Spent around four hours on the patch on the outskirts of Suphanburi this morning, surprisingly very little has changed to the site over the past six months, with no new development and only a small amount of additional scrub cleared. Despite heavy overnight rain, water levels around the site are fairly low for this time of year, often during October the whole site can be under water, there was however lots of mud, birding was hard work with five kilos of mud stuck to each boot!
Best birds were a couple of patch ticks, a Wryneck and a Bright-headed Cisitcola. There were a few winter visitors/migrants around the site, though it was clear that many have still yet to arrive.
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| Chestnut-winged Cuckoo The best photo I could get! |
Best of the migrants was two Chestnut-winged Cuckoo and a Pale-legged/Sakhalin Leaf Warbler. Other migrants included 2 Black-capped Kingfisher, 4 Common Kingfisher, a Whiskered Tern, 14 Brown Shrike, an Asian Brown Flycatcher, 9 Stejneger's Stonechat, 2 Black-browed and 12 Oriental Reed Warbler, a Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler, 2 Dusky Warbler and 3 Yellow Wagtails.
Only a few waders were noted with 2 Grey-headed Lapwing, 3 Little Ringed Plover, 50 Black-winged Stilt, 60 Red-wattled Lapwing and surprisingly no Oriental Pratincole. Two Black Bittern showed well, this species is only a wet season visitor to the area and has usually gone by November, and 8 Yellow and 3 Cinnamon Bittern were also seen. At least fifty Blue-tailed Bee-eater were present around the site and must have included some migrants.
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| Plaintive Cuckoo |
Other resident species recorded included at least 30 Plaintive Cuckoo most feeding in waterside vegetation, a fine breeding plumage Pheasant-tailed Jacana, a Purple Heron, 15 Night Heron, two Paddyfield Pipit and around 50 Asian Golden Weaver.
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| Male Asian Golden Weaver |
During the final hour and half of the visit there was a steady southerly passage of raptors with a total of 32 Oriental Honey Buzzard, 18 Chinese Sparrowhawk and a male Eastern Marsh Harrier through.
Large numbers of Tawny Coster butterfly around the site and a moth probably Spirama helicina
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| Tawny Coster |
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| Spirama helicina |
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