A new breeding population of Swinhoe's Plover

Found in southern China, see the article here

21st May - 7th June

 

Great Bustards

Great trip to the UK and Extremedura, Spain during the last couple of weeks. Extemedura between 23rd-26th May with Sacha found us in amazing bird-filled steppe landscapes, staying at Martin and Claudia Kelsey's homestay, and scoring Little and Great Bustards, Calandra Lark and both Pin-tailed and Black-bellied Sandgrouse with in the first 45 minutes of our first morning's birding. We also had great views of Spanish Imperial Eagle, all three Vultures, plus White-rumped Swift and Lesser Kestrel.

 Crested Lark

 Thekla

 Calandra

 Spanish Spage

White-rumped Swift

 

Euro Griffons

A long-list of southern European birds provided a supporting cast including Crag Martin, Euro Bee-eater, Sardinian and Subalpine Warblers and lots of Hoopoes.  One particular highlight was a "black thermal" - which held five Black Storks, one Black Vulture and two Black Kites!

 Black Kite

 Black Storks

 

Black Vulture

 Azure-winged Magpies

 Lesser Kestrel

Lil' Owl

Euro Roller

Zitting Cisticola

 sub-adult male Monty's

 

dark phase female Monty's

 pale phase Booted Eagle

male Woodchat

Hawfinch

 Red-rumps

Blue Rock-thrush

My time in the UK has focused on East Anglia, with typical summertime birding around Cambridgeshire and Norfolk. The undoubted highlight was an early morning Otter at Cley (seen in the channel that runs from North Hide to East Bank). With birding highlights including Bittern, a pair of breeding plumaged Med Gulls, hearing several of Nightingales (and seeing one), Bearded Tits a couple of times (Cley and Lakenheath), Hobby at a variety of sites and nice views of a pair of Grasshopper Warblers.  Perhaps the most striking thing I noticed, as somebody who moved away from the UK eight years ago, is the notable spread of Cetti's Warblers (which I heard at most sites where I went birding on this trip - Cley, Titchwell, Lakenheath, Fen Drayton, Cliffe).

Med Gull, Cliffe

 Grass Snake, Cliffe

Fox cubs in early morning sunshine, Kelling

Sedge Warbler, Kelling

Barn Swallow, Cley

Oyck and sea poppies, Salthouse


the closest I'll get to a Norfolk W-c Spage

 Marsh Harrier at the RSPB's wonderful Lakenheath Fen

the long, humid, birdless days of the wet season

Early morning at SRF produced very little of note - the hightlight being a couple of groups of high-flying Pond Herons that looked like they were Chinese.  Also some nice views of Indian Roller and Little Heron.

Wet season has arrived and all the wintering and passage passerines have departed.  Time for a trip to Europe I think...

10th May

Spent the last hour of day light at the patch and did pretty well, finding a Racket-tailed Treepie (new for the patch) and rather surprisingly, a Rosy Starling. Whether this is the same bird that I saw in Sept/October last year, and if so, whether it has overwintered seems open to speculation - but it was a bit of a shock given it was in the first small group of  starlings that I looked at.

Eye-browed Thrush

Another new bird for the patch today in the form of  Eye-browed Thrush.  However I didn't see one bird, I saw at least seven in a total of four locations, and suspect there were perhaps 10-20 present overall as I kept picking up their thin alarm calls, and got the impression I was hearing more than I was seeing.  

Eye-browed Thrush is a common wintering bird in Thailand's forests (I saw a flock of 50+ at Kaeng Krachan NP last weekend) but according to Round (2008) it is an uncommon passage migrant around Bangkok and the Central Plains, with most records being of single birds.  My suspicion is that the birds I saw today are a migrating flock that has dispersed through the park to feed up before continuing northwards.

Other interest today came in the form of late winterers which must be due for departure soon, including two Thick-billed Warblers, and two Black-naped Orioles as well as a single Taiga Flycatcher.

Hodgson's Hawk-cuckoo

A bash around Suan Rot Fai early this morning produced this Hodgson's Hawk-cuckoo, which is a very scarce bird around Bangkok. Hodgson's is much smaller than Large Hawk-cuckoo (the commoner Hierococcyx here), with the heavily streaked throat and warm buff terminal band to the tail being diagnostic. The other highlight of the morning was my second ever Greater Racket-tailed Drongo for the patch.

