Myanmar July – August 2013, Hlawga Park

This site, situated 90 minutes drive from Yangon, is the easiest place in the world to see the davisoni race of Stripe-throated Bulbul which has a high split potential. If split, it will be a new endemic for the country. It also used to be a site for Pale-capped Pigeon, but I don´t know of any recent records. We visited this site as a daytrip from Yangon by taxi. We paid K 30.000 for going to the park from Yangon, one drive through the park and back to the Hotel, stopping at a WWII memorial, because we had to see the nice flowers according to our driver. The entrance fee is K 800 per person and K 1.000 per vehicle.

The park was one of the weirdest places I´ve ever birded. The only interesting bird I´ve seen here was a male Green Peafowl that was walking around the entrance gate and allowed ridiculous close-up views, giving a rather zoo-like feeling. Apparently this species was re-introduced 12 years ago, so not countable for the purist, but if you can count Pink Pigeons and Mauritius Fodies on Iles Aux Aigrettes, than you can count these Peafowls. As soon as we were in the park we were surrounded by hundreds of Rhesus Macaques who were jumping up and down to be fed, which the locals do very regularly. This resulted in a rather hurried drive through the park, trying to get rid of the monkeys. At last I made a small walk that yielded White-throated Kingfisher, Common Iora and Olive-backed Sunbird and to my astonishment two wing-clipped Spot-billed Pelicans! After fifteen minutes however the macaques returned and I went back into the car, for I hate half-tame monkeys. During the rest of the drive through the park we saw nothing special, but more (re)introduced species like Gaur, Sambar and Hogdeer.

A very wild male Green Peacock (Pavo muticus)

Obviously we did not see any Pale-capped Pigeons or Stripe-throated Bulbuls and I wonder how Birdquest manages to see them (the bulbuls) and get them into a scope without dozens of macaques bothering them. I would not recommend going to this site for it is basically somewhat of a badly managed safari park with a lot partying youth in it as well in the afternoon.