I took advantage of an early bout of drowsiness last night at about 9 pm to get to bed early in order to wake up early for some birding today. Maybe I went to the wrong places, but it seems to me that there are more birds in the afternoon than in the morning. Still, I did get a few good shots, and added two new species of bird to my record.

While both new species were quite interesting, the Chinese Bamboo Partridge (Kojukei • コジュケイ) was the more surprising to me. The red and blue coloring around the head and breast gave me a start when I first saw it. I thought it might have been a pigeon at first, because of the general size and the bird’s gait, but those colors made clear that this was a more unusual bird.

By the way, the partridge photos have larger images available when clicked.

You can certainly see what took me aback–that’s quite an unusual-looking bird! Apparently, it was a bit of a coup–when I later tracked the birds to a more inward location in Sengenyama Park, they started making rather loud calls (sound file here, 330 KB, 11 KHz), which attracted a fellow with a very advanced birdwatching setup–but he wasn’t in nearly the position I was to photograph the birds. But he did tell me that the calls were very distinctive, and that this was the time for the birds to be pairing–which explains the pair:

I’ll have a few more photos of the Partridge in the “Continue Reading” section, linked to at the bottom of this entry.

The other surprise find of the day just jumped right out in front of me on the path: a Varied Tit (Yamagara • ヤマガラ). This is the cousin to the Great Tit, but has more interesting coloring. As with most of the Tits, this one was not a long stayer, so the shots I got off (even more slowed than usual due to a malfunctioning shutter button!) were less than perfect–but you can still clearly make out the red shading on its sides, as well as the extra white above its beak:

That’s the best shot I got; here’s a slightly fuzzier shot, but you can see it more from the side:

Here’s a darker treed view:

And here’s a Great Tit for comparison:

Click on “continued reading” (just below) for a few more photos.

A few more partridge shots (again with larger images when clicked):

And a few more photos of the Tits:

A nice Wagtail shot (click for larger version):

And a nice Little Egret to close with: