Blue-tailed Bee-eater

Blue-tailed Bee-eater

Location-Bagladesh

Date-!9/3/2013

Dusky Warbler

Dusky Warbler

Location--Kaptai NP,Banglades

Date--26/4/2013

Dusky Warbler

The Dusky Warbler (Phylloscopus fuscatus) is a leaf warbler which breeds in east Asia. This warbler is strongly migratory and winters in southeast Asia. It sometimes occurs in North America in Alaska, and has also occurred in California.
This is an abundant bird of taiga bogs and wet meadows. The nest is built low in a bush, and 5-6 eggs are laid. Like most Old World warblers, this small passerine is insectivorous.
This small warbler is prone to vagrancy as far as western Europe in October, despite a 3000 km distance from its breeding grounds. It has wintered in Great Britain.
This is a warbler similar in size and shape to a Chiffchaff. The adult has an unstreaked brown back and buff underparts. There is a prominent whitish supercilium, and the bill is fine and pointed. The sexes are identical, as with most warblers, but young birds are more olive-tinged above. Like most warblers, it is insectivorous, but will take other small food items, including berries.
The song is a monotonous whistle, and the call is a harsh check. The call is often the first clue that this typically skulking species is present, away from the breeding grounds.

How to Attract Birds to Your Yard

Providing food, nest boxes, nesting materials, water, and natural habitat can attract birds to our backyards, giving us much nicer views of them and, when done properly, making life easier for the birds. Attracting birds is also a great way to introduce young people to nature, and it's something the whole family can share. Having a bird-friendly yard has never been more important – nearly 80 percent of wildlife habitat in the United States is in private hands, and an average of 2.1 million acres each year are converted to residential use.

How do you begin?

An easy way to start out attracting birds is to put up a bird feeder. We'll help you choose feeders and foods that appeal to the birds you want to attract, plus we'll tell you where to put your feeder and how to maintain it. And we can give you some hints about food items, such as eggshells, fruits, and mealworms, that provide extra nourishment for some wonderful species.
Some birds, especially woodpeckers and chickadees, excavate cavities in tree trunks for nesting and roosting. Many other species, such as wrens, bluebirds, and some ducks and owls, nest in cavities that other birds have made. Nest boxes offer these birds a place to raise their young, especially where natural cavities are at a premium. Our nest box section describes the features of a good nest box, where to place it, and how to avoid predators. Our nesting section also lists some nesting materials you can offer that will help a wide variety of species.


A source of clean water, for drinking and bathing, may attract birds that don’t visit feeders. We can help ensure that your water helps birds, not mosquitoes or algae. And we've got ideas for other great attractants, too, such as building a brush pile.

The Big Picture: Landscaping

How we landscape our yard and deal with insects and weeds can make the difference between a bird haven and a pile of problems. Our landscaping section is full of tips to help you make your backyard a place where birds thrive.

Problems?

Attracting birds to your property is full of rewards, but it brings problems and responsibilities too. From too many starlings or geese to woodpecker holes in your house, our problems section offers advice to help solve these and many other problems.

Building Photography Skills

The images take your breath away—birds frozen in flight or with feathers fanned for a graceful mating dance. The images are captured by photographers from all corners of the world. You may never make it to Zanzibar on a shoot for National Geographic, but even in your own backyard, you can up the “wow” factor in your bird photography. This is not an exhaustive discussion of bird photography, or a debate on the merits of digital vs. film or specific brands of equipment. But we do hope this overview gives beginning photographers something to think about and a few techniques to try.

Basic Elements

Beyond the mechanical aspects of picture-taking, which nearly anyone can learn, there is an indefinable “something” that transforms an image into a work of art. People with this ability have an “eye” for composition, color, and shape. What they come by naturally, the rest of us can learn with practice, book-learning, and by studying the work of photographers we admire. With that in mind, consider the following crucial elements in any outstanding image:


Lighting

“The angle, intensity, and hue of your light source can make or break a picture,” says photographer Tim Gallagher. He feels the best times to shoot are morning and late afternoon when the light is angled, warmer, and more subdued. “It brings out all the color and texture of your subject's plumage,” Tim says.
It’s harder to take a good picture in the middle of a bright, clear day because images end up with too much contrast, washed-out light-colored areas, and inky black shadows. Having the source of light behind and slightly to one side of you creates a more three-dimensional subject. Having your subject backlit rarely works well unless you’re deliberately going after a silhouette


Framing
Professionals usually avoid placing any subject in the exact center of a photograph. It is much more visually stimulating to see the bird off to one side, facing inward. Our own eyes naturally follow the same trajectory. Likewise, avoid placing the horizon line in the middle of a picture which cuts it in half and usually looks bad. It's better to frame the horizon in the top or bottom third of your photograph.
In the case of a flying bird, leave space in front of it, so it appears that the bird has somewhere to go. “It’s not necessary to have an expensive camera and lens to get quality bird-in-flight photos,” says professional photographer Steve Wolfe. “All you need is a decent camera with auto-focusing capabilities, a red-dot sight to track the bird’s flight—plus patience, perseverance, and practice!”


