Good birds seen from restaurants (1 Viewer)

Birdingcraft · Oct 26, 2008

Yes, good thread- great memories! I dont even know where to start!

My number one is probably the cafe at the campground in Khao Yai, Thailand where you can sit down to good, cheap Thai and casually watch the birds visiting the kitchen midden. Birds like Coral-billed Ground Cuckoo, Orange-headed Thrush, Sib. Blue Robin, and Blue Whistling Thrush as well as others I did not see.

Today I was at the Cinchona cafe in Costa Rica being entertained by Emerald Toucanet, Red-headed and Prong-billed Barbets, several Tanager and Hummingbird species and others.

As for nature lodges, while working at the Tambopata Research Center, southeast Peru, we had to routinely stop dining when mixed flocks of Nunbirds, Woodcreepers, Antbirds, Barbets, etc. passed through nearby forest edge or to look at Goulds Jewelfront visiting the heliconias.
It was also sometimes tough to finish a meal at Bellavista in Tandayapa, Ecuador.

joannec · Oct 26, 2008

Great thread. I missed it earlier. While at a restaurant in Central Oregon I watched two varied thrushes through the window scratching about. I'd first seen one earlier that day, a lifer and watched them so intently I don't remember what I had to eat. Also brown pelicans and Heermanns gulls from a seaside restaurant in Monterey, California. There are others but these are the two that spring to mind.

Joanne

Mike Montier · Oct 26, 2008

I could keep this thread going for months just on my own!! I love to eat out, especially when birding abroad. Loads of memories flooding back so a great thread...having Clam Chowder in Florida looking out over the Keys is probably the best so far, all those Egrets to sort out whilst having that wonderful soup. Oh, and the Key Lime Pie was pretty good too..

Patrick_L · Oct 26, 2008

Clark's Nutcracker on the terrace of the restaurant at the top of Whistler Mountain, BC.

Better than your average scabby Crow.

Barred Wobbler · Oct 26, 2008

The first time I went to Mallorca we dropped the cases into our hotel in Puerto Pollensa and went straight out for lunch at a sea-front restaurant. As we were eating our paella I looked up to see my first ever black vulture overhead having its wing-tips assaulted by an Audouin's gull.

A good start to the trip.

Allen S. Moore · Oct 26, 2008

At Kingfisher Bay on Fraser Island 2 weeks ago avian visitors at breakfast included a grey shrike thrush with a fledgling, lewin's honeyeaters and a bar shouldered dove. The first 2 species came up on the table.
Allen

steve west · Oct 29, 2008

Hotel Mediodía in the Pyrenees of Aragón, Spain: Lammergeier from the restaurant, Siskins from my bedroom, Wryneck in the garden and Wallcreeper just down the road, all on the same day in April.

Steve
http://www.BirdingInSpain.com

Larry Lade · Oct 29, 2008

Two "lifers" while I was dining!

Snail Kite, (March 8, 1997) while eating some "Indian fry bread" for lunch at the Miccosukee Indian Restrauant on the Tamiami Trail (US Highway 41) in the Everglades of Florida.

A pair of Jackson's Hornbills, (February 15, 2004) came to a feeder just outside the dining hall at a lodge in Baringo, Kenya, while I was eating lunch.

edenwatcher · Oct 29, 2008

Blakiston's fish owl whilst having dinner at Yoroushi on Hokkaido in Feb this year. It stayed in view for 2 hours!
Short-tailed nighthawk whilst eating breakfast in Costa Rica.
Mottled owl whilst having dinner at Maquipucuna in Ecuador - it alerted us to its presence as the branch it landed on snapped under its weight!

Rob

jc122463 · Oct 29, 2008

There are so many good "restaurant sitings", from watering holes in Africa to hummingbird feeders in Ecuador, that it's hard to think of just one. It is hard to top the Tropical Screech-owl that roosts in the dining room at La Selva, Ecuador though!

