Month: September 2017

A Sunday in Singapore before a week’s training means I get to do some birding while getting some daylight to help beat the jetlag.

Many thanks to Martin Kennewell who gave me a fantastic day out.

This Orange-bellied Flowerpecker had a lot to say

Lesser Dog-faced Fruit Bat

Tiger Shrike

Ashy Tailorbird having a bath in a leaf

Halfbeak

A small Water Monitor

Copper-throated Sunbird, one of five lifers for the day

Sunda Scops Owls

A Slender Squirrel isn’t leaving his nut for anyone

Blyth’s Paradise Flycatcher

A female Sunda Colugo: is there a guiltier looking animal?

Crimson Sunbird

A male Colugo

Stork-billed Kingfisher

One last Colugo shot

A nice surprise by the pond yesterday when we discovered the first Migrant Hawker for the garden.

A nice surprise this evening when a Sedge Warbler turned up in our garden pond.  It’s the second we’ve had this autumn.  I was able to sneak up on it and get a picture, but the pond’s a bit busy, so there was no chance of getting it unobscured, and the light had already gone, so it’s a bit noisy.

We had a bit of a warbler frenzy at that point, with a Willow Warbler, Chiffchaffs, Lesser Whitethroat and Blackcap pinging around the bushes near the house for half an hour.

A better picture of our Clifden Nonpareil, a real stunner.

An eventful weekend, with a spectacular end.  We had a quick check for migrants at home on Saturday morning: two spotted Flycatchers the stars of the show, but our first Lesser Whitethroats of the autumn were good to see, and then off for what turned out to be a butterfly day.  Some Queen of Spain Fritillaries at Peacehaven gave some nice views an then at Beachy Head some more common butterflies behaved well.

On Sunday, either the same two or two new Spotted Flycatchers posed together, but the year’s first Sedge Warbler hid in the pond vegetation to avoid the camera.  Then off to Cuckmere to twitch the Baird’s Sandpiper that had just been found.  A much-wanted British lifer bites the dust.  Back home, we emptied out a truly pathetic moth trap: very few moths and nothing interesting, until our first Clifden Nonpareil opened its wings.  Massive and magnificent!  It’s not often an insect upstages a special bird, but the Nonpareil truly lives up to its name.

Speckled Bush Cricket

Spotted Flycatcher

Common Whitethroat

Queen of Spain Fritillary

Queen of Spain Fritillary

Small Copper

Chalkhill Blue

Common Blue

Spotted Flycatcher

Bailrd’s Sandpiper

Clifden Nonpareil