Bitterns

Cinnamon Bittern

A walk around Suan Rot Fai this morning produced a few notable birds including a Peregrine, four Night Herons, three  Pale-legged/Sakhalin Leaf Warblers, two Grey-headed Canary Flycatchers, a Black-naped Monarch and two species of Bittern on the same pool - a juv Cinnamon and two adult male Yellows.

Most bizarre to see was a Chinese Pond Heron in full breeding plumage - presumably the same bird that I saw in late October, featured on Birding Frontiers and which I had assumed would transition to non-breeding plumage, but actually seems to be more pristine now that it was a month ago. 

Chinese Pond Heron

22nd & 23rd Nov 2014

A rather busy weekend, but managed to get some birding in on both days.

Saturday morning found me checking out Muang Boran Fish Ponds and Bang Poo, with the Fish Ponds produsing  lots of Black-browed Reed Warblers (but not the hoped for Manchurian RW) as well as four Chestnut Munias, three Chestnut-tailed Starlings and several Pheasant-tailed Jacana.

Black-browed Reed Warbler

Bang Poo was a Gull-fest, with the seemingly homogenous flock of Brown-headed Gulls harbouring at least two Black-headed Gulls and a rather confusion selection of moult stages for a laraphobe like me (the last time I looked at gulls was here, two years ago!).

adult Brown-headed Gull

adult Black-headed Gull

adult Brown-headed Gull

adult Black-headed Gull

1 CY Brown-headed Gull

1 CY Brown-headed Gull

1CY Black-headed Gull

1CY Black-headed Gull

Sunday morning was spent taking some visitors to Khok Kham, and with the help of Mr Tii seeing a single Spoon-billed Sandpiper amongst a huge number of waders.  Broad-billed Sandpipers seemed to be especially well represented, with small numbers of Great and Red Knot, a couple of Turnstones and a single Dunlin in the mix.  Remarkably one of the flocks of grey-and -white winter plumaged red-necked stints held a breeding plumaged bird, looking very out of place.

very late "red" Red-necked Stint