There seemed to be few other passage migrants, but wintering birds were apparent in reasonable numbers - perhaps the best being three Brown Shrikes on one branch, with a fourth below them.  One bird seemed to be displaying to another, whilst the other looked on.  Love is in the air!  There were also quite a few Black-naped Orioles around, plus two Thick-billed Warblers, two or three Black-capped Kingfishers and a leucogenis Ashy Drongo.

 Shrike trio

 Black-naped Oriole

Ashy Drongo

Also in the last few days I've been able to get nice images of breeding plumaged Pond Herons, for comparison purposes...

Chinese - a winter visitor due for departure

Javan - resident around Bangkok

9th & 10th April

Excellent weekend birding in Petchaburi province with my friend Chris who was back from a week birding lowland Sabah with Robert Chong, and on his way to lead the Western Pacific Odyssy tour.

Our first stop on Saturday was Pak Thale to get Chris his first Spoon-billed Sandpipers of the year (he's also organising this tour later this year to search for Spooner breeding areas). On arrival at Pak Thale we met Mr Daeng, the boatman from Laem Pak Bia, who already had two birds on a pool beside the track. One of these was in partial breeding plumage, but was less co-operative than the other, winter plum, bird. Whilst checking for more Spooners amongst the Red-necked Stints I picked up an adult Little Stint which was well advanced in attaining summer plumage.

 The way we all want to see a Spooner

But they are pretty good even when they look like this!

After admiring the Spooners for a hour we headed down to the Kings Project where we picked up Ruddy-breasted Crake and two male Painted Snipe (as well as Common and Pin-tailed Snipe), Oriental Reed Warbler and the usual waders.

 Pacific Goldie

 Long -toed Stint

We departed late morning for Kaeng Krachan National Park, and after checking in at Samarn Bird Camp (which is just 1 km from the park gate) we headed into the Park.  Birding was somewhat hampered by heavy rain, but we managed to pick up one key target, Ratchet-tailed Treepie (this is the only place in Thailand for the species). We also had nice views of Long-tailed Broadbill and Lesser-necklaced Laughingthrush, brief views of White-browed Scimitar-babbler and a troupe of Banded Langurs crossed the trail we walked during a brief let up in the rain. Traveling out of the Park after dark provided some spotlighting interest, with a couple of Common Palm Civets on the road and a pair of civety-types who decided to hide around the back of a tree as soon as the spotlight was put on them - we couldn't even sort them out with the scope.

Things started slowly on Sunday, with a few woodpeckers being picked up including Rufous 'pecker and Common Flameback, I also picked up a calling Sultan Tit which proceeded to show well, and a single Black Baza perched up for a short while. We had a distantly calling Blue Pitta, and several vocal Grey Peacock-pheasants but nothing close enough to offer views. A stop at a couple of view points rewarded us with five Wreathed and a couple of Great Hornbills, and a pair of Silver-breasted Broadbills nearby, carrying nesting material. The highlight of the day came when we checked a nice shady area of forest at km 24.5 where Chris found a pair of Bar-backed Partridges foraging quietly in the slope forest leaf litter, we followed them for about 15 minutes, getting excellent views.

 

 White-handed Gibbons come in two flavours

Lunch at the upper camp site was not exactly a culinary highlight, but troupes of White-handed Gibbons and Dusky Langurs crossing paths beside the restaurant gave us some nice photographic opportunities.  This was followed by some ridge top birding on the road past the campsite which gives stunning views of the forest and provided us with an adult Rufous-bellied Eagle. We also picked up a strange, apparently all-dark swift with a forked tail, which might have been Dark-rumped Swift, but is more likely to be  a cooki Pacific Swift, this resident race has much reduced white on the rump which can be difficult to see.  Driving back down the mountain in the late afternoon gave us a couple of Red-headed Trogans from the car, and Chris a very brief glimpse of a cat spp, probably a Leopard Cat. We picked up another couple of Common Palm Civets as well as Great Eared and Large-tailed Nightjars just before dusk.

 Dusky Langurs