Dartford Waffler

Independent Birding at Zaamin National Park | Birding in Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan is a surprising country with a wide variety of landscapes, ancient historical monuments, some interesting food and drink as well as good infratructure that makes the country easy to travel in independently. However, my wife and I pushed this a little further than most travelers to the country by visiting Zaamin National Park where [...]

City Park Bird Abundance | Birding in Thailand

For those of us lucky enough to travel internationally to see birds it quickly becomes apparent that in some countries birds are abundant while in others birders have to work harder to see a wide range of species. This was brought home to me most recently spending a morning at Sri Nakorn Kuean Khan Park [...]

Touristing & Birding at Petra | Birding in Jordan

For those of us who travel with non-birding partners it can sometimes be tricky to balance enjoying time together somewhere interesting and the craving to maximise the opportunity to see new birds in new places. Personally, having a good holiday with my wife is the most important thing when planning trips together but doing some [...]

Rainy Season Birding at Pathum Thani Rice Research Centre | Birding in Thailand

There can be times of the year when bird watching hits a trough because a lack of activity, unhelpful weather or overfamiliarity with a smaller selection of species than at other times. In Thailand these factors are all true in the rainy season with a large number of species absent, on their breeding grounds further [...]

Mountain Birding from Chimgan | Birding in Uzbekistan

I have always loved immersing myself in mountain landscapes but over recent years my opportunity to do so has been limited with much of my time spent in tropical forests and wetlands in Thailand so when the opportunity presented itself to spend some time birding in mountain habitats in Uzbekistan I took it without having [...]

East Coast Gulls | South Korea Birding

January 30th, 2017

Nick

Earlier this week, as part of our winter birding tour of South Korea, we spent a few days travelling down the East coast of this East Asian country, stopping in many harbours and bays to look for seabirds and a number of gull species. The sheer numbers of gulls was mind-blowing, with around 50000 in just one bay, including around 10000 loafing around on the beach and we kept shaking our heads in amazement of the spectacle. Of course we also took time to identify and understand the East Asian species as well as try to pick out a few rarities which we did successfully. The large numbers of these birds on the beach gave us plenty of opportunities to photograph them and birds in large numbers, like this, is one of the pleasures of birding Korea.

Details of the next trip can be seen here – South Korea Winter Birding Tour.
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Watching Cranes in the Citizen Controlled Zone | South Korea Birding

January 22nd, 2017

Nick

One of the highlights of winter birding in South Korea is birding near the DMZ, specifically watching cranes emerge in the morning. On the second day of this year’s South Korea winter birding tour we spent almost the whole day on the South Korea/North Korea border, spending much of our time in the Citizen Controlled Zone, having obtained special permission to enter this area of high military presence. This area of the Cheorwon Plain is the main wintering area, in Korea, of Red-crowned Crane with also large numbers of White-naped Crane and our expectation was to see large numbers of these birds as well as a host of other top quality wintering species, including Raptors, Buntings, Finches and Wildfowl.

Details of the next trip can be seen here – South Korea Winter Birding Tour.

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National Arboretum – South Korea Birding

January 21st, 2017

Nick

Today was the first of an eleven day birding trip to South Korea that I am leading, having led a similar trip to the country one year ago. After meeting everyone at Incheon airport, Seoul, we drove straight to the National Arboretum where we spent the whole afternoon birding around this lovely woodland park with a covering of snow and with intermittent snow showers creating an idyllic winter scene. Our main target here was Solitary Snipe but there was also a lot more to enjoy here on our first day birding South Korea.

Details of the next trip can be seen here – South Korea Winter Birding Tour.
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Petchaburi Birding Trip – Thailand Birding

January 18th, 2017

Nick

Just yesterday I finished a nice trip which lasted for 8 days of birding in Petchaburi province with a group of birders from Wales. Although the first day of the trip was plagued by some really awful weather, and more was forecast, we had some really good birding in a number of sites which gave us a really good variety of species, resulting in over 300 species in just the eight days! Some of the highlights included Spoon-billed Sandpiper, Red-bearded Bee-eater, Siberian Rubythroat, Pied Harrier, Black-headed Woodpecker and Blue Pitta. The following is a brief summary of the trip and some photos. Read more »

Photographic Report From a Recent Trip: Northern Thailand – Thailand Birding

December 22nd, 2016

Nick

After a 15 day trip with just two of us armed with cameras I now have an enormous amount of photos to wade through. I recently finished a 15 day trip with Nick Robinson who has set himself a quest to photograph all of the world’s Leaf Warblers, a tricky task given not only the difficulty in actually identifying many species but their high activity levels make them hard photographic subjects. We managed to photograph 17 species of Leaf Warbler on our trip but along the way we also enjoyed seeing and photographing a wide range of species and in particular, the northern leg of our trip provided us with a lot of good birds and great photos. The following are a selection of bird photos from the northern section of our trip. Read more »

“Wasteland” as a Bird Habitat – Thailand Birding

November 30th, 2016

Nick

On a recent bird photography trip in Petchaburi province myself and Colin Rogers spent some time photographing a number of common species in a quite ugly scrap of “wasteland”. At first glance the area looks of little value with scrubby invasive bushes, piles of illegally dumped rubbish, murky pools of water and rutted tracks – certainly it is exactly the sort of place that “developers” love to turn into something else. But spent a little time there in the late afternoon and it becomes apparent how valuable a habitat the small area is to a large number of individual birds and a fairly wide range of species as they come to feed on dumped scraps and bathe in puddles of rainwater.

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Photography at Ban Song Nok – Thailand Birding

November 27th, 2016

Nick

Getting really close to birds and watching them go about their business is just about the best way to really appreciate them; even some of the apparently dull and very common birds can suddenly reveal themselves to be very interesting. There is probably no better place to be able to do this than some of the hides close to Kaeng Krachan National Park and on the afternoons of 18th and 22nd November I made a couple of visits to Ban Song Nok to sit in the hide and watch birds coming to feed, drink and bathe. Auntie Ek, the owner of Ban Song Nok, keeps a log of which highlight species arrive each day, so we had a good idea of what we might see but as always there were a few interesting surprises.

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