Hindhede 23Dec06

Following reports of the blue-and-white flycatcher and various species of thrushes, Danny & JS, Con, Kong and I headed to Hindhede Nature Park. When we reached the carpark at 7:30 am, it was raining. By 8 am, the rain had stopped, but in the forest it was still dripping wet. Coincidentally, Bingwen was here too. He showed us the sandpit on the right where the orange-headed thrush had been sighted, as well as the sandpit on the left where the Siberian thrush had been sighted. Today, the right sandpit belonged to the hooded pitta, which only Bingwen saw. And the left sandpit belonged to the eye-browed thrush, which unsurprisingly, only you-guess-who saw it.

Nevertheless, everyone saw the OH thrush, except Con who was stalking the blue-and-white flycatcher with Jimmy, Ming & Malinda, David Tan at the quarry. In fact, there were 2 OH thrushes at the drain further down from the left sandpit. A large brilliant orange male was accompanied by a noticeably smaller one. Jonathan was the only one with a big gun stalking them. Other birds of interest were the mugimaki flycatchers, straw-headed bulbuls, rufous & banded woodpeckers, a white-rumped shama, an emerald dove and a forest wagtail.

By 11:30 am, we had to leave for our Xmas lunch at SBG, where Marisol was waiting for us with much food and presents!

Within the next week, Danny & JS made more trips to Hindhede and they got this female Siberian Blue Robin: