The Last Time

It was September 13 when I last visited Doi Angkang before coming back to Japan. As I have said in earlier blog that it started raining again after the weather began to be sunny for quite a long while. I mainly walked around the same area where I did birdwatching a week before. The fruiting persimmon trees were still attracting all kinds of bulbul very well. I tried so hard on photographing my favorite Crested Finchbill and sort of failed as usual. There were Brown-breasted, Red-whiskered, Sooty-headed, Flavescent and Black Bulbuls around the area. A flock of White-browed Laughingthrush and Rusty-cheeked Scimitar-Babblers were also moving around in low bushes with their noisy calls. A new comer was the Arctic Warbler (Phylloscopus borealis) which was feeding along with the resident White-tailed Leaf-Warbler (Phylloscopus davisoni) near the persimmon tree. However, I couldn't get any decent shot of it.

The best I could get from this unique Crested Finchbill

A Brown-breasted Bulbul visitting persimmon tree

And a record shot of the Arctic Warbler

I was surprised to see a small flock of Yellow-eyed Babbler consisting of mainly immature birds. I usually see this babbler in lowland cultivated area or wetlands, but not on high mountains like this. Another pale morph juvenile Oriental Honey-Buzzard of the season soared over my head with a much smaller juvenile Chinese Goshawk (Accipiter soloensis), which was trying to attack the honey-buzzard all the time.

The secretive Yellow-eyed Babbler

Last time I saw so many Brown Shrikes but this time only one juvenile bird was seen. However, two Grey-backed Shrikes (Lanius tephronotus) have arrived, so as the White Wagtails (Motacilla alba). At noon, rain started to fall too hard for birdwatching so I had to go back home. Along the way came a nice group of Ashy Woodswallows on the same dead tree. This time with the heavy rainfall, it looked more artistic than ever.

A pair of Ashy Woodswallows doing courtship display

A female Burmese Shrike from Ban Arunothai

The only Brown Shrike seen, a juvenile