More Black Bazas …

At about 17:40h this evening in the rice paddy my daughter very excitedly pointed to some birds behind me and said : “Look Dad, birds”.  On turning round I counted no less than 60 Black Bazas  coming down for a nocturnal roost. We watched them fly around a little before finally settling on a cluster of trees near the Rose Garden estate in the rice paddy. We went in pursuit, and on our way told a few curious local farmers what we were looking for and showed them images of Black Bazas in the guidebook: they were in disbelief. But the bazas were closeby as we discovered.  Difficult to see but I did make out several of their very striking crests. Amazing stuff. So tonight’s small flock makes it seem that Wednesday’s flock was not ‘accidental’ but that we are probably on some sort of northbound route for Black Bazas. I imagine these bazas will  be headed for the forests that line the western Thai-Myanmar border and beyond that into the north of Thailand proper.