Reservoir Blues

A quick late afternoon spin to Huay Mai Teng didn't really produce much on the bird front. What was significant was the dramatic rise in the reservoir's water level. The road across the reservoir is now impassable such has been the huge volume of precipitation this last week. I had been checking records and noticed that at about this time last year I was seeing Blossom-headed Parakeet late afternoons so this was on my mind. No parakeet, no Small Pratincole, no River Lapwing, no Savanna Nightjar, not even a  Little Ringed Plover. Very ordinary fare today: Yellow Wagtail was the bird of the moment, Green Bee-eater, Red-wattled Lapwing, Paddyfield Pipit, Grey-breasted Prinia, Eastern Stonechat.......and Rain Quail, hardly ordinary fare,  were very audible but stayed invisible. The surprise package was a female Watercock scurrying into scrub, a patch tick.Then as I exited in the dark, on instinct I took a right turn and almost drove over an Indian Nightjar at ease on the red gravel track; as I watched this bird in my headlights I could discern the distant rattle of a Chinese Francolin.