Absent From Place of Duty!

 Good Morning to our Valued Readership and sorry to say, due to Circumstances Beyond Our Control, there can be no post today! It is anticipated that we will be back in the saddle tomorrow, meanwhile Stay Safe and Well - Bagsy.

Good Morning, Vietnam - Robin Williams

On account of my daughter and family having arrived in Cambodia for a 3 year's stay just recently, it was all too much of a temptation not to delve into the archive and relive our own adventures there!

Having arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam an hour ahead of Rather Rotund William, a.k.a. Big Fat Billy, during November 2012, there was time to kill before setting off on what we loosely dubbed the

Southeast Asia Odyssey.

Billy showed up eventually and certainly no surprises at the airport exit door where the guarenteed throng of Taxi Drivers, Hotel Reps et al were laying in wait. Hobson's, but we made our choice soon finding ourselves at the Old Darling Guest House where we were to meet the owner Mr Fred. Like most of his ilk he had everything at his fingertips and so in the name of time saving we agreed to all but one of his suggestions, which was making our own arrangements for the evening meal.

With no intention of staying in the city for long, the main thrust was the sights and sounds of the city but more importantly the

culture including roadside restaurants and cafes,

did someone metion Culture?

The after dinner walk produceded our first bird

RUDDY SHELDUCK
By UK standards prices were miniscule so book a self select package rather than leave it to fate.  The first of these took us to the

(Just William)
Cuc Phuonge National Park

some miles south of the city as shown on the map.
PAINTED STORK

ASIAN KOEL
(female)

SCALY-BREASTED MUNIA

just to name a few for now and also spending a full day and night on a

JUNK

OLIVE-BACKED SUNBIRD

around
HARLONG BAY

in the
GULF of TONKING

DOLLARBIRD
as much for the hoped for skyscapes and birds as much as the vista.
With every single 'dong' considered to have been well invested we started our journey south in the first instance taking an extremely fast Long Finned Boat south along the mighty Mekong River as far as Hoi Ha before boarding the train to

SAI GON
which we still insist on calling Ho Chi Minah City

ORANGE-BREASTED GREEN PIGEON
A veritable power house of interests but still mainly centered on the Vietnam War and from the

Royal Palaces

and temples in their splender to the

Ordinary Joe in the Street
The excitement, if you could call it that when considering waht went before was a

A Meeting With Chairman Ho at the

VIETNAM WAR MUSEUM

we fired 'live'

M-16 CARBINES
The final experience could not have brought me more quickly to Earth as an
EX- SUBMARINER

there was never a thought let alone a concern about 'chlostrophobia' but in those

TUNNELS
it was a whole different matter which overcame me like a thief in the night.

Our young Guide the son of a Viet Nam Cong San Fighter himself could see my predicament so when asked how far to the end of the tunnel, OK, Sir, OK only a quarter of a mile - WOT! He was simply having me on as we exited 2 minutes later - never take life for granted!
A Wonderful, Wonderful County but now time to move on to Cambodia in day's to come.

Coincidentally, we watched the harrowing 'We Were Soldiers - Mel Gibson' on Sunday evening!

Waders of the Lost Ark - Part I

With Christoph haning rampaged across the whole of the day and night we didn't ever step across the threshold of Slight Return II, but a phone call from daughter now resident in Phnom Penh was like a Ray of Sunshine, particularly swapping notes!

So while things in the Wider, Wilder, World remain somewhat subdued, again we reach for the archive, not to disappoint our Valued Readership, and present a photomontage of one of the most facinating family groups of Birds on Earth including location and date of first sighting - The Waders! Starting with 2 of the most bizarre

HAMMERCOP
Madagascar - 2010

and

WRYBILL

New Zealand - 2008

AMERICAN GOLDEN PLOVER
Scilly Isles, UK - 1992

RED-NECKED AVOCET
Australia - 2008

TWO-BANDED PLOVER
Falkland Islands - 2007

WESTERN SANDPIPER

Chile - 2003

AMERICAN OYSTERCATCHER
Peru - 2003

NEW ZEALAND DOTTERAL
also 2008

SEMI-PALMATED PLOVER
England - 1973

 KILLDEER

copulating
USA - 1995

Then, Like All Rare Things, It Was Gone!

Refering to the 'open flight' video clip of yesterday's Airbus we feel sure that most of our diligent Readers must have heard, at the end, the calls of a Wader? 99% sure it was a Green Sandpiper was not enough to commit it to the Year List so consulted 3 friends who all agreed. What a bizarre way to add a further species!

 It is far from unusual to hear

TAWNY OWL
singing during the wee small hours of the morning but to record

NUTHATCH
joining in at 05:30 is without parallel - a most welcome record and we just cannot resist the

Early Morning Skyscapes
from the doorstep. On the way south, not unusually the

BLACK-HEADED GULLs

were occupying both post and wire while further on

CORMORANTs
a complete 'handful' were noted back a the traditional roost site.

Also in the same area half a dozen

LAPWING

were noted before the frost had time to thaw.

It was up north that the few

REDWING
were logged and unusually just about

outnumbered by an influx of

DUNNOCK
while on the Heath there was little more 'birdwise' than a brace of

unusually bold

STOCK DOVE

along with the striking

Winter Vistas
It was while clicking these that from a

grey and overcast sky blocking out the Sun that a

fairly vibrant

(all we could see of the Sun behind a part Mackerel Sky)

SUN DOG
The current situation, it would seem, (little in the way of Wildlife) has seen the
'Hits Count'
tumble to double figures getting close to being unviable so pulling a Rabbit out of the hat might help?
Of the 2 rarest Birds ever to visit our patch Short-toed Eagle has already featured across these pages but the other, as far as our memory allows has not. It was something of a 'wake-up call' while researching this that it was found to be 'over' 3 years ago that a

SIBERIAN STONECHAT

visited the

Heath

staying for a full 2 days.

a memory jerker to say the least and even showing the

diagnostic dark patch of the underwing.
The videos show this far better which cannot be glued on as oversize.