Yesterday afternoon I spent an hour and a half on the roof of my apartment block watching birds from this elevated position. The building has 9 floors and is located in Pracha Utid road, a busy part of Bangkok on the west side of the river. It is one of the highest buildings in the area so I had a good view of passing birds and a few species in wasteland down below.

Migration has already started and although it is probably a little bit early to see large numbers of birds moving I did witness fair numbers of Blue-tailed Bee-eaters on the move, perhaps as many as 50 birds in total, as well as a single Black-naped Oriole. In a week or so it may be worth trying in the morning to see if I can observe any large movement of birds on migration.

Apart from these migrants, I managed to see quite a few resident species of birds, several at very close range as they passed by the roof.

Asian Openbill continues to get ever more common, and I watched a total of around 20 of these birds gliding past me at close range as they headed towards their roost site on the edge of the city; they had been feeding somewhere close to the river!

House Swift was another species that I was able to watch in detail. Around 10 birds were wheeling around just below me the whole time but as dusk came, larger numbers of swifts began to descend and look for their roost site. Of course, there were also the regular urban birds to be seen on the buildings themselves: Oriental Magpie Robin,  Red Collared Dove, Common Myna, Feral Pigeon and this very dark Zebra Dove.

It is not uncommon to see dark forms of common urban birds in Bangkok; they are just adapting to fit in with their surroundings. Other species that I saw from the rooftop were:

Yellow-bellied Prinia, Eurasian Tree Sparrow, Plaintive Cuckoo, Asian Koel, Asian Palm Swift, Eastern Great Egret, Barn Swallow, Pied Fantail, Black-crowned Night Heron, Indian Roller and Greater Coucal.