BirdForum is the net's largest birding community dedicated to wild birds and birding, and is absolutely FREE!

Register for an account to take part in lively discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jos Stratford" data-source="post: 3152740" data-attributes="member: 12449">How come wherever you go in the world you end up doing something weird like crawling around on the ground behind public toilets? For this particular occasion though, the blame can firmly sit with BF's James Andrews ...a week before my departure, he'd sent me a message promising bountiful rewards if I found a hole in the wall of the campsite toilet and then proceeded to stick my head through it. Hmm, sounded a good recipe for getting arrested, but how can you not abide by such instruction?So, having pitched my tent at the far corner of the campsite, butting up against the stream in the hope of an elephant or something at night, I wandered over to the said toilet block and without much effort located the hole. On my knees, I stuck my head through, shone the spotlight and, hey presto, just as promised there was the reward, or to be truthful, three sets of rewards all squinting back at me ... beady little eyes from a scruffball of fur and spines! Weird looking creatures indeed, the animals were Brush-tailed Porcupines, two at the far end of the cavity and a third just across from the entrance. These were certainly an unexpected bonus, many thanks to James.So with toilet duties over, I then spent the remaining hours of the afternoon walking the road section above the campsite, specifically the forest zones between three streams that cut across the track. Phylloscs everywhere, I pretended I couldn't see them. Better, good views of both Common and Greater Flamebacks, a hyper gaudy Green Magpie and both Emerald Doves and Thick-billed Green Pigeons. Also nice mixed flocks of bulbuls, including several Ochraceous Bulbuls, and yet more Asian Fairy Bluebirds, the day tally of these was sitting at well in excess of 40 now, far more than I had been expecting. Perhaps the best birds of the day though, found when stomping through a particularly dense area of forest on the tracks of a Gaur, were the twin treats of first an Orange-breasted Trogon sitting quietly in the mid-layers, then, after considerable effort, the absolutely cracking Chestnut-breasted Malkoha, the latter a fair-sized bird, but amazingly adept at being able to slip through thick foliage virtually unseen!Pretty good day for primates too - in addition to the splendid White-handed Gibbons seen periodically through the day, plenty of Dusky Langurs too and a large group of Stump-tailed Macaques.Back at the campsite, I set up my trip cam next to the toilets, then retired for the evening. One White-faced Scops Owl started to call, but sounded rather distant.</blockquote>

Verification