We have a rare afternoon off today, which is a good thing as there is a torrential rain going on, despite this being the dry season.
We are finding the birding in V difficult. Many of the species are shy and skulking. Yesterday, we focused attention on two species of Laughing Thrushes. We saw our first LT in Bhutan years ago, the spectacular White-crested LT. This turns out to be the easy one to see. All the others have proved either impossible (Orange-bellied) or difficult (the others).
We saw the first of the pair, Black-collared Laughing Thrush as we watched 10 of them fly across the road one at a time. We did have good looks at some of them as they neared one side of the road before taking off.
That was a prelude to the main event, the search for the Chestnut-eared. Our guide, Bao, heard the bird and played a recording to lure it closer. Eventually, we saw one zip across a trail in the forest from right to left. Then, we saw it zip across the trail from left to right.
This bit of teasing lasted for about an hour, during which we saw one, or probably two, birds repeatedly. I was beginning to wonder if we would ever see them well. Bao put some meal worms on the trail as an additional lure. That worked. One bird stopped for about a second during the zip to snatch a treat.
We continued watching, catching tantalizing glimpses of the birds at the edge of the trail. Finally, one bird stopped for a few seconds at the meal worm spot, long enough to provide everyone in our group a "countable tick."
High fives all around.
Nguyen Bao, our guide for the trip, was one of the people to rediscover this bird in 1998, and his photo from 2010 is the gold standard for this species. Needless to say, we did not get a good shot of either of these two Laughing Thrushes.
We did get a wonderful photo of two Crested Treeswifts as the female preened the male. Photos in Vietnam have been few. I'll try posting some later.
