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Good birds seen from restaurants (1 Viewer)

Chris D said:
I love this thread. It's bringing me back into this forum. There definitely is something to be said for watching birds while relaxing with food and drink. Especially with the topic up close and personal. I hope Tim Allwood has more to say.
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There you are, Tim, the challenge is out! I don't know you, of course, but having re-read your contribution to this thread, I'd be even more impressed if you can improve on that!
Just to spread the possibilities a bit, I remember a few of us climbing Meall nam Tarmachan in Perthshire, Scotland about 12 Easters ago and having 2 or 3 snow buntings hopping about while we ate our sandwiches. A simple pleasure, perhaps!
By the way, Chris D, I'm glad that this thread seems to be giving you as much pleasure as it is giving me. I agree with what you say, combining "birds" with "relaxing."
Allen

P.S. my 100th post!
 
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OK here's a nice one

250 km up the Rio de Las Piedras (almost unfrequented by birders before) in Amzonian Peru. We'd hired a boat and just gone for it. We hacked out a camp by the riverside and bought some Peccary off some loggers. We cooked it up with veg n rice and sat eating it in the forest that night with plenty of Rum going round. And then the Great Pottos and owls starting calling and the stars were just soooo beautiful. Heaven on Earth. Hangover in the morning though.

Tim
 
Crabcakes, Herons, Egrets and Ospreys

Allen S. Moore said:
Here's one combining my two great enthusiams, birds and eating! Has anyone shared my luck of seeing good birds while dining in a restaurant, or other eating (or drinking?) establishments?


I am a fairly new poster and I think this is a great question! My family and I enjoyed some nice crabcakes at a restaurant on the Chesapeake Bay while the Herons, Egrets were flying by the windows and the Ospreys were fishing. It was a wonderful experience!
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Lesser Scaup from the restaurant beside Auchencreoch Loch in Dumfries & Galloway.

Blue Whistling Thrush on the tables at Ray Lai beach in Krabi Province, Thailand.

I am sure there are others but these two are more memorable than the rest.

David
 
Nightjay whilst eating at the Ley Ley resteraunt just outside Dalyan in Turkey this August.

Also - at another resteraunt outside Dalyan, the Golbasi, you can use their pedalo for free to paddle through the marsh, from which we had Little Bitterns down to about 30 feet, again this August.

Both serve excellent Turkish food, and to cap it off, collect you from your hotel and bring you home by bus for free!
 
A climbing trip in the French Alps which was pretty much my first foreign trip. Day 3 find us high above the Argentiere glacier at one of the mountain refuges. Sitting on the terrace in the morning sun having breakfast with Alpine Choughs hoping for scraps and a few Alpine Accentors feeding around us. A small grey and red bird appears on the rock face behind the Accentors. It doesn't take bins to see that this is a Wallcreeper. Not bad for something like my fifth new bird outside of Britain.

Stuart
 
Brown Pelicans and several gulls while eating on Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco (forget which restaurant - it's that big Italian restauraaunt that looks down over the docks with all the Sea lions)
 
How has everyone got on with the subject of this thread in the last year?
In Perth on 15th July we had lunch at the "Lucky Shag" bar and saw 4 cormorant species around about, as well as my first aus. pelican ever and the first of many capsian terns of the holiday. Not a bird, 'tis true, but on 18th July we were in "Quokka's Arms" on Rottnest Island, and one quokka came in (followed me), and then another; they brawled, leaving a few tufts of hair just outside the toilets. The next day we dined at Hillarys Harbour, and I saw my only eastern reef egret of the holiday.

On 27th July I had breakfast at Lake Barrine tearooms (Atherton Tableland, above Cairns), watching an aus. brush-turkey strolling around below and a Lewin's honeyeater looking for scraps under the next table. However, when I mentioned to a local birdwatcher called John on Cairns Esplanade 2 days later that I had not seen Victoria's riflebird, he said that they are in the trees above the gardens by the tearooms!

On 1st August I was eating my breakfast in Kingfisher Bay resort restaurant on Fraser Island, and a grey shrike thrush came in the window and hopped about, a lovely bird!
 
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What a great thread. I wasn't on BF last year, so great to see it resurrected.

Not strictly a restaurant bird, but during a lunch break in the carpark at Mai Po, a Cinereous Black Vulture flew over. Not one of the memebrs of the Japanese bird tour group moved a muscle or even looked up. In Japan, it seems, lunchtime, is without exception, for lunch!

However, in a serious breach of ettiquette I have enjoyed both Japanese Cranes and White-tailed Eagles from a very funky pink restaurant overlooking the Ochi-ishi River near Lake Furen in easern Hokkaido.

