House Sparrow in downtown Phnom Penh

One male House Sparrow in a flock of c.10 Tree Sparrow feeding on the pavement outside the BirdLife office (No. 9, St. 29) in Phnom Penh at lunchtime today (11 September 2012).

The bird was in immaculate plumage, flew strongly, didn't come to bread etc and showed no signs of having been released at a nearby wat so presumably this was a wild bird - as far as I am aware this is the first record of this species in downtown Phnom Penh - it was only a matter of time before House Sparrow spread into the city.

In far less interesting news there was a Brown Shrike at Wat Phnom this morning. 

Simon Mahood

Sharp-tailed Sandpiper at ATT

A first for Cambodia. On 9th September an SVC guide training trip found an adult Sharp-tailed Sandpiper at Ang Trapaeng Thmor. Here it is!

 Left, with a Wood Sandpiper

 Same again

with a Common Greenshank

It was certainly not the only highlight of the day, which had started with this group of approximately 3.75 Milky Stork and about 1.25 Painted Stork. 

The hybrid is partly hidden at the back, but the other three look pretty good for 'clean' Milky's. 

Another excellent bird seen well, if distantly was this Short-toed Snake-Eagle, another species with few Cambodian records against it's name. 

However, it was the waders that were the stars of the show today, with an excellent 23 species recorded. 

A Turnstone was a lifer for several guides as was Ruff, and other good species included a Broad-billed Sandpiper, at least 3 Long-toed Stint, one juvenile Red-necked Stint, and 2 Lesser Sandplover. A Greater Painted Snipe trailing two fluffy chicks was also great to see. 

 Turnstone

Red-necked Stint

A fabulous day, and great training in those tricky waders that must come through Cambodia every year. 

Check List Of ATT (Sarus Crane Protected Area)
On Sep 01st 2012

Bird List

Location: ATT                         Date:  01-09-2012                               Time:  Full day

