“My wife and I enjoy the Common Iora (Aegithina tiphia horizoptera) very much in our garden. They come many times a day to forage, often in a family group. They have a pleasant personality and are very pretty.
“They also have a very large repertoire or range of calls and we enjoy listening to them. The bird above is the author of some of these calls – a male with some breeding plumage.
“I have made many recording of calls to try and understand them and would like to share a few taken this year, all made when they came as a family group.
“Dr David R Wells in his ‘The birds of the Thai-Malay Peninsula, Volume 2’ has extensively described many of their calls.
“Recording 101a is what I would describe as a ‘classical’ Iora call – a long drawn out call that picks up slowly and then drops suddenly. This call carries for a long distance and for me is a ‘keep in touch call’ that the male uses when some distance away, here… Amar-IoraCom-song-101a-classical.
“Recording 103a is a melody of common calls – these are used when much nearer to the mate and are more ‘conversational’. Probably also to say ‘I am here’ but possibly may indicate much more, even food availability, here… Amar-IoraCom-song-103a-other common calls.
“Recording 105a is a warning call used by the male for ‘acute emergencies’ facing the family, here… Amar-IoraCom-song-105a-warning.
“Recording 102a is of a ‘duet’ – the female call is not well documented (Wells 2007), here… Amar-IoraCom-song-102b-duet. Here I did not see the bird that responded to the male’s calls and it could have been a juvenile/immature male (the louder call is a male, the thinner reedy call that starts of is a ?female).”
Dato’ Dr Amar-Singh HSS
Canning Garden Home, Ipoh City, Perak, Malaysia
3rd January & 14th July 2010
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