Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Male Red-Throated Barbet making his territorial call

With World Cup Football shown every night on TV, most males, I believe, spend less time on the internet. Anyway, I'd like to share the images of this male Red-Throated Barbet making his territorial call from a low perch which I captured during my Kenyir trip recently.

Being a canopy bird, it's quite rare to be able to capture these birds up close with my current setup. I guess, luck was on my side when I found this bird calling from such a low perch.






























The lights under our forest canopy was very low, I had to add some flash in order to maintain a reasonable speed to avoid motion blur. I slowly moved in as close as  I could and he seemed to give me a wide grin as I began shooting........






























And then he started singing. What amazed me most was that the very loud 'tok, tok, tok' sound we heard from these birds, was actually coming only from the throat , the beak was shut tight while singing.

Here is the sequence of the singing action. Initially, air was drawn in and the throat starts to bulge - up






























The singing continues until the bulge of the throat depletes and the sequence was repeated.






























Thank you Mr RT Barbet for allowing me to capture these images.....


4 comments:

  1. No world-cup game tonite... so have free time to troll the net! :)
    Great series, and love that gaping beak.

    Hem.. what team with green jersey? Algeria or Bafana-bafana away jersey. Both are already eliminated.

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  2. Fantastic bird Ari and your pictures do it full justice.

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  3. Brilliant colours. brilliant shots. They are always tough to shoot.

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  4. Wow Great photos of this very colourful barbet!
    Flash light really has brightened up the colours.

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