A quick spin up to Huay Mai Teng reservoir this afternoon proved very worthwhile - a rufous colooured bird perched on a tree with lots of drongos was not clear enough to distinguish using binoculars but allowed me enough time to get back to the truck and get the scope on it. It was unmistakably a cuckoo but it wasn't plaintive female or the variant. I noted a very prominent and long blackish mask extending back to the nape and a white supercilium; these were the stand-out visible features. In keeping with my commitment to shambolic birding I didn't have a guide book or data card so sadly not even a record shot. But from looking at the field guide now I am home, it can only have been a Banded Bay Cuckoo. That is a lifer and another patch record.
It was a beautifully warm and sunny afternoon at the reservoir. Just nice to be there and to be out in the fresh air. Not a lot else of note: plenty of Rain Quail heard, also a Thick-billed Warbler, a juvenile Pied Harrier, lots of Green Bee-eaters, Paddyfield Pipits, good numbers of Zitting Cisticolas, a few Indochinese Bushlark and two Purple Heron.
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