Oriental Magpie Robin

Monsoon this year has been quite vigorous here with hardly any gap between the incessant rain. This is quite troublesome for birds and insects. That afternoon there was a little respite from the rain. I saw our resident male oriental magpie robin (Copsychus saularis) drying himself on a curved twig in our kitchen garden. Behind him was nearly uprooted Oleander bush and a banana plant which gave a blurred green backdrop. Even though I had come home for my lunch, I skipped it and starting photographing this bird.

I used my trusted Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM on Canon EOS 1D Mark IV. I was able to get many good photos of him preening his wet feathers until he flew off searching for his lunch. I thought I will make a video out of those photos like a time lapse sequence. So here is the video created out of 15 photographs. I have uploaded it to Youtube.com so all can enjoy the image sequence.

The Oriental Magpie Robin (Copsychus saularis) is a small passerine bird that was formerly classified as a member of the thrush, but now considered to belong to flycatcher. They are distinctive black and white birds with a long tail that is held upright as they forage on the ground or perch conspicuously. Distributed in many parts of tropical South and Southeast Asia, they are common birds in urban gardens as well as forests. They are particularly well known for their songs and were once popular as cage birds. The Magpie Robin is the National Bird of Bangladesh, where it is common and known as the Doyel or Doel. It is a widely used symbol in Bangladesh, appearing on currency notes, and a landmark in the city of Dhaka is named as the Doyel Chatwar (meaning: Doyel Square).

Their bird song show dialects with neighbors varying in their songs. The calls of many other species may be imitated as part of their song. They appear to use elements of the calls of other birds in their own songs. Females may sing briefly in the presence of male. Apart from their song, they use a range of calls including territorial calls, emergence and roosting calls, threat calls, submissive calls, begging calls and distress calls. The typical mobbing calls is a harsh hissing krshhh. The food of Magpie Robins is mainly insects and other invertebrates. They are known to occasionally take geckos,leeches,centipedes and even fish. They are often active late at dusk. They sometimes bathe in rainwater collected on the leaves of a tree.

If you want to know how I made that video out of sequence of 15 images, you have to wait for my next blog for that tutorial. Until then send your comments, critics. If you want a Google+ invite please let me know. You can follow me on Facebook, Twitter as well as Google+. Links are there in the sidebar.