カッコウ？ツツドリ？ / Cuckoo?

An oriental reed warbler in a reed field. Its call was loud and shrill. I could hear its voice from many places, but it didn’t appear very close to me.

Reed warblers engaged in an aerial battle for territory. They only soared for a moment, but I was lucky enough to catch them.

From this angle, it’s hard to tell if it’s a carrion crow or a large-billed crow. How to take beautiful pictures of crows is a theme I have been secretly trying to figure out. When I photograph them during the day, the contrast is usually too strong and the shadows are blurred. I also have to choose the background because it is pitch black. In this case, the photo was not good enough as it was.

I made a lot of adjustments in RAW development to harmonize the image with the surroundings as much as possible and to show the black of the crow and the details of the feathers. I did not make any local adjustments.

The fresh green of the plateau is refreshing.

Although the picture is very clear, it is unfortunately too far away.
I thought it might be a cuckoo, but on closer examination, I found it quite confusing to distinguish it from an oriental cuckoo and a lesser cuckoo. I tried to count the transverse spots on the abdomen, but the folded legs made it difficult.
I guessed it was a cuckoo because of the fineness of the lines and the fact that there seemed to be many lines all the way to the thigh.

Red-billed leiothrix. I wondered why a bird that is not a native species would be in the mountains like this, but it is a beautiful bird.

A Willow Tit stood at the end of the branch in good shape.