Amur Falcons

A full day in the field yesterday, with the first four hours of the day birding around the temple, middle of the day looking for raptors and late afternoon birding along the checkpoint road. A reasonable number of birds seen, with the best probably the 73 Amur Falcons which moved north during the morning. On the move in the opposite direction were 23 Black Baza, single Common Kestrel, Grey-faced Buzzard, 19 Chestnut-headed Bee-eater, 24 Little Green Bee-eater and at least 1500 Indochinese Swiftlets.

Black-headed Bulbul
Currently very common locally and one of the better looking bulbuls

Birding around the temple was much better than of late, best birds being a Sulphur-breasted Warbler, several Silver-breasted Broadbill, 2 Speckled Piculet, Orange-breasted Trogon and a Claudia's Leaf Warbler. Other species present included at least 6 Violet Cuckoo, 2 Mountain Imperial Pigeon, 2 Blue-bearded Bee-eater, Lesser Racket Tailed Drongo, 5 Velvet-fronted Nuthatch, 4 Asian Paradise Flycatcher, Great Barbet and Green-legged Partridge calling from at least three different localities. Very many bulbuls were also noted including good numbers of Black-headed.

The checkpoint road was much quieter, best birds along here single Dark-sided Flycatcher, male Grey Bushchat and Black-backed Forktail.  Also 2 Lesser Racket-tailed Drongo, 3 Violet Cuckoo, 4 Velvet-fronted Nuthatch, single Grey-backed and Brown Shrike, Blue-winged Leafbird and 3 Olive-backed Pipit.

At dusk outside the wildlife HQ entrance, the Spot-bellied Eagle Owl was very vocal but failed to show, at least 5 Asian-barred Owlet and a single Collared Owlet were also heard.