January Day in the Park

Yesterday I went to the park for an afternoon of ‘easy’ birding. The prior day I had woken at 5am with 1 hour of sleep to spend 10 hours in the field. That’s what I’d regard as ‘hard’ birding. Totally worth it though, as I got to see a Spoon-billed Sandpiper but more on that in another post. Today I want to talk about recent sightings in Sirikit Park, Bangkok.

My main purpose was to sight one of the Crested Goshawks which I had been seeing on basically every visit in late December but had dodged me since 2022. It was a nice time to go anyway as I have been seeing a couple of nice birds reliably – Verditer Flycatcher and Chinese Blue Flycatcher.

Checking my usual spots for seeing the raptor, it wasn’t there and I went along my path to check the corners of the park. It had been reported to been seen at the site which held the Blue-winged Pitta and Large Blue Flycatcher. No luck there, and also no luck with any Asian Barred Owlets this time. I continued forwards, the highlight so far would be two Malaysian Pied Fantails fighting off a Greater Coucal.

Next was the walk to the bamboo area where the male Verditer Flycatcher hangs out. I also heard about the Asian Emerald Cuckoo sighted in the park three days ago, and two years back I knew it was reported around here so it was definitely a nice spot to check. On the way over there I stopped to see the young Chinese Blue Flycatcher, which is still showing very reliably, I took some snaps. There were two photographers on the other side of the bush baiting it. These days I don’t have much of an opinion on that, but it is completely unnecessary since that particular bird was showing so nicely, but good for the bird getting extra food, i guess.

So on to the actual bamboo area, I do like to check the canopies as I saw Thick-billed Green Pigeon here not long ago, and two days back I was pleasantly surprised with seeing a single Chestnut Munia amongst the Scaly-breasted Munia. I walked around here for about 40 minutes and was exiting the area. A brief check around the left side to see if the Hill Blue Flycatcher was still around, of course it wasn’t, but what was, was the younger Crested-Goshawk in a bare branched tree, stalking feral pigeons just metres away! Very unexpected to suddenly see it in that area. Visit complete. Almost.

I also sighted the Verditer Flycatcher after leaving the bamboo area. Time to ho home, on the way out I thought I’d check an area which, 2 days ago, provided an adult Chinese Blue Flycatcher. Didn’t see it but heard the call of Sakhalin Leaf Warbler in the area. Earlier it was just a visual sighting so it was listed as Sak/PL.

That’s how the Monday park birding went, quite a contrast to the previous day out in the salt pans but still action packed for being in a city park!

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