It was incredible to watch these birds at a distance of around six feet feeding unconcerned by passing parkgoers and a small battery of birders camera lenses. At one point they hopped onto the ground under the reeds in full view belying their relationship to their tit namesakes. They are currently lumped in with Parrotbills and indeed, their formal international name is Bearded Parrotbill.

The current thinking may change though because Bearded Tits seem to have no real close relatives so scientists may place them into a family of their own. Either way, it was an amazing sight to witness in central London.

On a lighter note, we are probably already on 40 species for the year and should comfortably get another 40 by September. The rest will be in the laps of the birding gods!

My last morning down at my adopted patch resulted in another lifer – this time a Thick-billed Warbler. I am sure that I glimpsed one yesterday, but today’s bird stood right out in the open churring away. Superficially, it looked like one of the many similarly coloured Streak-eared Bulbul that also hung out in the scrubby bushes. However, closer examination revealed that this bird had the typical reed warbler look. What struck me apart from the sheer size of the bird was its rounded reddish tail, plain face with black beady eye and its white throat. I was well happy with another self found lifer to the list.

My parting gift from my trusty patch was another brief look at an Asian Barred Owlet. As soon as it was aware that I was trying to train my camera in its direction it bolted.

For those interested I have drawn up the list of species that I saw at my patch over three mornings. Meanwhile, I am travelling south to Hua Hin. Check in again tomorrow.

Little Egret – a couple seen over the three days.
Chinese Pond Heron – frequently seen.
White-breasted Waterhen – frequently seen along the watercourse.
Common Moorhen – commonly seen often with the waterhens.
Feral Pigeon – common.
Spotted Dove – common.
Peaceful Dove – 1 seen today. Probably far more common.
Greater Coucal – commonly seen.
Asian Koel – commonly heard.
Green-billed Malkoha – several seen feeding in the trees yesterday.
Himalayan Swiftlet – commonly seen.
Asian Barred Owlet – seen 2 occasions perhaps indicating resident bird.
Collared Kingfisher – 1 briefly. Supposidly a summer visiter to the region.
Barn Swallow – commonly seen.
Wire-tailed Swallow – commonly seen.
White Wagtail – 1 pair seen daily.
Red-whiskered Bulbul – commonly seen.
Streak-eared Bulbul – commonly seen.
Common Stonechat – a female seen on a couple days. Buffy rump & longish tail.
Plain Prinia – commonly seen.
Common Tailorbird – 1 male seen yesterday.
Thick-billed Warbler – at least 1 obliging bird seen today.
Dusky Warbler – commonly heard, rarely glimpsed apart from 1 obliging bird yesterday.
Two-barred Greenish Warbler – 1 watched yesterday.
Yellow-browed Warbler – commonly seen and heard.
Taiga Flycatcher – at least 1 seen daily.
Oriental Magpie Robin – regularly seen.
Brown Shrike – at least 1 really obvious bird seen daily.
Black Drongo – seen reasonably often.
Black-collared Starling – a few birds seen yesterday.
Chestnut-tailed Starling – a few overflying flocks encountered every morning. A beautiful bird.
Common Myna – commonly seen.
White-vented Myna – commonly seen.
Tree Sparrow – very commonly seen.
Baya Weaver – 1 seen on the first two mornings.
Scaly-breasted Munia – commonly seen.

36 species including 2 lifers

I got there at dawn this morning and had an array of species. Wire-tailed and Barn Swallows swilled overhead alongside Himalayan Swiftlets. White-breasted Waterhens and Moorhens frequented the marshy bits. I even found a Asian Barred Owlet briefly before it saw me and powered off ploughing into a nearby tree sending every other bird piling out in the opposite direction!

I’m loving my temporary patch complete with barking dogs and litter. I’ll be back in the morning!

Some of the delights that I have been ogling at since my arrival in this quite cool and arty city in northern Thailand.

More tomorrow.

We are in the midst of a bird slowdown here at The Scrubs right now. This is a classic situation during the winter on my patch. The 100 species target for the year was looking like a bleak, distant and totally unrealistic proposition until we added three new birds over the past couple of weeks; Goshawk, Green Sandpiper and last week’s lone Waxwing that was picked up calling and flying north over the grassland.

Our 2nd ever record, following the five or so briefly seen twice during the last Waxwing Winter two years ago. Of course, I wasn’t there to see either sets of birds and indeed, I’m still yet to see a Waxwing anywhere this winter yet and I am certainly not considering twitching any. Well not just yet……..

In the meantime, we’re not greedy. We don’t need to exceed our 100 species target we just want to reach it for the first time. So if there are any birding gods out there, we’ll just take five. We’ll be happy with that.

I never though that I would live to see the day when 600 Long-eared Owls would enter my life. Yes, 600 you read it right. All of them were perched in their daytime roosts in the three towns that I visited with the tour group that I am leading in Serbia.

The best town was my favourite, Kikinda – 16km from the Romanian border in northern Serbia. We saw half our total in the town’s square alone! I heard the great news that the square will be made into a nature reserve from next year making it the only one of its kind in the world. How amazingly cool is that!?!?

Why are there so many owls?

Well, seeing as the farming methods are relatively simple in the countryside surrounding the urban roosts it has encouraged a huge number of rodents to proliferate providing abundant food not only for the LEO’s but Barn and Short-eared Owls but for a number of raptors too.

You have to come out here to witness this incredible phenomenon for yourselves!

It seemed almost strange to once again patrol the urban expanses of Wormwood Scrubs after swanning around on so much foreign soil over the last couple of weeks. But I was definitely home though because thr wind was howling and the rain was pouring the night before.

I met up with a couple of the Scrubbers and we collectively strolled around to see what we could. Aside from around 30 Fieldfares all told passing overhead, a couple of Redwing and a Stonechat duo, all was quiet.

At 9am I had a meeting on site with several members of the council (Hammersmith & Fulham), the grounds maintainance contractors and the conservation officer from Groundwork to discuss the wildlife management plan. I was pleased to see that we are all singing from the same hymn sheet. That really was a comforting thought.