Larry Lade · Oct 29, 2008

I will not soon forget all the hummingbird species coming to the feeders outside the dining room at Sacha Lodge in the Amazon Basin in Ecuador, viz. Tawny-bellied Hermit, Baron's Hermit, Green Violetear, Sparkling Violetear, Black-throated Mango, Rufous-tailed Hummingbird, Purple-crowned Fairy, Andean Emerald, Fawn-breasted Brilliant, Empress Brilliant, Violet-tailed Sylph, Wedge-billed Hummingbird, White-bellied Woodstar, Brown Inca, etc.

joannec · Oct 29, 2008

Does this count? Hen harriers while eating my breakfast in a B&B on the Isle of Mull....pretty hard to beat first thing in the morning.:t:

Keithec · Oct 30, 2008

I was having a meal at a restaurant in Spain when I went outside to my car to fetch something - so I'm not sure whether this counts, it was between courses! - next to the car was a ditch and I became aware of a movement in a bush next to it. It took me a while to see what had attracted my attention. A little bittern was standing almost at the top in that typical bittern freeze posture!! This was the first time I had seen one and had a great view.

Location Allen? About three kilometres from Deltebre in the Ebro Delta!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Allen S. Moore · Nov 23, 2008

Lunch with Chowchilla

Allen S. Moore said:
At Kingfisher Bay on Fraser Island 2 weeks ago avian visitors at breakfast included a grey shrike thrush with a fledgling, lewin's honeyeaters and a bar shouldered dove. The first 2 species came up on the table.
Allen

Chowchilla and I had a day out around Cairns on 30th October and had lunch at "The Beach Place," Yorkie's Knob. A brahminy kite, my favourite Australian raptor, flew past, and there were 2 laughing kookaburras living up to their name just across the road.

Tony, thanks for a great day's birdwatching.

Allen

P.S. Although I "dipped" with chowchillas along Blackmountain Road, I saw 2 logrunners at O'Reilly's the following Saturday.

terry jz · Nov 24, 2008

stopped for a cuppa in a cafe on tamberine mountain in queensland Australia only to be attacked by rainbow lorikeets they were after the little packets of sugar one even became bold enough to drink from a cup still cant see why my wife and the locals were not as thrilled as me and my kids

Peter C. · Nov 24, 2008

My own favourite experience of this type had to be the dining room at Heron Island, which is just off the coast of Queensland, just north of the tropic; Buff-banded Rail would wander through the (rather posh) dining room, looking for scraps - definitely the easiest rail sighting I've ever had! (Silvereye would hop around on the tables, but they weren't such a surprise - those things were everywhere).

Peter C.

BTW, Larry;

Larry Lade said:
I will not soon forget all the hummingbird species coming to the feeders outside the dining room at Sacha Lodge in the Amazon Basin in Ecuador...

Surely you mean some other lodge! I've spent a week at Sacha, and found it very poor for hummingbirds (but, oh, the herons/toucans/antshikes/tanagers!). But wherever it was, must have been fantastic.

Pluvius · Nov 24, 2008

Monteiro's Hornbill Carp's tit Rosy faced Lovebirds Diedrich's Cuckoo Verraux's Eagle Speckled Pigeon Grey go away bird Damara Hornbill all from th Erongo Mountain Wilderness Lodge Restaurant

Sedgley · Nov 24, 2008

I am usually in restaurants at night so don't get to see any birds. I had breakfast with someone recently though at a Wetherspoons and found myself watching a pied wagtail feeding on the path outside the window.

matt2499 · Nov 25, 2008

Was on Stewart Island two weeks ago (New Zealand) booked a table at the Wharfside restaurant just the right time for sunset. Sat eating lovely food whilst watching Little Blue Penguins come in from sea to roost, literally metres away from where we were sat.
Back up birds included White-capped Albatross and White-fronted Terns

davem · Nov 25, 2008

Flamborough Head cafe, 2 Pallid Swifts one October afternoon.
Filey NCCP Cafe, juv Red-backed Shrike.
Tearooms near the lighthouse on St.Agnes in April 03, Rose-coloured Starling

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