Non-bird elements in your picture can add or detract from a pleasing composition. Branches, shrubbery, rocks, and flowers can be a distraction—or they can be used artfully to frame the bird within the picture.
Wildlife photographer Marie Read points out, “Birds don’t live in a vacuum. Showing the bird-habitat relationship is a compelling way to help others understand and appreciate the fascinating complexity of the natural word—and to tell a story.”
Although you want to avoid having a branch right behind the bird, looking like it’s growing out of its head, incorporating some part of the bird's habitat into the shot usually makes it better. If the background is too busy, try opening the aperture more to blur the background and make your subject stand out.
Angle
You can shoot from a position that is higher than your subject, lower, at eye-level, or somewhere in-between. One position may be preferable over another depending on the terrain and what species of bird (or group of birds) you’re trying to photograph. But it’s important to consider this ahead of time.
“Shooting from bird’s-eye level results in dramatic photos with an intimate feeling to them that you don’t get when the bird is viewed from above,” says Marie Read. To get closer to wary birds, Marie suggests wearing muted clothing, hiding behind vegetation, and moving slowly in a zigzag pattern low to the ground. Bird blinds also work very well.
Knowledge
To be the best bird photographer you can be you really have to know birds. Then you know where you’re likely to find them and what they might do next. For example, berry bushes attract Cedar Waxwings; herons haunt the edges of marshes and ponds; waterfowl often rest and preen in the same spot every day.
“You’ll develop an almost intuitive sense of when a bird is going to fly,” says wildlife photographer Bobby Harrison. “Before a bird takes flight, it often stands very alert, turning its head in all directions. It also turns into the wind.”

Parting Shots

All the professionals quoted in this overview agree that the key to improving your bird photography is to spend a lot of time in the field and don’t be afraid to experiment!

white throated fantail

The White-throated Fantail (Rhipidura albicollis) is a small passerine bird. It is found in forest, scrub and cultivation across tropical southern Asia from the Himalayas, India and Bangladesh east to Indonesia. The White-spotted Fantail, (R. albogularis) until recently was considered a subspecies.

The adult White-throated Fantail is about 19 cm long. It has a dark fan-shaped tail, edged in white, and white supercilium and throat. There is otherwise much variation in plumage between races. Most resemble the Himalayan R. a. canescans which is mainly slate grey above and below, with a black eye mask, and a white throat and eyebrow.

The White-throated Fantail lays three eggs in a small cup nest in a tree.

The White-throated Fantail is insectivorous, and often fans its tail as it moves through the undergrowth.

Birds use the same song year after year, with progressively small changes, with the result that the song sounds very different after 4–5 years. The male's call is a valuable tool in detection and identification of the bird, which can often be confused with the White-browed Fantail, R. aureola, where their ranges overlap. R. aureola has light underparts and prominent spots in two rows on the wings. Its call is rather functional, and not as pleasant and aesthetic as that of R. albicollis.

Brahminy Kite

The Brahminy Kite (Haliastur indus) also known as the Red-backed Sea-eagle in Australia, is a medium-sized bird of prey in the family Accipitridae, which also includes many other diurnal raptors such as eagles, buzzards and harriers. They are found in the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and Australia. They are found mainly on the coast and in inland wetlands where they feed on dead fish and other prey. Adults have a reddish brown plumage and a contrasting white head and breast which makes them easy to distinguish from other birds of prey.



The breeding season in South Asia is from December to April.[7] In southern and eastern Australia, it is August to October, and April to June in the north and west.[8] The nests are constructed of small branches and sticks with a bowl inside and lined with leaves, and are sited in various trees, often mangroves.[8] They show considerable site fidelity nesting in the same area year after year. In some rare instances they have been seen to nest on the ground under trees.[9][10] A clutch of two dull white or bluish-white oval eggs measuring 52 x 41 mm is laid. Both parents take part in nest building and feeding but it is suggested that only the female incubates. The incubation period is about 26 to 27 days.[11]

It is primarily a scavenger, feeding mainly on dead fish and crabs, especially in wetlands and marshland[7] but occasionally hunts live prey such as hares and bats.[12] They may also indulge in kleptoparasitism and attempt to steal prey from other birds.[13] A rare instance of a bird feeding on honey at the hive of Apis florea has been recorded.[14]

Young birds may indulge in play behaviour, dropping leaves and attempting to catch them in the air.[15] When fishing over water, they may sometimes land in the water but manage to swim and take off without much trouble.[16]

They roost communally on large and isolated trees and as many as 600 have been seen at just one location.[17]

They may mob larger raptors such as the Aquila eagles. In some incidents where Brahminy Kites mobbed Steppe Eagles (Aquila rapax), they were attacked and injured or killed.[18]

A number of ectoparasitic bird lice in the genera Kurodaia, Colpocephalum and Degeeriella have been reported