Ka Mu Phuket - morning mist over the mountains

Red Avadavat


(November 28th. Mae Hia) MH turned up trumps today for guests Steve and Marie-Cecile and the bird of the day was the Red Avadavat. We got excellent views of this bird and it posed for Steve’s camera. Just to put the icing on the cake it brought along a lady friend and posed again. Altogether the numbers were up (67 spp.) compared to the past few weeks of numbers in the 50’s. Other birds of note was a single Black Eagle seen on the last two visits, a very dainty Cinnamon Bittern in a very bright cinnamon coat, never seen one quite so bright, especially at this time of year, the Crested Serpent Eagle and the Crested Honey-Buzzard. It is always nice to show an unusual bird to visitors and today it was the grey backed Long-tailed Shrike (Lanius Schach), nominate race (Vietnam). It is ‘old hat’ for me as it has returned to the same spot for at least the last 3 years and is waiting every morning to greet us. Our local resident Long-tailed Shrike (L.s.longicaudatus) is much more striking.

(November 29th. KMP) The numbers this morning were a bit disappointing 35 species seen 11 identified by call. But Ka Mu Pukhet is a beautiful site in a rugged mountain setting so the lack of birds was somewhat made up for by the spectacular views. That is not to say that we didn’t get some interesting birds. One that was new on my checklist for that area was a Japanese Sparrowhawk – this one was brought to our attention by the mobbing calls of various small birds that took exception to its presence, we spotted it as it flew away. Another striking bird that caught our eyes was the Emerald Cuckoo, the upperparts,head and chest an irridescent green sparkling in the sunshine set off by the orange-yellow beak and the black and white barred underparts. It’s not a shy bird so we were able study it at our leisure.
Birding is not without it surprises and on one occasion as we disembarked from the car there was an almighty racket all around us us. This was caused by 4-5 Junglefowl fleeing the area from the surrounding trees. Another pleasant interlude was brought about by a Little Spiderhunter. It had discovered a patch of red flowers in a tree and it was going into paroxysms of delight as it flew, and sometimes hovered, from flower to flower uttering chip-chip-chips of excitement. Also spotted were some Maroon Orioles, a Black-naped Oriole, and a flock of Crested Treeswifts soaring in the sky overhead.

(December 3rd. Huay Tung Tao) The numbers this morning were 57 species seen and 11 identified by call. At 7am the temperature was a very cold 12c. Surprise, surprise – another Red Avadavat seen, this time at HTT, I have gone years without seeing one and now 2 in one week! One fruiting tree attracted quite a few birds this morning and amongst them were 2 Lineated Barbets, 2 Coppersmith Barbets, 6 Blue Magpies, 3 Golden-fronted Leafbirds, a flock of Japanese White-eyes and some Black-headed Bulbuls one of which was a grey morph. There are always quite a few Siberian Rubythroats around but the trouble is that they are skulkers so, although we heard 4 or 5 we didn’t see one. Three different flocks of White-crested Laughingthrushes were heard cackling away at the same time in three different parts of the area so there is no shortage of these birds at HTT. A single female Fulvous-breasted Woodpecker was seen prospecting for grubs in a dead tree, it seemed to have hit the jackpot as I saw it pulling out five grubs from the same branch. Another skulker, the Ruddy-breasted Crake was heard but not seen, it has a drawn out trilling call. A single Grey Heron lifted heavily off a tree stump some way out in the lake and four Rufous-winged Buzzards were also seen.