Breeding colony of Oriental Pratincoles near Hanoi

Oriental Pratincole (Vinh Phuc, June 26, 2016). 

In the Hanoi area, the Oriental Pratincole is a regular migrant on the spring and autumn passages, in small numbers. April is when most of the spring records occurred. 

At the beginning of June 2016, I observed an Oriental Pratincole flying over rice fields in Vinh Phuc Province, 30 km from Hanoi. Being doubtful it was a late migrant bird, I followed it and finally found a small colony. Subsequent visits confirmed presence of ca 30 pairs. The birds were very sensitive to my presence as they were in breeding mode.

This is apparently the first confirmed breeding record of Oriental Pratincole in Tonkin (i.e. northern Vietnam).

Sébastien Delonglée

PS: I didn’t see any poachers in action - I think that is worthy of note...But disturbance is a big problem in the late afternoon when kids frequent the area to play football or fly kites.

This bird is performing a distraction display (feigning injury) to attract the photographer’s attention away from the nest or chicks (Vinh Phuc, June 26, 2016).

The site is a large piece of arid land (about 1.5 by 1 km) planned for industrial use. It looks like a shortgrass “steppe” with about 30 percent of the surface covered with stones. Nearby is a small river and there are some pools around. Cattle graze the area but they seems to avoid the stony places with very little grass cover (in the foreground) – which have been chosen by the Pratincoles for nesting sites. The other birds worthy of note were Savanna Nighjar and White Wagtail (2 + 1 individuals at pools on 26th June) - the latter common winter visitor/passage migrant but also listed as breeding resident in W. & E. Tonkin (Robson, 2009), something I was not aware of. 

Note: the mountain on the horizon is Tam Dao.

Oriental Pratincole (Vinh Phuc, June 26, 2016). 

Red River Island

Revisiting Red River Island this morning. The Island keeps changing, but luckily the little forest ist still there and was the best part. No pics, sorry (I can do only crappy ones anyway), just a short list:
Yellow Bittern, Chinese Pond Heron, Back-shouldered Kite, 2 male Pied Harriers, beautiful!, 1 female Hen Harrier (?) with a big Rat, Common Sandpiper, Oriental Pratincole, Spotted Dove, Chestnut-winged Cuckoo, Pied Kingfisher, 2 Burmes Shrikes, Black-naped Monarch, Grey-headed Canary Flycatcher, Sooty-headed Bulbul, Red-whiskered B., Dusky Warbler, Radde's Warbler, Arctic Warbler, a Seicercus Warbler, 2 singing Manchurian Reed Warblers, Lanceolated Warbler, Zitting Cisticola, Plain and Yellow-bellied Prinias all over the place, a nice male Yellow-rumped Fly, Taiga Fly, a pair of Bluethroats, Mynas flying over, pobably Crested, White Wagtail, Olive-backed Pipits.

Very nice morning!
Florian

Late post - for the record

Sorry I'm a bit late to this site, so just wanting to record a sighting for the Red River island:
21st August, 23 Oriental Pratincole, heading north. Also a flock of ca 6 blue-breasted quail (apparently seen since).
And sorry for not joining yesterday - I might go tomorrow, though
nicholas