I arrived a little late (05:40) at La Mesa on the 20th and headed straight to the edge of the fishing pools, hoping for smaller Kingfishers, no luck, so headed on to the quieter woodland trails. White Collared Kingfisher was noisy, but mostly unseen. The usual Yellow-vented Bulbuls, Pied Fantails, Lowland White Eyes, Black-naped Oriole all fairly conspicuous.
On the back path I reacquainted myself with Oriental Magpie Robin song and call and soon after 3 Philippine Tailorbird noisily chased each other around, a Golden Bellied Flyeater landed in front of me for a few moments and as it was so close, had me believing it was something else for a moment. I stepped towards the grassy clearing and a Philippine Coucal flew up from the grass and crept along a bare branch, almost daring me to take an iphone picture, but with most of it quickly obscured I watched it for a few moments instead, before it vanished into the vegetation.
I could hear 3 or more Red-Bellied Pitta, but could not get on them and it felt slow going for an hour, but as I left the tailorbirds, two birds flushed off the path, one was probably pitta, the other was Ashy Ground Thrush, which lingered long enough to ID.
I got the urge to sit down at a path junction and am very glad I did, as within 10 minutes something landed on the path just on my right about 12 feet away, I turned my head slowly, but couldn't lift my bins for fear of flushing it and my jaw dropped as I realised it was my first Hooded Pitta. It stood motionless for 10 or more seconds, the iridescent blues shimmering in the spangled light, then jumped a couple of feet left, stopped and then flew further left and away into the undergrowth. Wow!
The Hooded Pitta called several times after, giving me a good comparison on Red-Bellied.
Time to head back home and I picked up a taxi at the entrance, grinning ear to ear all the way home.
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