As I travel three or four times a year for work this is a regular source of interesting birds for me:
Delhi, September 2011:
In India for a 2-day conference I had no time to explore farther afield and all my birding was done from the verandah of my third floor room in the elegant Claridges Hotel in a very leafy district of Delhi close to Lodhi Park. I was fortunate enough to be in an end room, hard up against a copse of mature trees that included a couple of casuarinas, several tree with small but clearly attractive fruit and a couple of palms. My birding was limited to a couple of hours at dawn on two mornings and an afternoon.
I was roused by the pre-dawn bubbling of a
Linneated Barbet and then blasted out of any vestiges of slumber by rapier-tailed squadrons of
Ring-necked Parakeets blasting between the treetops and over the roofs shrieking like banshees, yellow underwings flashing in the first rays of the sun. An immaculate
White-throated Kingfisher flipped up into the casuarina, delivered a couple its mocking fanfare, and flashed off in a riot of dazzling blue.
The first birds in the trees right next to the balcony were a nice-but-dim-seeming party of grey-brown soft-plumaged
Jungle Babblers and a funereal
Asian Koel. They were joined by four L
inneated Barbets, Red-whiskered and Red-vented Bulbuls and a much smaller
Purple Sunbird. Black Kites were emerging out of the trees and drifting about at eye-level, and small groups on
Indian Pond Herons and
Cattle Egrets began heading eastwards.
House Crows put in a typically seedy appearance along with several
Common Mynas and a pair of
Magpie Robins, three or four
Black Drongos looped casually over and a
Large-billed Crow flapped steadily by.
I was very pleased to eventually enjoy wonderful close-up views of a couple of handsome
Yellow-footed Green Pigeon, an elegant combination of dove- grey crown and nuchal collar with fine yellow feet and leggings adding a perfect counterpoint of colour. Overhead a
Besra was harassed out of sight by some parakeets, while small bands of
House Swifts and the odd
Barn Swallow drifted over.
The highlight of the afternoon was a surprise
Brahminy Starling, while
Common Tailorbird was a familiar friend from home, and a
YBW-like phyllosc and a
Lesser Whitethroat reminded me that autumn migration was well underway. I also had an
unidentified falcon that swept away out of sight without so much as a wingbeat. I suspect Hobby, but a suspicion is all it is.
The most surprising bird was preceded by a clear piping call and I zipped round to the edge of the verandah just in time to see a
Red-Wattled Lapwing landing on the roof! Looking up from here a few
Ring-necked Parakeets were in the top of the casuarina, one of them dangling casually upside-down for no very good reason except that the branch was bending. Sill, it seemed perfectly happy, so who am I to judge?
25 species plus a
stripy squirrel sp. in a couple of hours was a great return, especially given the limited birding opportunities – wonderful India! On a subsequent trip I had Green Peafowl and again Red-wattled Lapwing at an airport hotel.
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=320969
Phuket, Thailand, April 2013
My conference is in the Hilton Arcadia, which is set in very nice grounds built around a set of lakes and canals.It all started well as within one minute of stepping onto the balcony of my room a flying lizard entered horizontally stage right and stuck itself onto the trunk of a coconut palm! Since then I've been racking up quite a list with highlights including Indian Roller being chased by what I think are Black Drongos, while the visible water has already played host to Little Cormorant, Openbill Stork, Striated Heron and a family of White-breasted Waterhens. Other birds I haven't seen for a while include Zebra Dove, Little Green Pigeon, Vinous-breatsed Starling, Coppersmith Barbet (heard only so far), and an unidentified oriole, while the never silent Common Myna, Koel and Greater Cocual provide the mood music.
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico December 2014:
Having checked into the Fiesta Americana hotel I was rather blown away by the group of 20-odd Magnificent Frigatebirds cruising casually over the beachfront and even the pool – often coming to within ten metres of the building! Looking a bit further out to sea numerous splashes hinted at a healthy population of dolphin (they are Bottle-nosed Dolphins here) , and even better a couple of adult Blue-footed Boobies wandered a little offshore from the frigatebirds and the odd Brown Pelican.
