jack2964

I don't know enough but yours does look like a male because of the greyish head and rufous chest/belly.

The females and juveniles are even tougher for me to tell apart.

Far from expert but I would say Plaintive cuckoo. They love this habitat.

Common but not seen for a long while.

Brown-throated Sunbird:

Typically when water levels rise the fish tend to disperse to wider area, so catching them is more difficult. Anyway it's good for their survival as they move away from nets, hopefully.

The problem of gill nets arises any where there is a body of water, including in klongs that I saw. Sad.

Makes sense. The netters aren't silly too, they cordon off the flooded plains formed by the high waters.

And trying to fish the same spots result in lures being snagged by the nets.

But persist I shall. Thanks.

I've been out often to my local reservoir which brimmed few days back.

I used to be fairly successful each outing decking 1 or 2 krasoob (hampala barb/jungle perch)

from 3 or 4 hours of casting from a boat.

But over the last couple of weeks every outing has been disappointing-zero bites!

Could it be because water levels have gone up dramatically and the few fish have spread even thinner?

Meanwhile the number of gill nets and netters have gone up substantially too. And they are catching lots of fish

as evidenced in the local village market.

Would like your views from fellow krasoob chasers. Thanks.

Did you choose 'Restart'?

Yup, done that too and still the same. Thanks.

Ah..the sun's out.

Jsixpack:

I've decided to leave well alone. I've got "Everything" installed and it is really good other than it asking for permission to launch at start up all the time.

Gomyway:

Tried as suggested but no joy still. No worries!

Thanks to all for feedback.

Apologies for hijacking the thread, but I identified the bird from its song on the following website. It is a Chestnut Headed Laughing Thrush.

you sure T_Dog? firstly, there are 2 laughingthrush species with 'chestnut' in their name found in Thailand. One is very very rare, and the other you'll only see if you're at altitude or up a mountain (chestnut-crowned almost tame near the summit of Doi Inthanon) also both do not really fit your visual description.

i've just read your description a couple of posts up, and on that :-

"Its wings and tail slope down, top coat style like a Laughing Thrush, but the colors are different. A greyish bird, it has a white slash along its eyes and no hood. They are very active in the early morning and in the evening, and cavort deep in the trees as a group"

i would suggest the fairly common Green-billed Malkoha.

Well its not the Malkoha, and it looks very close to the Chestnut Headed Laughing Thrush but the one I see does have a more a distinctive eye slash of white. So not sure. The song on the website is exactly what we hear. When I played it, my wife thought they were back. Will keep trying to get a photo.

Could it be this guy? If it is, it's a montane bird.

I have Robson's guide opened up in front of me but can't decide whether it is:

1) Juvenile Chinese Sparrowhawk

2) Juvenile Besra

3) Juvenile Japanese sparrowhawk.

Or none of the above.

Thanks in advance.

number 3 - Japanese Sparrowhawk (juv)

Thanks Goshawk! I really couldn't tell the diff between these birds.

Being a novice birder, I'd greatly appreciate if you could point out the distinguishing features.

If the basic search function isnt working then there is probably more wrong than a 3rd party utility can fix. Hence my suggestion to reinstall Windows.

If it is legitimate Windows then you should have either a disk or a factory restore partition or the possibility of making a disk using a special restore disk tool. All are easy to use if you just follow the instructions.

If you really dont fancy that then a simple system restore to a date before the problem started will probably do the trick. This should only take a few minutes.

This problem has been with me longer than I can remember and I think the earliest restore point would be after the failed search function.

I had this problem also and eventually found out that my windows version was not legit.

I could be wrong but my Win7 is still getting updates regularly and I can d/load and install Microsoft stuff freely. By that, I believe it is a legit copy.

There is a sticker with a product key underneath the lappy.

Screw it. use Everything instead. Much better anyway.

http://www.voidtools.com/

I have d/loaded and installed Everything and it works like a charm. Super fast!

"AFter many hours spent googling and performing various 'fixes' found on the net, my 'Search' is still not working. The moment I type a single alphabet into the search field, it goes totally blank."

If you have already tried a lot of things "found on the net" then it is probably even more buggered up now than when the problem started.

As it is a Dell machine it should have a factory restore partition. I would use it. Back up your personal data first.

Unless it came without an operating system and some nice people in Tukcom etc installed a "free" copy of Windows for you, in which case you need look no further for the source of the problem and should just go and buy a real copy of Windows, with disk and activation key. The real Win7 SEAsia edition can be bought for just a few thousand Baht.

It is a legit Win7.

If I can't have my windows search back I am happy with the Everything utility.

