Monday, October 02, 2023
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Lesser Yellownape

 

A handsome pair of these Yellownapes greeted us before dinner at the High Pines, Fraser's Hill. They got everyone in the family excited. Everyone's gaze was trained on their performance up and down one tree to another and releasing a squeal every now and then as though calling out for more attention.

I had chased the pair from the lower gate of the bungalow up to the building and just as I thought I had lost them in the fading day, they reappeared at the pine trees near my parents out for their evening walk and at a nice, convenient height.

After about a hundred shutter claps without the tripod I discovered that this was a lifer for me. How nice to share it with family!

The lesser yellow nape is  a member of the woodpecker family, although named without that last name. Craig Robson's Birds of S.E.Asia describes this Malaysian subspecies of the Picus chlorophus as P.c.rodgeri and differing from the other Thai, Laotian and Cambodian subspecies by a red crown with blackish feather tips, much darker side of head, neck and underparts. Wow! What keen observations. The female that eluded my lens apparently lacks the red submoustachial stripe - (obviously!)

 

Some more shots of the male showoff...

A frontal shot. See the nice pedicure?

 

My left side

 

My back

 

And in mid jump