Sakhalin/Pale-legged Leaf Warbler

This morning at Suan Rot Fai was again rather slow, but I eventually found a Sakhalin/Pale-legged Leaf Warbler which gave good views and so I thought I'd try a little playback experiment to see if it would respond, enabling me to confirm the ID.  I tried this once or twice last spring, in the hope that a male bird might come in to the tape or even sing, but the birds I tried it with last year ignored the tape entirely. This might be because the birds were not adult males, or because the quality of the sound recording of Sakhalin available in Xeno-Canto a year ago was rather poor (there is now a better recording by Frank Lambert).

Today's bird seemed to respond (more inquisitive) better to PLLW song, however a number of different speces were drawn in by the tape, so it is hard to say if this was a species-specific response, and the bird did not sing, so it remains unidentified. Others have had more success recently, with a singing Sakhalin found in another Bangkok park in the last few days, and Dave Bakewell blogged about one he found in Malaysia recently.

Sakhalin/Pale-legged Leaf Warbler

Other migrants included two Yellow-rumped Flycatchers (one an adult male), and a few winterers/migrants in the form of three Brown Shrikes, three Asian Brown Flycatchers and two Taiga Flycatchers. There are still a good number of Chinese Pond Herons around (I saw perhaps 10), plus at least three Javan PHs, plus last year's suspected hybrid Pond Heron seems to have reappeared.

possible hybrid Pond Heron

possible hybrid Pond Heron

One salutory reminder of needing to take care when considering the origin of birds (even migrant species) in the park was a Drongo Cuckoo with a heavily abraded tail which suggests that it was an escapee.

persona non grata