Ficus Blessings

 

You'll never believe what can be found in downtown Phnom Penh...

With my whirlwind introduction to Cambodia I managed to see most of the Phnom Penh specialty birds in the first few days of birding. However, I still had a couple more days there before leaving for Siem Reap, where I am now. Monday work didn't start until mid-morning, which meant I had time to head down to the southern outskirts of Phnom Penh where there are still a few areas of remaining wetlands. 

The wetland areas, with the city slowly but surely encroaching from the north; just behind me was an enormous mall being built.

I say "remaining" because they're being filled in and developed at a blinding rate, part of the ongoing building boom in Cambodia financed by outside investment, mostly from China. On the one hand I'm enough of an economist to appreciate that it does genuinely translate into higher incomes and better standards of living (geopolitical concerns aside). On the other hand, filling in wetlands in an enormous floodplain leaves water with nowhere else to go except into people's houses, not to mention the inevitable pollution and negative externalities on farming and fishing. On a more sentimental level, watching people use the wetlands for fishing and farming vegetables with the knowledge with trucks dumping dirt into the pools right behind them was... well, a little saddening. 

Even though their future was in doubt, the birds were still around and I had a lovely hour and a half of wetland birding before it got unbearably hot and I had to head back to town to start my meetings. I got my first lifer of the day, a female Stejneger's Stonechat, pretty quickly, soon followed by Black-browed Reed Warblers and an inquisitive Yellow-bellied Prinia. Pallas' Grasshopper Warblers were calling from deep inside the vegetation, but typically of grasshopper warblers were impossible to photograph. My last lifer was a Grey-headed Swamphen that popped up on top of the floating vegetation for a while, letting me get a few good pictures.

A somewhat ratty-looking female Stejneger's Stonechat

Yellow-bellied Prinias are among the better prinias in Cambodia

Black-browed Reed Warbler

Grey-headed Swamphen

 I got to add lots of wetland birds to my Cambodia list as well, including some good ones like Watercock, Black Bittern, Cinnamon Bittern, Yellow Bittern (any day with 3 species of bittern is a good day!), Zitting Cisticola, Little Ringed Plover, and Paddyfield Pipit. Germain's Swiftlets were as always ubiquitous flying overhead, and Chinese Pond Herons were the most common herons around. Oriental Darters and Indian Cormorants flying overhead were a nice addition too.

Female Pied Bushchat

Germain's Swiftlet

Little Ringed Plover

Chinese Pond Heron

Zitting Cisticola

Paddyfield Pipit

By 8AM it was already oppressively hot so I headed back to my hotel to take a shower and start work. On Tuesday my meetings started early, so I only had time for a very quick sunrise jaunt. I decided to head back to Wat Botum Park where I had done my first Cambodia birding outside my hotel, in hopes of finding something interesting at the fruiting ficus. As it turns out, I was in luck: it was still fruiting, and still full of far more numerous and diverse birds than you would expect for a tiny park in the middle of the big city. Asian Koel, Coppersmith Barbets, and Oriental Magpie-robins were ubiquitous, and in the midst of a flock of mostly White-shouldered Starlings were a few Chestnut-tailed Starlings and Daurian Starlings, both of which were lifers for me. The latter of those is a very uncommon migrant to Cambodia and not one I expected to get, so it was a nice treat. Unfortunately it wasn't a great setting for photography so I only got bad pictures for the most part.

Just as I was about to head back to my hotel I heard the whump whump whump whump sound of enormous wingbeats above me, and looked up to see a flock of a dozen Wreathed Hornbills flying into the tree! As it turns out, there's a small population of feral hornbills that's established itself in downtown Phnom Penh, taking advantage of the wooded areas around some of the larger temples. Feral or not, hornbills are always an awe-inspiring sight, especially enormous and colorful ones like Wreathed Hornbills. I could watch hornbills all day, especially relatively bold ones like this doing the classic "toss a fig up into the air and catch it" tricks. It was also quite the contrast watching huge jungle birds clamber around rooftops, TV antennas, and streetlights as they flocked around the fig tree. 

Nothing to see here, just a hornbill on a lamp post

Wreathed Hornbill

Sadly I had to say goodbye to the hornbills after getting a few pictures, as I needed to return to my hotel and prepare for a meeting and my car ride to Siem Reap. I managed to finish up my time in Phnom Penh with 98 species of bird, not bad for just a few proper mornings of birding and very little preparation. Of course my next destinations were somewhat more typical birding spots, but that will have to be for the next entry...