Thursday, January 28, 2016

Warming up

Temperatures in Bangkok are now returning to normal for the time of year, but this morning was still pleasantly cool during a short visit to the patch.  I was hoping to make some new interesting discoveries following the cold snap, but interesting passerine activity was limited to single Pale-legged Leaf Warbler, Black-naped Monarch, Black-capped Kingfisher two Taiga Flycatchers and an Asian Brown Flycatcher.

On the (ex) fairways the party of three Asian House Martins was still present, feeding over the canopy of large trees with a group of Asian Palm Swifts and at least one Red-rumped Swallow (this followed another R-r Swallow near home early morning on my way back from the supermarket!). The wintering Intermediate Egret dropped in to a pool closeby where I was photographing the hirundines, so I grabbed a few shots before going to work.

Asian House Martin

Intermediate Egret




2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where did you see the Black-Capped Kingfisher? I've spent two mornings there this week and haven't seen it. Last year I spotted two, one perched over the ditch to the side of the metal bridge entrance to Rot Fai, and one in the sculpted garden. If I got as close as about 20 meters, they'd fly, making them the most skittish kingfishers I've attempted to photograph.

Even the Rollers seem more skittish than last year. Looks as though quite a bit of the scrub vegetation has been cleared in Rot Fai, and some of the smaller birds have disappeared along with it.

David Gandy said...

The Black-capped Kingfishers are always skittish and hard to get anywhere close to! The best place to look is along the canal/khlong that has the metal bridge over it. The park is continually changing in terms of vegetation - some areas get cleared and other get neglected, so it can take a while to figure out whicjh areas are good. I think migrant passerines had a bad breeding season further north last summer - myself and other commented on the much-reduced numbers of several usually common migrantrs (e.g. Eastern Crowned Warbler) in Sept/Oct. Brown Shrike numbers seemed to be down too, but whilst I am now seeing a few more I still feel that numbers of winterers are lower than in previous years.