I've also scoped Pied Falconet while waiting for lunch to be cooked at Wuyuan in Jiangxi, China.
 
Mocha said:
I also managed to see an Ivory Gull while drinking a pint of beer and playing pool in a pub...
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I can't recall if I ate anything - but I did see a White-billed Diver from the Coble landing pub in Filey and a Pallas's Warbler from the Rose and Crown in Spurn.

I've never combined a fine dining experience with birds but can recall a Scops Owl in a restaurant on Lesvos, huge raptor, stork and swift movements over various places in southern Spain, Whiskered Tern, Asian Palm Swift and Peaceful Dove (under my chair) in Bangkok
 
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Jane Turner said:
I can't recall if I ate anything - but I did see a White-billed Diver from the Coble landing pub in Filey and a Pallas's Warbler from the Rose and Crown in Spurn.

I've never combined a fine dining experience with birds but can recall a Scops Owl in a restaurant on Lesvos, huge raptor, stork and swift movements over various places in southern Spain, Whiskered Tern, Asian Palm Swift and Peaceful Dove (under my chair) in Bangkok
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Speaking of combining fine dining with birding, a Danish biriding mate told me he was fed two species of endemic pigeon while being held captive by rebels in Mindanao in the Philippines a few years ago. They let him go when they decided he wasn't an American spy!
 
Whilst in the Okavango delta we were lucky enough to see lots whilst eating but my two favourites were a Nightjar which flew around our campfire a few times one night, the only one I've ever seen, and Crested Barbet which I thought was fantastic, once seen never forgotten !

Richard
 
Not a bird, but a was in a restaurant in Malaysia, when a pangolin - a lifer - literally walked through the door. I was very excited, and a bit drunk, and so failed to noticed a drain as I followed it around the restaurant and out into the garden. I fell down the drain - luckily dry - and scrapped most of the skin off the inside of my arm. The luckily the owners had a new first aid kit, which they seemed very proud of, and I was immediately treated.

Steve
 
I forget the name of the restaurant (Fat Daddy's?), but I had a flock of emperor geese fly by a restaurant window in Nome.
 
I may be mis-remembering this but I'm sure I saw the Lundy Veery from the island's pub! Also more impressively, I remember having lunch in a sheltered gully in the hills out here when a white-tailed eagle came gliding through the pass very low (c10ft) over our heads!!

Definite case of red ridinghood My what big beak you've got and my what big feet you've got. And I don't think it was the sandweiches it was eyeing up either!!

Cheers
Andrew
 
Jane Turner said:
I've never combined a fine dining experience with birds but can recall a Scops Owl in a restaurant on Lesvos, huge raptor, stork and swift movements over various places in southern Spain, Whiskered Tern, Asian Palm Swift and Peaceful Dove (under my chair) in Bangkok
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Peaceful Doves - fine little birds.
With all my comments about the Canaries, the Ebro Delta and, now, Australia, I had failed to mention the great birdwatching-while-dining experience here in the Isle of Man. There is a restaurant in the SW corner at the Calf Sound from which anyone can see flocks of choughs, as well as other birds, seals, basking sharks in some summers and possibly cetaceans. Trouble is, I don't usually have anything to eat when I go there, as I am too busy watching the choughs on 90% of my visits!
Allen
 
Well, a fine bird joined me for dinner outside a cafe!

Allen S. Moore said:
Here's one combining my two great enthusiams, birds and eating! Has anyone shared my luck of seeing good birds while dining in a restaurant, or other eating (or drinking?) establishments? I arrived in the Delta Hotel in Deltebre in the middle of the Ebro Delta little over 4 years ago, sat down in the restaurant, ordered my meal and looked outside to see a whiskered tern flying about over the rice paddies close by. I know that they are common in the Ebro Delta, but I had never seen the species before.
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I was on Lord Howe Island last week, a great place. On Friday I was sitting outside the shop / cafe called Thompson's, close to the lagoon, and a female of the endemic subspecies of the golden whistler flew along and landed on the next chair. While I was searching for my camera, it fluttered up, stole a chip (fry) and flew off with it! A buff-banded rail was strolling about, looking for crumbs.

I'm in Cairns now. The Great barrier Reef beckons!

Allen
 
Too many to list but,notably:pine Grosbeak from two different restaurants(the latter serving an amazing salmon soup) within a couple of days somewhere in northern Finland,Great Spotted Cuckoo in Cyprus and 7 Black Bazas in Thailand.
 
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