Western Baray and Wat Atwea, Siem Reap 29th September

The Western Baray was largely inaccessible today due to the increase in water levels, and viewing from the perimeter with the SVC guides this morning suggested that most of the habitat that the lapwings have been using is now underwater. 6 immature Black-crowned Night-Heron and a couple of Black-capped Kingfisher were present along with a bunch of distant terns. Also Pale-legged Leaf Warbler, Indochinensis Asian Paradise Flycatcher and Black-naped Monarch showed in the scrub around the southern edge.
After the disappointment of not getting onto the Baray, Naran (Chen Sophal) took me to Wat Atwea south of Siem Reap city because he had heard a lot of birds around there a couple of days ago.
In a couple of hours we recorded

2 Forest Wagtail
2 Black-naped Oriole
2 Hainan Blue Flycatcher
1 male odd Cyornis (Chinese/klossi Blue-throated type)
3 Taiga Flycatcher
6-7 Asian Brown Flycatcher
10+ Arctic Warbler
Yellow-browed Warbler, calling and seen
1 Black-browed Reed Warbler
as well as a Peregrine, displaying pair of Shikra, 2 Black-capped Kingfisher and many Common Kingfishers.

Asian Brown Flycatcher

Forest Wagtail

Hainan Blue Flycather

Cyornis flycatcher

Orange extending only a short way up the throat, and fairly washed out/pale orange.

Taiga Fly

Cambodian Striped Squirrel Tamiops rodolphei The two sets of stripes down the back are similar in size, with the inner tending to be more buff-orange than outer ones. Back of neck and and top of head dull brown in Cambodia. Outer pale stripe continuous with pale stripe on side of head. From Francis (2008): A Guide to the Mammals of Southeast Asia.

These Cyornis are very interesting, this one being similar to this bird seen in Hanoi just a few days ago. I'm very much learning about these birds from a low base, but the current situation seems very uncertain at present. As mentioned there the assigning of these birds to klossi Blue-throated is unsatisfactory unless there are other as yet undetected populations of Blue-throated present to the north of Indochina. I imagine that there may well be more revelations about this group following the splits of Chinese C. glaucicomans from Blue-throated C. rubeculoides and Large C. magnirostris from Hill C. banyumas, because it doesn't look to be resolved from here!

Rob Martin