Hanoi : Migrants & happy escapees

HANOI - Some sightings last week (17th - 23th Sept) at different spots in the city.

• Wooded/scrubby patches :

10 species of flycatchers seen (Yellow-rumped, Asian Brown, Dark-sided, Hainan Blue, Hill/Chinese Blue Fly, Klossi Blue-throated (1), Black-naped Monarch, Asian Paradise Fly, Grey-headed Canary Fly, Verditer).

More Dark-sided, Taiga than last week but less Yellow-rumped and Asian Paradise.

First sightings of the autumn of Grey-headed Canary Fly, Verditer Fly (both the 25th Sept) and Blue-whistling Thrush (27th Sept.).
+ Ashy and Splangled Drongos, Siberian Blue Robins, Seicercus Warbler sp., Black-naped Orioles (big flock at Botanical Garden), Orange-headed Thrushes…

On the phylloscs front: Eastern Crowned, Arctic, Yellow-browed, Dusky, Sulphur-breasted, "Blyth’s Leaf W.", Pale-legged Leaf W.

Also a flock of 5 Red-billed Leiothrix at Gia Lam, presumably - according to Hung - confiscated from cage-bird dealers and released back to “the wild”. Not genuine birds for sure, but nice sighting !

• Vinh Thuy :

Mudflats :30 Grey-headed Lapwings, 1 wounded Black-winged Stilt, 50+ Kentish Plovers, small flock of Temminck’s Stints, 1 Red-necked or Little Stint (interesting sighting inland I think), 1 Peregrine Falcon + all the usual suspects.

Open fields/scrubs : many Black Drongos, Siberian Stonechats, Brown Shrikes, 1 Dollarbird heading north (?!). In the scrubs around and inside the small wooded area (an old lychee orchard) 1 lone White-browed Laughingthrush - presumably liberated itself from a cage. Also a male resident Shikra soaring above the orchard. I initially misidentified it as Japanese Sparrowhawk but the correct ID was pointed out to me by Hung.

• Downtown Hanoi :

Purple-backed Starlings seen with Hung near the lake Hoan Kiem, a small flock of 10-20 individuals feeding in the high branches of a fruiting tree, with among them 1 orange-dyed individual and 1 White-shouldered Starling.
At the autumn 2010 we saw some big flocks in the city (Lenin Park + around Botanical Garden, from 30-40 to +200 birds together, between the 29th August and the 16th Sept.).

Last year: no sightings – just because of a lack of observers in the city parks!

Purple-backed Starlings (near Hoan Kiem lake)

Enjoying its freedom, with a White-shouldered Starling

male Hainan-blue Fly

1cy Dark-sided Fly

Seicercus Warbler sp.

Eastern Crowned Warbler

Red-billed Leiothrix

Ashy Drongo

This individual has brown - and not reddish - eyes, 1cy bird ?

Distant shot of a White-browed Laughingthrush

Resident male Shikra soaring above the lychee orchard at Vinh Thuy

a wounded Black-winged Stilt

Flock of Grey-headed Lapwings. Hung around more than 1 week

1cy Cinnamon Bittern

Disgusted at local slob hunters...

They are everywhere...
They have their preferred patches, like me.
Unfortunately, their favorite hunting spots are also my favorite birding spots :))
They know very well what "chim di cư" (migrants) are, when the birds arrive and where to find them.
They shoot at anything that moves. This one : 15 birds in the bag, half were flycatchers as big as your thumb.

NO LIMIT to how many creatures they kill.

That's not hunting, that's just massacre...
They are not "hunters", they are just vandals...