Dead Sea, Jordan April 2015:
This morning the breeze was blowing gently inshore across the Dead Sea, but before I even found that out I was surprised to see a Red-rumped Swallow land in the tree right outside my room. It was also interesting to figure out that the low buzz I’d heard a couple of mornings pre-dawn was coming from the resident Pale Crag Martins, which I never heard calling at any other time of day throughout my stay.
Dubai October 2016:
I did also see a few birds from my hotel at the Festival City Intercontinental. Every morning six or eight Caspian Terns were patrolling the creek and even came in close to search the inlet between the helicopter pads. A pair of Green Bee-eaters appeared to be nesting in one of the rather lonely-looking trees on the esplanade. Other bits and pieces seen far down the creek included a couple of large white-headed gulls, a Curlew and a couple more Red-wattled Lapwings, but really this visit was all about a cracking morning in the park.
I see many more birds on holiday of course, when the hotels are oftenchosen because they are in good habitat, but one noteworthy surprise came from borrowing a friends house in
Port Fairy near Melbourne:
" . . .and woke to find a superb location looking out over a low cliff to the surf of the Southern Ocean crashing onto a reef of black basalt rocks about 100 metres offshore. We were incredibly fortunate to be able to stay at the beautiful beachfront house of a generous work colleague, which meant that every one of our four days here began for me with a scan beyond the surf to see how many albatrosses were on view! Yes you did read that right – albatrosses! I had been disappointed to learn on my arrival on Friday evening that the planned pelagics would not be going and I resigned myself to once again missing out (after twice being denied by the weather in Cape Town) on a trip that would likely deliver these wonderful birds. Enjoying up to a dozen - two
Black-browed and ten Shy Albatrosses and my first
Giant Petrel sp. (albeit an all-dark juvenile that even in my greatest flights of optimism I could not identify to species) made a terrific start to each day – especially as many of these birds were planing majestically along no more than a couple of hundred metres offshore. I learned that the best way to separate them was on the width of the dark borders to the underwings (Shy = narrow, Black-browed = broader) and the more yellow toned bill of Black-browed. I searched in vain for the smaller and mostly black-billed Yellow-nosed Albatross, which is also supposed to be one to look for inshore, but this really didn’t matter as having such a spectacle without even leaving the house was the real highlight for me of the whole trip.
A bit further offshore a shearwater was passing in small numbers. They were too far away to be safely identified as either
Hutton’s or Fluttering Shearwaters, but were certainly one or the other.
Australian Gannets were more identifiable – but this was a rather easier ID challenge due to the lack of alternatives – although
Cape Gannet have bred along the Victorian coast in the not too distant past.
Other birds on the basalt rocks in from of the house included, a couple of both Sooty and Australian Pied Oystercatchers – a regular 70
Greater Crested Terns, a smattering of
Silver Gulls, a pair each of pale-footed
Kelp Gulls and the fabulous
Pacific Gull, with a humungous orange wedge of a bill and all dark primaries. I thought I had a small wader as a monochrome small bird flipped onto one of the outermost rocks. My hopes it might be a Hooded Plover were dashed when on landing it revealed an all-white face and big black breast band like a leucopsis White Wagtail – except it had no tail – leaving me completely baffled. What on earth was a piebald blobby passerine doing bobbing around on the wave-washed rocks? A few minutes later a group of four of these striking passerines landed within 30 yards of me, and my frantic flicking through the pages of Pizzey and Knight resolved my conundrum – the terrific
White-fronted Chat. Any thoughts about the birds appearing either in this habitat or this time of the year would be most welcome.
The native bushes in front of the house delivered a few trash birds –
Eurasian Starling, European Greenfinch, European Greenfinch, but also some local quality in the form of a pair of
Singing Honeyeaters, while a trio of
Masked Lapwings patrolled the lawn on either side of the road, and on the final morning a couple of
Nankeen Kestrels and a
Collared Sparrowhawk kept the
Australian Magpies in good voice.
The video link captures the watchpoint and
Australian Magpies that came each morning to see if I was going to give them any food.
[url]http://youtu.be/otfSIE3gjfAhttp://youtu.be/otfSIE3gjfA[/URL]
Cheers
Mike