Habitat: Rice field, Wetland, Shrub, Reservoir , open country, Mudflat

Participants:  Chea, Johnny, Kunthear, Naran, Sophoan, Heng,Mardy,Da

Leader: Mardy Sean

1.          Comb Duck    ( 50+ )

2.      Cotton Pygmy-goose  ( 200+ )

3.      Indian Spot-billed Duck  ( 3 )

4.      Little Grebe   ( 3 )

5.      Lesser Whistling Duck  ( 30+ )

6.      Milky Stork  ( 2 )

7.      Painted Stork   ( 200+ )

8.      Asian Openbill   ( 15 )

9.      Greater Adjutant   ( 10 )

10.  Black-headed Ibis   (50 )

11.  Little Cormorant (3)

12.  Great Cormorant   ( 10+)

13.  Yellow Bittern  (5)

14.  Cinnamon Bittern ( 6 )

15.  Black Bittern  ( 1 )

16.  Grey Heron   ( 10 )

17.  Purple Heron  ( 1 )

18.  Spot-billed Pelican   ( 60+ )

19.  Pond-heron SP  ( 20+ )

20.  Eastern Cattle Egret  ( Common )

21.  Little Egret          ( 30+ )

22.  Intermediate Egret       ( 5 )

23.  Great Egret       ( 4 )

24.  Black-shouldered Kite       ( 3 )

25.  Watercock        ( 5 )

26.  Black-backed Swamphen      ( 4 )

27.  Black-winged Stilt        ( 30+ 2juv )

28.  Pheasant-tailed Jacana       ( 2 )

29.  Bronze-winged Jacana        ( 5 )

30.  Oriental Practincole       ( 50 +)

31.  Red-wattled Lapwing        ( 5 )

32.  Lesser Sandplover        ( 6 )

33.  Greater Sandplover       (1 )

34.  Oriental Plover        ( 1 )

35.  Pacific Golden Plover   ( 5 )

36.  Little-ringed Plover       ( 3 )

37.  Common-ringed Plover       ( 10+ )

38.   Pintail Snipe       ( 2 )

39.  Bar-tailed Godwit      ( 5 )

40.  Wood Sandpiper       ( 3 )

41.  Common Greenshank      (10+ )

42.  Spotted Redshank       ( 5 )

43.  Common Redshank         ( 2 )

44.  Marsh Sandpiper        ( 1 )

45.  Red-necked Stint         ( 10+ )

46.  Broad-billed Sandpiper         ( 5 )

47.  Whiskered Tern      ( 30+ )

48.  Rock Pigeon              ( 20 )

49.  Spotted Dove               ( 5 )

50.  Red-collared Dove              ( 10 )

51.  Zebra Dove                ( 6 )

52.  Asian Palm-swift       ( Common )

53.  Common Kingfisher      ( 2 )

54.  Pied Kingfisher               ( 3 )

55.  Blue-tailed Bee-eater     ( 10+ )

56.  Little Green Bee-eater    ( 3 )

57.  Scarlet Minivet     ( 1 )

58.  Southern Jungle Crow      ( 2 )

59.  Brown Shrike                 ( 3 )

60.  Olive-backed Sunbird               ( V )

61.  Scarlet-backed Flowerpecker       ( 1 )

62.  Eurasian Treesparrow           ( 15 )

63.  Scaly-breasted Munia                ( 10 )

64.  Paddyfield Pipit                ( 5 )

65.  Eastern Yellow Wagtail              ( 2 )

66.  Streaked Weaver               ( 10 +)

67.  Baya Weaver        ( Common )

68.  White-vented Myna                ( 20+ )

69.  Common Myna         ( Common )

70.  Black-collared Starling               ( 5 )

71.  Eastern Stonechat         ( 5 )

72.  Pied Bushchat              ( 3 )

73.  Yellow-vented Bulbul          ( 1 )

74.  Streak-eared Bulbul          ( 1 )

75.  Barn Swallow        ( 10+ )

76.  Plain Prinia          (  5 )

77.  Yellow-bellied Prinia         ( 1 )

78. Common Tailorbird V

This is the photo of Oriental plover as we all agreed .

We saw this one at ATT quite early on September, today.

1st Sep 2012
   This morning SVC group, Mardy, Johnny, Sophoan, Naran, Chea, Kunthea, Sokheng and our Drvier Mr. Da went to visit ATT Sarus Crane protected Area. Today we saw such wonderful and it was an unforgettable trip ever has. 10 Greater Adjutants are feeding among hundreds of Painted storks and 2 Milky stork are seen there in the reservoir, but one bird, Oriental Plover was standing over there which made all of us really happy with any species of Wader such as;
-Common Ring plover
-Little Ring Plover
-Lesser and Greater Sand Plover
-Common and Spotted Red Shank
-Common Green Shank
-Wood and Marsh Sandpiper

-Barred Tailed Godwit etc

Just outside Phnom Penh...

On 5th August Ashish John, Colin Poole and Simon Mahood visited an area of pools and waste ground just outside of Phnom Penh and amongst other things saw:
3 River Lapwing
3 Lesser Sandplover
2 Greater Sandplover
3 +1 Alexandrine Parakeet
1 Robert van Zalinge

Dear All, on Jun 15, 2012, during a search for Gaur tracks in Western Siem Pang, Stung Treng Province in NE Cambodia, we (Mem Mai and Thomas Kuenzel) found a nest with 5 eggs which we tentatively identified as being from Blue-winged Pitta (Pitta moluccensis). We found the nest well camouflaged on the ground only because a bird suddenly left the ground a few meter in front of us. The relatively dark forest habitat were we flashed the bird did not allow for identification – from what we saw from the bird flying away low over the forest floor we were even not sure if it was a Pitta or not.

But we heard BWPitta calling in that part of the forest – DDF with bamboo parts along small streams.

After a short search we got aware about a relatively large dome-shaped grass formation  – and this was indeed a nest with difficult to see side entrance and with 5 eggs. Never before we saw Pitta eggs and were surprised about their relatively large size, but found later in Robson 2008 given sizes of 24-28.9 and 20-22.9 mm, and that the species is „fairly common to common breeding visitor“ in Cambodia beside nearly all over SE Asia.

According to Frédéric Goes (Birds of Cambodia - an annotated checklist) this would be  the first documented BWPitta nest in Cambodia, provided egg ID is confirmed.

We would like to ask if anybody is experienced enough with eggs to identify them. Photo will be sent to anybody who is interested in and who gives us an email address – for some technical reasons I am not able to add the photo here.

Thanks, and best regards, Thomas (thomaskuenzel2@yahoo.de) and Mai, both BirdLife Cambodia Programme, WSP PPF.