Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Brown Shrike on the garden list!

The weather is pretty dreary today, and I'm sitting at my desk, waiting for a colleague in Mae Sot to email a project budget to me for revisions. So as I sit here waiting, I happen to hear a bee-eater and look up from my laptop to see it, a BLUE-TAILED BEE-EATER whizz over the house. Inspired I pick up the bins and think that perhaps some other migrants are being held down by the weather...sure enough within 20 minutes I've had found a CROW-BILLED DRONGO sitting on a nearby roof, and then spot a passerine with rather "odd" flight heading to a distant TV ariel, getting the scope on it I'm rather pleased to discover that it's a BROWN SHRIKE.

EDIT: A few hours after writing the above post I was sat in a Thai language lesson on Sukhumvit Soi 33 (a downtown sleazy neighbourhood) and happened to look over the shoulder of my language teacher to spy an adult confusus BROWN SHRIKE sitting on a small bush that was being buffeted by a strong breeze. After my lesson finished I stepped outside to look at the said bush and found that the "strong breeze" was being generated from the out flow of an air conditioning unit! Then I made the five minute walk back to the skytrain station, passing the sex workers dressed in skimpy leather bikinis and offering me "massage"...Bangkok: City of Contrasts.

1 comment:

Nick Upton said...

There seem to be a lot of Blue-tailed Bee-eaters passing at the moment - I had some over my house a few days ago.

Oh, more details on the skimpy leather bikinis are required.