A few good birds from Hanoi

We've been spoiled by several weeks of great weather, the kind that makes it hard to stay inside and work. But this winter is one that definitely will not go down in Hanoi birding history. The unusually warm weather (but also dry and sunny, which did not displease me…)  has kept wintering bird numbers down.

Nevertheless, just need to keep getting out - even when it feels like there's NOTHING to see! 

Below some shots taken recently around the city, of both resident and wintering birds:

Local Masked Laughingthrush (still alive, quite amazing !!!) - one out of the two or three in a small flock

male Chinese Penduline Tit in its favorite habitat
Flock of 5 individuals found at a small pond on 30th December, still hanging around mid-January. Hopefully they will stick around all winter.
Vagrant in Vietnam

An Indian Roller shaken by the wind. Recently found a pair around the city. 

A common South Asian species, but surprisingly scarce in East and West Tonkin (northeastern range limit?). Not recorded in Robson for East Tonkin.

Hmm.... what’s that ? A dull brown guy with 2 obvious wing-bars which turned out to be...

 ....a juv. Common Rosefinch (broader buffy wing-bars, richer brown tone above than the ad. female). It did show briefly, this is the best shot I could get.

Grey-capped Greenfinch feeding on Parthenium histerophorus - an invasive weed common in field margins

Little Bunting a presumably female-type Black-faced Bunting

Brownish-flanked Bush-Warbler
Photographing this skulker needs luck and a bit of perseverance.

Rufous-gorgeted Flycatcher

And here's a bonus non-bird - an Oriental Garden Lizard  Calotes versicolor enjoying the winter sun... An amazing looking little chap.
A quite common sight in cultivation, thickets.This is a male showing breeding colors. A nice consolation prize when there are no birds around!

Birding the tomato fields! - Hanoi

Yesterday afternoon I managed to snatch a couple of hours birding around the Hanoi's flower and apricot village of Nhat Tan, which is famous for producing kumquat trees for Tet. I spotted all the 'usual suspects' we encounter at this period of the year in the cultivation.

The most interesting areas were not the kumquat gardens but the tomato fields! I have noticed for a while that those plots provide interesting habitat for some passerine birds, especially when the rows are not well kept (few chemical treatments), thus facilitating the development of weeds. For example, two skulkers, the Siberian Rubythroat and the Bluethroat, often forage in or around those fields.
Star bird of the day was Black-faced Bunting, the second time I have spotted this species in the area, with previous sighting also in March.

Two blurred shots of a stunning male in full breeding plumage

Very skittish bird

This one should have been the best of the serie, but...

An another male, perched on stick with grey skybackground - the usual winter atmosphere here...

The whitish throat and whitish submoustachial stripe makes me think it is a 1st winter bird.

Also a supposed young male, with an obvious dark malar line and a less greyish breast


The 2 external rectrices are white.

This little brown jobbie was skulking slowly on the ground. I didn't found any key features to clinch the ID. Yellowish legs, buffy supercilium, blackish eyestripe, buffy flanks-wash. Any ideas ? A Bush Warbler (?) but which one...


Funny Prinias... (Yellow-bellied above, Plain bellow)

Sebastien

A Raptor Day - Hanoi

Today (6th March) I went to the Red River island, more precisely the cultivation and scrub between the "forest" and the main trail, a small area of around 2-3 hectares. I just sat and waited the actors enter the scene.

Highlights : 1 Black-faced Bunting male, a flock of 15 Grey-capped Greenfinches, 2 Pied Harriers (1 male, 1 juvenile), 1 Eastern Marsh Harrier male, 1 Siberian Rubythroat male, 2 Bluethroats, 2 Chinese Blackbirds.
Grey-capped Greenfinch
This bird is fairly common along the coast, but seems to be also not scarce inland, at least in East Tonkin. Indeed, it’s my second sighting of this species this winter far from the coast, the first one near Dông Mô lake, 50km west of Hanoi (26th December).

In this flock, there were also some juveniles begging for food and still being fed by parents. So they were born in the middle of the winter ?!

A stunning Pied Harrier male

As I was trying to hide myself behind a ridiculous bush to photograph the Bunting, I suddenly realized that a big guy was flying towards me. It tried to catch something in a cornfield and flew over me, very close, not scared.

Pied Harrier immature

Eastern Marsh Harrier male

Black-shouldered Kite

I added this crap pic below because it shows well a form of display I have observed sometimes : the bird raises and lowers the tail (around 1 time per second), with a soft call (“piu.. piuu”), when the partner is around.

This guy belong to the pair of the northern tip of the island. The small wooded area where they tried to nest last year has been cut down...

Cheers,

Sébastien Delonglée