Easter Sunday at Huay Mai Teng Reservoir

Bright-capped Cisticola

Cisticola exilis

นกยอดข้าวหางแพนหัวแดง

Yellow-eyed Babbler

 Chrysomma sinense

นกกินแมลงตาเหลือง

 Yellow Wagtail

Motacilla flava

นกเด้าลมเหลือง

Small Pratincole

Glareola lactea

นกอ่นทุ่งเล็ก

Lesser Whistling-duck

Dendrocygna javanica

เป็ดแดง

All photographs shot in the Huay Mai Teng Reservoir area, Ratchaburi Province, Thailand

Another dawn start today at Huay Mai Teng Reservoir but fortunately only a short 25 minute drive from home to meet my friend Tom Backlund . On arrival Tom was purring because he had seen and heard  Savanna Nightjar and had heard Rain Quail.

We spent the morning driving around various sites in the area which comprises a variety of habitats. The highlights : Small Pratincoles are breeding here as Tom saw and photographed some chicks; a lot of Yellow-eyed Babblers; lots of good birds including Oriental Skylark, Indochinese Bushlark, Painted Snipe, Grey-breasted Prinia, Oriental Honey Buzzard, Brown Shrike, Green Bee-eater, Bright-capped Cisticola, Zittling Cisticola, Lesser-whistling Duck, Bronze-winged Jacana, Wood Sandpiper, Little Ringed Plover, Yellow Wagtail, Asian Koel……

The downside is the rapid changes occurring to habitats. Roads are being bull-dozed to service aquaculture developments, trees planted and scrub and wood cleared.

Local Birds

Plaintive Cuckoo - Female Hepatic Morph Variant (?)

Ratchaburi 25.01.11

I headed home with the sole objective of getting out for an hour of good light to photograph some of the local birds that are in the rice paddy at present. For instance last night I thought I could distinguish Paddyfield and Richard's Pipit, there were Red-throated Pipits, Yellow Wagtails, Sparrows and lots of Pied Starlings, Common Mynas and Cattle Egrets in hundreds. I did not bring my camera last night so I thought they would be back tonight, you know, waiting for me, posing! Alas no. A few Black Kites, hundreds of egrets but not the same range of small birds. I was also being a bit of a dope with the camera, just missing shots and there was quite a lot of noise around me as I was in a new area and people were asking me what I was doing. Anyhow I managed a couple of shots of this female Plaintive Cuckoo and now I have looked at the field guide I reckon it is the Hepatic Morph Variant on account of the light underparts.

No River Lapwing Today!

Paddyfield Pip

Circumstances allowed me to make a dash from my morning teaching duties to Huay Mai Teng Reservoir to check on the status of the river lapwings. Not a whisper of one! Now there was a fair amount of human activity in their normal area so this absence does not mean they have moved on. There were a lot of paddyfield pips and other pipits/larks too but I wasn't able to photograph them. In this same area there were at least 30 oriental pratincoles, a yellow wagtail, 2 common sandpiper, 2 plain prinias and a white-throated kingfisher. No pied today.

I then dashed back to Ratchaburi for my afternoon class and at 5:30 pm I headed out  to see if yesterday's river lapwing was still on the premises of what I will call the Rose Garden rice paddy. In very poor light I took these photographs of a white-throated kingfisher and a juvenile little heron, a really beautiful plumed bird. No river lapwing here!

I have my new photographic parts and if these shots are more in focus it is because of the Hoodman. My new tripod head is also making it easier too as the scope/camera is more balanced. The light was poor so I will reserve judgement.  So watch out for some decent bird photographs!