Huai Mai Teng Reservoir, Ratchaburi Province

I finally made it out birding Sunday afternoon, 11th July 2010, for the first time in quite a while and what fun I had. I only took a few pihotographs mainly because my notebook has crashed so will not be able to load any photos for the immediate future. Huai Mai Teng reservoir and the surrounding area is a great place to bird and doesn't get much coverage although I have recently seen a report from one of Thailand's foremost expatriate birders and a photograph of a river lapwing on www.discoverythai.com   by a local bird photographer.

I am fond of this reservoir because I pulled it out of nowhere so to speak, simply by looking at a map of Ratchaburi province and noticing the large amount of water marked. In my very unscientific manner  I concluded that there must be a lot of birds there and headed out one day about this time last year to find the reservoir and a couple of weeks later I almost ran over 4 river lapwings, the first observations I reported. Of course these were credited to someone else! And since then I have always seen  interesting birds when I visit.

Today was no exception, in fact today might be considered as one of my best at this site. There was one river lapwing and I was actually thrilled that it was there as I went there hoping to see this it. Other highlights were two pied kingfishers, a black bittern and a cinnamon bittern.

Here is the list for the day: green bee-eater, red-wattled lapwing, plain backed sparrow, bushlark (u/i), blue-throated bee-eater, river lapwing, little egret,cattle egret, little cormorant, openbill, lesser whistling duck, paddyfield pipit, pied starling, chinese pond heron, common myna, black-winged stilt ( 1 only!), black-headed bulbul, black-shouldered kite, sooty-headed bulbul, common iora, plain prinia, pied fantail, white-throated kingfisher, golden weaver, great egret, cinnamon bittern, pied kingfisher, black bittern, bronze-winged jacana and little ringed plover. A couple of other unidentifieds...little brown jobs!

A very pleasant few hours and one of the local fishermen to whom I pointed out  the river lapwing advised me to get there early in the morning as there were a lot more birds.I shall try......I remember when I did make it there and almost drove over 4 black kites , three of which are the top photo and then stumbled on a greater spotted eagle resting in a tree.