I am currently on holiday in southern Laos, on the Mekong river. I have just seen a group of asian house martens mobbing (I think) a flycatcher, the flycatcher had flown out of a clump of reeds, caught an insect and was then pursued by 3 house martens, would they be attempting to steal the prey, I've not seen anything like this before.
Hello Colin, Currently, it will be breeding season (Dec - April) in that region of the world so all birds are busy feeding their young and all available food sources will become a prime target as parent birds make endless trips to feed their hungry chicks. The Martins will also be feeding in the same area as the flycatcher so it may look like they are mobbing when in fact they are attempting to swoop multiple times to catch their own insects around the reeds. All natural behaviour I would think although this is only my humble opinion.
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Regards, Hazel
I see what you're saying, perhaps I should make it clearer, this was 3 martens flying within inches of the flycatcher for about 20 metres before they disappeared from my line of sight, the flycatcher seemed to be trying to evade them.
I agree with Hazy re mobbing. Based on what has been written, I am strongly suspecting the 'flycatcher' was a small predator....shrike or similar and was being chased off.
Yes , brown shrike could fit the bill, the bird in question looked uniform in colour, but that could be a trick of the light.