Dartford Waffler

Gull Feeding Frenzy at Samut Sakhon | Birding in Thailand

A beautiful sunrise, thousands of birds, the sound of the sea; all the ingredients for one of the world’s birding hotspots, but in reality this is the atmosphere I was able to enjoy on a short morning excursion from Bangkok when visiting the “Red Bridge” coastal boardwalk in neighbouring Samut Sakhon province. Rather than being [...]

Birds in a Park in Bukhara | Birding in Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan is one of those countries that is great for birding and at the same time extremely interesting in touristic terms too; an ideal place to travel with a non-birding partner and then to find time to go birding in locations near the tourist spots and to visit some really spectacular scenery. In late April [...]

Top 5 Birds of Vietnam Birding Tour 2025 | Birding in Vietnam

Vietnam is the country in mainland Southeast Asia with the highest number of endemic species and the best place to see a number of regional endemics too as well as a fantastic supporting cast of more widespread birds. Leading the Calidris Birding Tours trip to Southern and Central Vietnam in March/April 2025 gave all participants [...]

A Day Birding in Qatar | Birding in Qatar

My annual migration between Thailand and UK has not only seen the cost of direct flights rise dramatically but I have grown very tired of sitting on a plane for twelve hours, if only I was able to make the journey under self-powered flight like a Bar-tailed Godwit! Indirect flights are, of course, a solution [...]

Parakeets & Peafowl | Birding in Thailand

One thing I have learned over the years that I have been bird watching is that there are many different ways for people to enjoy birds. I started birding by going on long country walks in England with birds being perhaps the most accessible category of wildlife to enjoy along the way. Friends of mine [...]

Passerine Migrants near Rudong – China Birding

June 1st, 2017

Nick

Apart from great birds like Courtois’s Laughingthrush, Spoon-billed Sandpiper, Cabot’s Tragopan, Reed Parrotbill and Elliot’s Pheasant, one of the main objectives on last month’s tour of SE China was to witness the migration of East Asian passerines, particularly many of those species that can turn up, or potentially turn up, in UK – one might say “Sibe’ vagrants”.

By birding in and around small stands of trees and hedgerows situated close to the coast where open country was the prevailing landscape we managed to find a high number of migrant species including a few really sought-after birds. As with any migration-based birding the weather conditions are key to seeing birds in good numbers and we had a variety of conditions which gradually got better and better in terms of providing mini “falls” of migrants. Read more »

Brown Bush Warbler at Emei Feng – China Birding

May 29th, 2017

Nick

Although the tour I led to Southeast China last month featured a lot of very colourful and rare birds one of the species I was most keen to see was one of the brownest of “little brown jobs” – Brown Bush Warbler. One might ask why a skulking brown bush warbler would be high on my list of priorities? Well, I find Bush Warblers an interesting group of birds as they are a real challenge to even see let alone identify, plus the fact that as someone who does most of their birding in Thailand this is the only Bush Warbler on the Thai list that I had not previously seen. Fortunately, at Emei Feng, in China Brown Bush Warbler proved fairly easy to see at the higher altitudes in open habitat and its amusing skulking “peek-a-boo” behaviour delighted everyone in the group and was definitely one of the highlights of the day and for most of us it was one of the more memorable birds of the trip. Read more »

North Wales 4-day Trip, 23-26th May 2017 – British Birding

May 27th, 2017

Nick

Although I am lucky enough to spend a large amount of my time on birding trips in Thailand and other parts of Asia, I do not get that much time to spend birding in UK and in particular I spend very little time in my home country in Spring when it is easier to see many breeding birds and summer visitors. With time on my hands a good weather forecast I was able to spend four days in North Wales looking for species that I seldom seen on my visits to UK, including a few scarce breeding species that I have not seen for many years. I started on the island of Anglesey, visiting RSPB South Stack, Holyhead Harbour and Penmon Point for seabirds and Red-billed Chough before moving on to The Spinneys Local Nature Reserve near Bangor and Aber Falls to look for scarce woodland species. I then visited RSPB Ynys Hir, again for woodland species, before finally ending up at the strangely named World’s End, close to Wrexham, where moorland and woodland species can be found, with a highlight being lekking Black Grouse. Read more »

Old Lodge Nature Reserve, Ashdown Forest – British Birding

May 17th, 2017

Nick

Just 45 minutes away by car from my mother’s home I can get to Ashdown Forest. This is a great place to find a number of woodland and heathland birds that are not easily seen in Southern England outside of the best habitat and today I made a visit to this very scenic area. In the past I have found Old Lodge Sussex Wildlife Trusts Nature Reserve to be one of the best areas in Ashdown Forest for birds so I headed straight to it and spent the best part of 5 hours walking around, taking photos of the birds I found although today the results were not particularly good due to the persistent poor light.

Despite the gloomy conditions there were lots of birds singing and calling and I got nice views of a number of species scarce in this part of the UK including Spotted Flycatcher, Common Redstart, Crossbill, Tree Pipit, Woodlark, Common Cuckoo and Willow Warbler. Quite sobering to think that many of these were common when I was younger. Read more »

Birding Nanhui, Shanghai – China Birding

May 14th, 2017

Nick

I recently returned from leading a birding tour to Southeast China where we enjoyed some large numbers of shorebirds, range-restricted forest species and a wide variety of passage migrants. We flew in and out of Shanghai, traveling around this and neighbouring provinces, and one site, just outside of Shanghai provided me with my first birding in China when I visited alone, and making two more visits over the course of the trip, Nanhui gave us some really good birding and a really varied list of birds, certainly a migration hotspot and one of those places where the birds change on a daily basis. My personal favourite here was the very impressive Reed Parrotbill, a really great bird which made making the trip to China worth it in itself but there were loads more good birds here. Read more »

Spring Birding in UK – British Birding

May 11th, 2017

Nick

Having recently spent 2 weeks in China, then just 1 day back in Thailand, I find myself back in UK with the opportunity to walk out of the front door and see a whole load of breeding farmland birds within seconds. Spring is in full flow with lots of birds singing and even a few common species feeding fledged young and a short walk this morning provided me with some nice sightings and I managed to get a few passable photos of my main target – Corn Bunting. Every time I am back in Britain I always try to catch up with Corn Buntings as there is a small population of this declining species near my mother’s house which hangs on and it was my degree dissertation species. Today I found 5 calling males and 2 females within a very short walk and watched them calling from various song posts and chasing females back towards the nest. Read more »

Daap Waterhole, Kaeng Krachan – Thailand Birding

April 21st, 2017

Nick

The hides/waterholes close to Kaeng Krachan have become famous with birders in Thailand and beyond and quite rightly as they always seem to deliver good birds and it is a great experience to get so close to so many species at these locations. Ban Song Nok and Lung Sin Waterhole are the most frequently visited of these hides but there are others that produce good birds but less reliably so than the previously mentioned two locations. However, in mid March 2017 it was suggested to me that I visit Daap Waterhole as there were some good species that were frequenting it at that time. My only previous experience of this spot was in April 2016 when it began raining 30 minutes after we arrived and did not stop but I need not have worried as we had an awesome afternoon of birding there this time. The following are a set of photos taken at Daap Waterhole on March 14th 2017. Read more »