The Last Few Days

Barn Swallow - EOS

Alas wretched work commitments mean birding, photography and blogging have to take a second place! Of course I can still manage some birding but just a little. I'll leave these pics of some common birds that I have seen these last few days. News from the major sites is that a Cinereous Vulture remains in the Wat Norng Blah Lai area though no recent sightings of the Himalyan Griffons. In Kaeng Krachan Spot-winged Starlings have been sighted fairly regularily since Christmas. This represents a new record this far south for Thailand.

Scaly-breasted Munia -EOS (front garden)

Zitting Cisticola - EOS

Lotus flowers - digiscoped

Little Egret - digiscoped

Purple Heron - digiscoped

Pied Kingfisher - digiscoped

There are plenty of good birds locally. Yesterday we saw a fair few black-shouldered kites, a black kite and green-billed Malkoha as we toured around the Huay Mai Teng reservoir and its surrounds. Tonight a quick half-hour at the loca rice paddy produced a female Pied Harrier and a Common Kestrel plus Yellow-Rumped and Plain Prinias and an Oriental Reed Warbler. At the school camp, notiwthstanding the racket created by 200 + kids, an unidentified phylloscopus warbler, possibly an Arctic, and one other, two-barred but thereafter who knows and a very pretty Ashy Drongo. I was very pleased to get the digiscope onto the birds for both of the photographs below; the warblers move at speed and the drongo was equally swift. 

Phylloscopus Warbler - unidentified

Ashy Drongo

A Common Hoopoe

I am up in Suan Phueng, Ratchaburi province towards the Myanmar border for the school camp. Suan Phueng is a mountain resort and is very popular with weekend escapees from Bangkok. It is also popular for school camps during the week. It's up and coming too and there is an enormous amount of development.

On the way up I stopped at Huay Mai Teng Reservoir and photographed this very obliging Common Hoopoe. It's not an uncommon bird here in Thailand but my colleagues and students were very impressed. It is a beautiful bird on the eye, very distinctive and I am reasonably happy with the photograph.

There are some good birds around including some phylloscopus warblers and other little brown ones. A common tailorbird, many olive-backed sunbirds and the very distincitve and characteristic noise of There was also a very elegant sunbird or spider hunter, olive with dark blue/purple back and a very long bill. Unfortunately I left my fieldbook at home and they were all too fast for me to photograph. I'll try again tomorrow.