observed the recent lack of blog posts. Fear not, I haven't abandoned this project (and will likely not for a while yet!).

For the past 7-9 days I have been busy on a family vacation in Taiwan with my mom (it has quickly turned into a birding expedition with quick stops at more bird-y areas on the side of the road, as all family vacations nowadays do!) and will not be back to my beloved ABA birding area until the end of August. 

For you curious folks, the typical counts of a birdy day here are somewhat like this:

1938479173019328401938502 Eurasian Tree Sparrows

1 Black Drongo

1 Oriental Turtle-dove

1 Plain Prinia

1 Common Mynah

0.5 Kentish Plover

...and so on and so forth. You get the idea.

Things are a lot...different... in East Asia in terms of weather and of course time zone. Right now in cozy, DRY California it's around 9-10:00 P.M. Most of you are probably brushing your teeth, petting your pet unicorn, and jumping up and down on rainbows. Maybe you more avid birders are going out for an owling session (actually, I don't know anyone who goes owling at this time of the year). 

Meanwhile in 12:10 humid Taiwan I'm sweating my skin off. Every time I step outside it's like walking into the mouth of a sweating lion in Florida while wearing stockings, an analogy to which I'm sure most of you can relate. 

Although summer is a "dead," season for birds in East Asia, I will still be doing a trip report! Don't worry, it won't be uninteresting and include boring long descriptions and lists of every single ant, leaf, and Eurasian Tree Sparrow I saw there. I'll sparrow you that bit!

 Unfortunately, the free wifi provided in the local 7-11s and Family Marts is so slow that it takes about six hours (NO exaggeration here) for a single one of my 3-5 MB photos to upload on normally speedy Imgur, so to post a trip report right now right here is out of the question. 

Heck, it'll probably take 30 minutes for the internet server to process this post. 

So I  (sincerely)  apologize for what has been and will be a prolonged absence of activity on my blog- followers, regular readers, highly intelligent literary Eurasian Tree Sparrows, whoever. 

McHappy Birding,

-cĥìçĉâdèé ( Try and pronounce THAT!)