We left the Vulture Restaurant and headed to the Mekong River at Kratie. Here we would see two special animals, the Mekong Wagtail and Mekong (Irrawaday) Dolphin. A boat trip in the morning got us out to some small islands in the river where we easily found a few of the resident wagtails. The large fresh water dolphins were easy to spot as they surfaced, but tricky to photograph. You always new where they just were, but never where they were about to be in the murky water. It was a fun trip on the river.
 |
| Our ride on the river |
 |
| Guide Nara scouts for wagtails |
 |
| The island home of the Mekong Wagtail |
 |
| As close as I got to a good dolphin photo... |
 |
| Mekong Wagtail |
Then it was on to Mondulkiri and the Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary for a couple of days of mountain birding along the Viet Nam border. The higher elevation afforded us some slightly cooler weather from the near 100F we'd been experiencing for the past two weeks. The birding was exceptional and we added many more new species.
 |
| Birding the mountain rain forest |
 |
| Nara and our local guide pose in the forest |
Our final stop on the last day as we traveled to Phnom Penh for our flight out was to see the recently described Cambodia Tailorbird. The literature on this species describes it as
"hiding in plain sight" as it was only discovered in 2009 and recognized as a species in 2013 - inside the limits of a city of millions of people! In this day and age that's pretty amazing.
 |
| Cambodia Tailorbird |
We really enjoyed our time in Cambodia. Our special thanks go out to our hosts for the trip, Cambodia Bird Guide Association (who we recommend highly!), and especially to our wonderful guide Nara and driver Da. You guys were fantastic, and great fun to spend time with. Thanks for everything!
 |
| Our fantastic driver Da (L) and guide Nara. Thanks guys!! |
Our total for species was 309, which included 67 life birds. Our Cambodia eBird lists are available here:
Cambodia bird lists
No comments:
Post a Comment