Bittern to the End

My wife and I went to La Mesa Ecopark for just one purpose: to take better pictures of the Brown-headed Thrush! At 7:30 am we positioned ourselves in front of the fruiting MacArthur palm tree. Our friend, Bong, joined us thirty minutes later. As if on cue, our target bird appeared at 8:30 - the exact time we expected it to show up just as it did last Monday. After fifteen minutes our mission was accomplished!

We decided to go to the pond by the horses' stables to wait for the Indigo-banded Kingfisher which was Bong's target bird. We were joined by two Singaporean birders, Yam Tee Yong and Ben Quek, both of whom are my friends in Facebook. Unfortunately, the tiny kingfisher was a no-show and so was its' cousin, and another target bird for Bong and our Singaporean friends, the Spotted Wood.

At around 10:30 we returned to the Brown-headed Thrush milieu hoping it would make an encore appearance. It didn't.

Next place we went to was the Spillway and maybe, just maybe, at least one of the three raptors we saw last Monday would still be there. Not a single one showed up.

We got a couple of bonuses instead - a Barred Rail and a surprise appearance of a juvenile Cinnamon Bittern.

And with that, our visit to the La Mesa Ecopark came to a bittern end.