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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JWN Andrewes" data-source="post: 3148666" data-attributes="member: 7131">Another day, another blind, another target. Too dark this one, for any meaningful attempt at photography with my unsophisticated kit, which a quick look at the first two montages below will confirm! More Buff-breasted Babblers, another Blue Whistling Thrush, and then a truly dazzling male Rufous-bellied Niltava; seldom does one see such deep colour saturation on a bird. And then the main event, a female Grey Peacock Pheasant, spent an age pecking away at the back of the clear area. Then it was back to roadside birding once more, with Blue-throated Barbet the first highlight, and then a bird wave added two more new species, Grey-throated Babbler & Yellow-vented Warbler, and by now Streaked Spiderhunter had replaced White-bellied Erpornis as the bird everyone else had seen but I kept missing! Further downhill we found Scarlet Minivet, Little Spiderhunter, a noisy party of White-necked Laughingthrushes and a perched up Eastern Buzzard before stopping at some picnic benches for lunch (omelettes, collected by Games from a house nearby). Large & Black-winged Cuckooshrikes showed well in the small trees below us, as did a Grey Treepie, (which to date had been one of those birds seen mostly in flight that seemed to know to the fraction of a second when optics were locked on and time its departure accordingly). A male Blue Rock Thrush was feeding on the lawn too, along with at least seven Olive-backed Pipits, with a Taiga Flycatcher sallying forth from the bushes. The first real interruption was provided by a couple of White-browed Scimitar-Babblers in the scrub off to the left. Then the shout went up of “raptor” and in came a Black Baza overhead, soon joined by another as it drifted off to the right, and another, and by the time they started to drift back left in the distance there were 17! Awesome birds! I also finally caught up with Streaked Spiderhunter here. Straight after lunch we headed back up to the top in the hopes of Rufous-necked Hornbill repeating the previous day’s fly-by (we’d been working a trail at the time and missed it; they’re semi-regular here, but far from guaranteed, usually flying by the campsite late afternoon). No sooner were we underway than we were stopping for a roadside flock of Striated Yuhinas. Once up at the top we worked the Burmese Yuhina area again, with nothing new to show for it, and then, wonder of wonders the Bear was back on view again! Different tree, similarly poor views to start with, but eventually it got up, yawned, stretched, scratched its backside on the trunk, climbed a little higher and started making a nest for the night! Brilliant! While watching the bear there were at least two, possibly three Bay Woodpeckers yelling their heads off, and eventually I managed flight views of one. Finished the day watching Himalayan Swiftlets hawking in the valley, before heading back to base. More owling after supper, but nothing showing.PicsGrey Peacock PheasantBlue Whistling ThruahOlive-backed Pipits (how many can you see)Blue Rock ThrushAsiatic Black Bear</blockquote>

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