What is the Service Tag shown on the bottom of your laptop? Why not just run a backup of your data to an external drive and run a Factory Restore?

Being pretty much illiterate with computers I'll try not to go down that path. I'd probably make things worse.

Check in Services.msc if the "Windows Search" service is running

I am sure it is running but I did find that the Services window in 'Extended' view is completely blank no matter what I choose in the 'View' drop down menu.

In the 'Standard' view everything looks fine and Window Search is started and has Automatic (delayed start) indicated.

Not sure if this is the problem with my 'search' function.

Thanks MJCM.

You can try this:

Go into the task manager, where you can choose to display or hide several links (e.g. Pictures, Music, etc.) in the start menu.

Afaik there is an option to link the search/command-bar to files and folders. It should be enabled.

Hope it helps!

I went to Task Manager but I am not sure where the option is to link the files/folders.

Thanks Koko.

Try this.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/10246/how-to-disable-search-in-windows-7/

Please note: That this solution is to disable the search, so maybe you can use it to enable the search again

Tried this too. 1st I disabled then re-enabled. Still no joy.

But the link you gave have what I reckon would be a good alternative to in-built Win7 search.

If I can't fix this I might just go ahead and disable "Search" and opt for this utility.

Thanks MJCM.

Not sure myself but this looks like an accipiter.

The 4 bands in the tail should help. That is how I arrived

at the 3 possible IDs in my first post. But then again I suck with raptors too.

Thanks Hanno.

I have Robson's guide opened up in front of me but can't decide whether it is:

1) Juvenile Chinese Sparrowhawk

2) Juvenile Besra

3) Juvenile Japanese sparrowhawk.

Or none of the above.

Thanks in advance.

You might try to rebuild the index:

The index requires almost no maintenance. However, if the index can't find a file that you know exists in an indexed location, you might need to rebuild the index. Rebuilding the index can take several hours, and searches might be incomplete until the index is fully rebuilt.

1. Open Indexing Options by clicking the Start button, and then clicking Control Panel. In the search box, type indexing options, and then click Indexing Options.
2. Click Advanced. Administrator permission required If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
3. In the Advanced Options dialog box, click the Index Settings tab, and then click Rebuild. Administrator permission required If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

Thanks BB1950, I did as suggested but the 'search' within Control Panel is dead as well. I typed in 'Indexing' in the search box and hit 'enter' with no response whatsoever.

Seems like I can't do a search from anywhere.

The koels are about the noisiest birds around but lately they all seem to have lost their voices and only just this evening I saw a lone and wet female perched in a bamboo grove. Wonder where the rest have gone to.

That caged koel in your pic has fresh wounds around the base of its beak indicating he is still trying to get out. Poor thing.

Not breeding season I guess. Why anyone would keep a Koel as a caged bird beats me; the neighbors hate it. Near a hotel I sometimes stay in when in HCMC someone is keeping a Chinese Francolin; it can be heard even over the very noisy HCMC traffic. If I was a neighbor, I'd probably end up strangling both bird and owner.

Like this one:

I think it ended up in a pot.

The koels are about the noisiest birds around but lately they all seem to have lost their voices and only just this evening I saw a lone and wet female perched in a bamboo grove. Wonder where the rest have gone to.

That caged koel in your pic has fresh wounds around the base of its beak indicating he is still trying to get out. Poor thing.

Unlucky one.

Why has it ended up here....can't sing nor handsome.

I hate this whole caged-bird business. I work opposite a Pagoda where they are keeping all these birds in cages for people to release to "make merit". Most of these birds will never survive the ordeal; if exhaustion doesn't do them in; the very big resident Shikra population will hammer them. I believe there is at least one Cambodian record that was only ever seen caged (a Bunting if I am not mistaken).

This particular individual was from the carpark area fronting the Tiger temple in Kanchanaburi. I did ask for the owner hoping I could buy its freedom but owner was nowhere to be found.

Bad luck for bird. Btw, I refused to pay the extortionate ticket price for entry to the temple and glad I did when I learnt more about the place.

Another time I visited an aquarium (can't remember where now) and outside the premises was a similar 'merit making' set up where one buys tiny fish in a plastic bag for 20 Baht. I am then to release the fish into a lake via a chute. Silly me bought a bag and as I poured the contents down the chute, I was horrified by the sight of a school of largish fish at the bottom of the chute snapping up every single fish. All gone in the blink of an eye! Ah well...I've learnt now.

Unlucky one.

Why has it ended up here....can't sing nor handsome.

And my first Common kingfisher sighting for this year.