Northern Bookbooks, Fairy Pitta & More

Unfortunately, I haven’t prioritised writing any entries into my blog recently despite lots of interesting finds during this spring migration. After meeting a reader and taking them to the Fairy Pitta yesterday, I made sure to at least make a small update to address how spring migration has been unfolding.

To summarise so far, I’ve had plenty of the expected stuff: lots of Mugimaki Flycatchers, many Yellow-rumped Flycatchers. For less common during spring, I did manage brief views of a flock of Duarian Starlings a couple weeks ago. Nonthaburi has been rather poor in terms of finds so far but I did find a pair of Himalayan Cuckoo at a location which is usually good for them.

My interesting finds kicked off with a Blue-and-white Flycatcher at the Teochew Cemetery on the 15th of March. Following this, locating a Northern Boobook at the same location. I had great luck relocating it on repeat visits. A first inner-city Chestnut-winged Cuckoo was also had at Benjakitti park. The visit after the cuckoo I managed another Northern Boobook find at this park and the following day I managed to glimpse one being mobbed in Nonthaburi!

In the last few days I also had back-to-back Green-backed Flycatcher finds at Teochew cemetery and the Ministry of Public Relations. The Teochew bird was alongside another scarce find, Indian Cuckoo. And that leads up to yesterday’s Fairy Pitta.

In the evening of Saturday the 13th, as I was going through all of the Thailand birds on iNaturalist, as I do pretty much daily, I stumbled across a user named thegreatape13 who had seen Fairy Pitta at Phutthamonthon. One of the most desirable passage birds in the country, and one I had the pleasure of finding at this site last year. I reached out to this user, and received the location. The next morning I located it but it was actually another individual. The one seen the day before was later located.

Safe journey to this beautiful fairy and thanks for reading.

The afternoon after I wrote this I found a female Narcissus Flycatcher at Sak Yai temple in Nonthaburi, at first I thought it was Green-backed female but was corrected by Philip Round. The next day (16th April) was also very eventful with another Narcissus Flycatcher, Green-backed Flycatcher and Blue-winged Pitta at Teochew Cemetery!

All images and video © 2024 Sam Hambly.

All your support is greatly appreciated, you can contact me at cmagnirostris@gmail.com