Avadavats

I spent the last week working in Mae Sot.  This allowed for some pre-work birding on three mornings, which was generally rather unproductive given the time.

A couple of nice features however were regular encounters with Horsfield's Bush Larks in song flight, but more spectacularly encounters with a group of Red Avadavats in the grassy filed where I had seen four birds the previous week.  This time I was armed with the camera, and whilst is is very difficult to estimate how many birds were present I feel confident of a minimum count in the range of 15-20 birds.

Unfortuantely none of these were adult breeding males (I think they have already finished breeding as I have seen breeding males with nesting material in early January).  HBW states: "Female is greyish-brown above, rump and uppertail-coverts red with few indistinct white spots, small white or pale buff tips on upperwing-coverts and tertials" and it also states that the female "gives a short song" whilst "Male non-breeding is like female, but with white spots on red uppertail-coverts, larger pale tips on greater coverts". This makes me think that perhaps that perhaps Bird 1 is an adult female - it was singing but the spots on the tertials are rather dull and the uppertail coverts only have a few spots.  I think that birds 2 and 3 are both males.

All images are taken with a Nikon V1 and 300mm f4 lens.

Bird 1 - female in song

Bird 1 - female

Bird 2 - non-breeding male, moulting tertials

Bird 3 - non breeding male

Mae Sot

A quick pre-breakfast visit to the rice fields behind Mae Sot Airport this morning produced excellent, prolonged views of four female-type Red Avadavats and a Bright-headed Cisticola. Naturally my camera had been left at home...

Sunday, 18th May

I fancied trying for some late spring waders yesterday, so made an early morning trip to Khok Kham to catch high tide.

Still  a good number of waders present

Despite the late date there were a good few birds around -  a mixture of over-summering 2nd calendar year birds and perhaps late migrating/non-breeding adults.  Highlights included 100+ Lesser Sandplover, 50+ Red-necked Stint, 10 Curlew Sandpipers, a posse for six Eurasian Curlew with a single Whimbrel, ten Black-tailed Godwits, one Terek Sandpiper, one Ruddy Turnstone and a couple of Greenshank.

Red-necked Stints

pink-legged Pond Heron

Whiskered Terns

 Herons included at least 10 Night Heron, and several Javan Pond Herons, including the  rather red-legged individual above (the leg colour a sign of prime breeding condition), whilst terns included thirty or so Whiskereds, a single White-winged Black and several Little Terns.  I took rather a meandering route back to Bangkok, picking up two stunning male Asian Golden Weavers from the car.

Possibly the highlight of the day however was seeing this huge waterspout over the Gulf of Thailand...

UK

I'm now back in Bangkok after a couple of weeks visiting family and friends in the UK.  There was a bit of time for birding at the beginning of my trip, taking in Dungeness (pair of Black-winged Stilts, Black Tern, Raven, Arctic Skuas) and Blakeney/Cley/Salthouse (Wryneck, Ouzel, Fieldfare, Redstart, Merlin, Med Gulls, Winchat, Wheatears), and some more casual efforts around the family home in Cambridgeshire (Garganey, Red Kite and escaped Black-winged Stilt) plus incidentals whilst in the Brecon Beacons (singing Redstart and Pied Fly, Raven, Red Kite).

above & below: Dungeness Stilts

Wryneck

Rouzel

Med Gulls

Plastic Stilt (note the orange leg ring)