{"id":1539,"date":"2014-07-05T14:00:55","date_gmt":"2014-07-05T06:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fryap.wordpress.com\/?p=1539"},"modified":"2014-07-05T14:00:55","modified_gmt":"2014-07-05T06:00:55","slug":"fire-tufted-barbet-at-frasers-hill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fryap.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/05\/fire-tufted-barbet-at-frasers-hill\/","title":{"rendered":"Fire-tufted Barbet at Fraser’s Hill"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Fire-tufted Barbet (Psilopogon pyrolophus<\/em>) is a species of barbet found in montane areas in Malaysia, Indonesia and southern Thailand. It is a rather unusual Asian barbet that it has its own genus, and have a proportionally longer tail than the rest. Its name is derived from the prominent red tuft of bristles extending over the base of the bill.<\/p>\n

Of course, I knew none of these information when I made my maiden birding trip out of Singapore to Fraser’s Hill, Malaysia back in March 2011. The plan was to go have a family vacation and try to take some bird photos, whatever species they may be.<\/p>\n

On the first evening, I explored the area around my hotel. As luck would have it, intermittent rain made me turn back to the hotel. While waiting for it to clear, I saw this green bird perched rather low on an evergreen tree. Without alarming it, I made my way closer. I had a long lens and had to back out to get the bird barely in frame, with the tripod touching the wall of the hotel.<\/p>\n

\"Fire-tufted<\/a>
\nAn almost full frame shot of the adult Fire-tufted Barbet, perched low.<\/em><\/p>\n

 
\n<\/p>\n

\"Fire-tufted<\/a>
\nA crop shot showing the colourful head, and the red bristles that define its name. Some have mentioned that the more prominent maroon tinge on the crown defines the male1<\/sup>, but I cannot ascertain this.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Fire-tufted<\/a>
\nA more frontal head shot of the same bird, now showing how it could conceivably be seen as emitting sparks of fire from the back of its bill.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This was my one and only encounter with this beautiful bird. Although I have a few more photos of the bird in different poses and perches, the above seems to be the most pleasing. <\/p>\n

I hope one day to be back and get yet another closer view and better understanding of this species. Too little is currently known about it.<\/p>\n

Reference:
\n1. The Birds of the Malay Peninsula, Vol II (Robinson & Chasen)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Fire-tufted Barbet (Psilopogon pyrolophus) is a species of barbet found in montane areas in Malaysia, Indonesia and southern Thailand. It is a rather unusual Asian barbet that it has its own genus, and have a proportionally longer tail than the rest. Its name is derived from the prominent red tuft of bristles extending over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8,9],"tags":[72,76,121],"class_list":["post-1539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds","category-travel","category-wildlife","tag-fire-tufted-barbet","tag-frasers-hill","tag-malaysia"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fryap.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fryap.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fryap.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fryap.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fryap.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fryap.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1539\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fryap.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fryap.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fryap.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}