Yesterday I went back to check on the Red-wattled Lapwing family at my home. It was quiet when I arrived, a couple of adults were in the pond but no sign of the young birds. The adults flew away, leaving what I could recognise as the mother of the chicks, owner of the nest, in the far-end of the garden.
The nest had the same egg that didn’t hatch last week. The mother bird was staying in the garden, but the chicks were nowhere to be found. I sensed something had happened. The mother’s behaviour was the same where she’s guarding the area. Being a contained area, I don’t think the chicks would have left the area on their own will – another fledgling mystery similar to the Zebra Dove one.
I’d like to know the mortality rate of fledgling Red-wattled Lapwings, I wasn’t really expect them to disappear like this and it was sad to not see them there anymore. I looked around and observed the garden. A large raptor stirred up all the birds and it swooped overhead in the heavy sunlight. I didn’t manage to see what it was.
1st April 2022.
It was a little quiet in the midday heat. I checked what I think is a Malaysian Pied Fantail nest that I was notified of earlier. The eggs were no longer in the nest. In the same tree I saw a large Golden Tree Snake, I turned my back for a second and it disappeared. In terms of other reptiles, alongside an Asian Water Monitor there was an Asian House Gecko.
1st April 2022.
Recently I’ve been trying macro photography, previous image is not macro but taken with my telephoto. I’m waiting on a diffusor for my flash to be able to do macro in less-than-ideal lighting. In the morning I rescued a long-legged fly from some water, it stuck with me as I got to grips with photographing an insect at 1:1 – 2:1 macro. When you have perfect lighting, a small bit of ISO is enough to take satisfactory macro photography.
Continuing with looking at the birds, I went to the fields to check to see if the Red-wattled Lapwing chicks were outside. I couldn’t see any, but there was the same nest being incubated from last week. The temperatures were reaching 40c so it was very hot.
A few minutes into the walk I flushed a female Greater Painted-Snipe and a Pin-tailed/Common Snipe. They are very hard birds to see, the accidental flush was the only sights I got of them. The heat was catching up to me, so I didn’t spend long in the fields.
I left and in a spur of the moment decision I chose to pass my old birding spot, thinking it was dead, it was actually flourishing. It was the highlight of a day tinged with sadness of not seeing the chicks grow up. I will post about this in the next entry. Stay-tuned.
All images © 2022 hamsambly
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