Friday, September 27, 2013

IRRI is a wader wonderland - 28th Sept

Typhoon Odette left us on early Wednesday morning, promptly followed by the Oriental Plovers which were last seen by me on Tuesday afternoon. Most of the other birds in their field had also left, namely all the Snipe spp. and Oriental Pratincoles. A few Pacific Golden Plovers were all that remained.

The change in weather brought in a new crop of passage birds though, with a Common Greenshank on Friday evening, and on Saturday morning the Common Redshank had been joined by a Red-necked Phalarope and a Kentish Plover. There were also a scattering of Long-toed Stints and Black-winged Stilts as well as hundreds of newly arrived Whiskered Terns.

A second look in the afternoon revealed the long-staying Marsh Sandpiper, as well as a Rufous-necked Stint and lots more Long-toed Stints.

On Sunday most of the above were still present.

Juvenile Red-necked Phalarope. My second of this species at IRRI (the first was on Oct 25th 2011), still a very unusual bird inland in The Philippines.
... the Red-necked Phalarope was still present on Sunday morning.

The Common Redshank is still present, but very flighty.



Kentish Plover. Very scarce at IRRI, and usually in mid-winter.
Common Greenshank in very bad light on Friday evening
Rufous-necked Stint. Another rare, but annual, passage migrant at IRRI that is much commoner at the coast.
Long-toed Stint. Quite a few scattered around today where there were none on Friday.
One of about a dozen Black-winged Stilts present this weekend


Whiskered Terns
 A pair of Red Turtle Doves.

A very cool looking skink in my driveway after a great morning's birding.

1 comment:

  1. Nice to see some waterbirds that we get here in HK, too.

    But the skink looks exceptional !

    ReplyDelete