On the morning of September 12 saw me checking my local patch at Cho Lae. I wanted to photograph the snipes which I've been seeing since September 2, but they proved to be much too difficult to photograph, so instead I turned my attention towards a flock of 9 Pacific Golden Plovers that were resting on the open field. I slowly crept from a distant towards the birds and when I approached approximately 20m from the closest bird, I lied down on the ground and slowly crawled with my elbows. In the end, I could get pretty close to them and I was pleased with the results.

Pacific Golden Plover moulting into non-breeding plumage

Still some black on the underparts

Pacific Golden Plover moulting into non-breeding plumage

Non-breeding bird

Pacific Golden Plover moulting into non-breeding plumage

Pacific Golden Plover moulting into non-breeding plumage

Pacific Golden Plover moulting into non-breeding plumage

View of the flock

Most of them were still moulting from breeding to non-breeding plumage showing some black feathers on the underparts. One of the birds was especially whitish due to more breeding feathers on the body which haven't been moulted yet.  I spent some 10-15 minutes photographing them as they slept and preened under the warm morning light. Then they somehow decided to fly up and move to other area in the distance.

Pacific Golden Plover moulting into non-breeding plumage

Pacific Golden Plover moulting into non-breeding plumage

Pacific Golden Plover moulting into non-breeding plumage

Curious look

This individual was the most approachable one.

Yawning! Probably it's still too early.

Guess what the bird on the left was doing>

It was pooping!

Pacific Golden Plover moulting into non-breeding plumage

Had some fun taking photos of them while preening

The one in the middle was much whiter than others.

Resting despite my existence

Another tame individual

A preening shot to end this post

Chestnut-capped Babbler

I came across this furious Chestnut-capped Babbler while driving around my local patch yesterday morning. It was calling aggressively on the roadside next to a small canal. I slowly approached and flushed up a buttonquail, probably Barred Buttonquail. Then I found out that there was actually another bird nearby, so I guess they might be nesting somewhere in the bush. The other bird was generally silent. It only gave soft contact call once in a while, so I guess it might be the female.

This beautiful babbler used to be pretty scarce in the past but somehow managed to increase the population in the last few years. They can now be seen pretty much everywhere where there are some tall grass and a bit of water. Contrastingly, its relative Yellow-eyed Babbler, which used to be common, is now much scarcer. One of my hypotheses is that these 2 species might have been competing for the same habitat and the Chestnut-capped has done a better job in recent years, so the Yellow-eyeds are kinda wiped out, but who knows......

Invasion of Openbills

No more than 3 years ago, I've never seen or heard of any Asian Openbill in Chiang Mai area. There were few records from Chiang Rai but still in a very small number. Now this large waterbird can be seen throughout Chiang Mai, wherever there are rice fields. It's amazing how fast this bird has spread up from the central plains of Thailand up to the north and established such a strong population here. The same thing has also happened in the south. They even go further down to Malaysia, where Dave Bakewell of Digdeep has made some really nice observations.

This morning I woke up and walked out into the front yard, then saw a flock of about 7 Asian Openbills flying over my house southward. I thought that was strange already since I've never seen any Asian Openbill around my house before. But when I arrived at my local birding patch, Ban Cho Lae, some 20 kilometres away from my house, I was amazed to see a flock of 50+ Asian Openbills feeding in the rice fields.

Asian Openbill in breeding plumage

Its main prey is the applesnail which is a threat to the rice.
That's why farmers love these birds!

Non-breeding bird; note the grey plumage and paler legs

There were sure lots of applesnails for them to enjoy!

Breeding bird (left) and non-breeding birds (centre and right)

Their primaries and secondaries have nice greenish gloss.

Nice landing

I spent about an hour taking photos of these birds up close under the nice morning light. They were much more approachable than I thought. Normally, for a bird of this size in Thailand, I wouldn't be able to get closer than 50 or 30m. I was also happy to see that many of them were in breeding plumage, which is much better looking than the non-breeding plumage. In breeding plumage, they have smart black and white body with bright reddish legs. In non-breeding plumage, they are dull greyish.

The first view I had before approaching and waiting for them to come closer.

This was taken before the sun broke out from the clouds.

Another smart breeding bird

Note its red bill tip

Non-breeding bird with very prominent red bill tip

Non-breeding bird with breeding bird in the background