Greater Adjutants are huge birds that were once widespread across much of Southeast Asia; today there are two small breeding populations in India and Cambodia. It was a good birding year. Many sad and unfortunate things occurred in 2016, but the birding was good. I started the year in Florida, traveled to India with the ABA in February, combined family and birding in an August trip to California, and in-between saw very good birds in New York and New Jersey. MORE

It's happening at the Siem Reap Crocodile Farm in Cambodia. cambodia blood crocodile chickensDisgusting. MORE

In Cambodia. Cambodian police confiscated two tons of live snakes and tortoises and arrested two men trying to smuggle the slithering cargo up a river from Cambodia to Vietnam, authorities said Thursday. Acting on a tip, police intercepted the boat Wednesday on the Bassac River in southeastern Cambodia just before it crossed into Vietnam. Tags: wildlife smuggling cambodia wildlife trafficking reptiles tortoises snakes Yes, that's right. TWO TONS. MORE

Irrawaddi Dolphin photographed in Cambodia (Dan Koehl/Wikimedia Commons). * I dreamed of birding the Sundarbans delta – roughly the size of Connecticut or Cyprus – ever since my very dear friends Tim and Hanna Balke told me a story of their visit to these swamps where the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Mehgna rivers converge in the Bengal basin. MORE

It inhabits rather dry areas within a region notorious for being one of the rainiest parts of the world, and is thus patchily distributed from Burma through Laos, Cambodia, parts of Thailand and south China, all the way to Vietnam. It must suck to be called “ Brown Prinia “ Try as I might, I can’t think of a name that implies more boredom and more unattractiveness, and is less apt at attracting the interest of birders. MORE

The Grey-headed Lapwing- Vanellus cinereus breeds in north-east China and Japan between April and June and then migrate to spend the winter in northern Southeast Asia from northeastern India to Cambodia and southern Japan. Having returned from the UK recently we were ready to go camping in the bush again and make the most of the warm weather before it becomes our tropical wet season. MORE

Thai Highway Police in Sa Kaeo province have rescued 24 baby crab-eating monkeys, arresting a Thai driver and five undocumented Cambodians attempting to smuggle the endangered species to Cambodia, where they were destined for cooking pots in.Chinese specialty restaurants in Cambodia. Tags: cambodia bush meat china monkeys endangered species Just awful. Thank goodness these were rescued. MORE

In 1974 we shipped four times as much food to Cambodia and South Vietnam as to starving Bangladesh and Swahelian Africa. For an explanation of this feature, click on “Moral Vegetarianism” at the bottom of this post. The Argument from Human Grain Shortage All of the clearly moral arguments for vegetarianism given so far have been in terms of animal rights and suffering. New moral vegetarianism, however, rests on moral arguments couched in terms of human welfare. MORE

Cambodia’s “Vulture Restaurants&# are helping to increase the numbers of three imperiled species of vulture. Populations are trending upward and there is new hope for the carrion eaters still dealing with the ravages of diclofenac, a drug used to treat livestock that vultures then consume, causing their death. Asides MORE

It’s also endangered, with populations in India and Cambodia numbering barely around the 1,000 mark. Image by ChanduBandi/Wikimedia Commons. The Greater Adjutant Stork is large, striking, and revered in Hindu mythology. But it’s getting a helping hand from dozens of women in three Indian villages. MORE

And if that’s not enough good news for you, this just in: a brand-new bird species (the Cambodian Tailorbird , one of only two endemics in the country) has been discovered living right in Cambodia’s capitol city of Phnom Penh ! Confiscated from a poacher in Brescia, Italy, this robin will be released to fly away into an uncertain world, where habitat is threatened and predators and poachers await. The survival of songbirds depends in part upon eliminating illegal hunting. MORE

This guide describes the 125 best birding sites for both common and rare species, covering Myanmar, Thailand, Laos (officially Lao PDR), Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia, the Philippines and Timor Leste. The 125 Best Bird Watching Sites in Southeast Asia, edited by Yong Ding Li & Low Bing Wen. MORE

401-600 sp: Honduras, Guatemala, Guyana, Suriname and French Guyana, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay; the Sahel countries (Africa), Namibia and Botswana; Central Asian countries and Cambodia. Summer is normally the vacation season, for ordinary tourists at least. Birders follow different patterns of bird migration and their local activities and travel accordingly. But – where? I discovered this cover-photo map somewhere at the BirdLife International’s website. MORE

A holiday in Cambodia? Prior to this Lynx edition – the first ever bird guide devoted specifically to Cambodia, the choice was Robson’s “Birds of South-East Asia” (the updated second, 2014 edition of the 2001 classic). 600 distribution maps, the “Birds of Cambodia” covers 629 species recorded in the country to date. Inner covers hold a physical geography map of Cambodia in the front, and the same, this time blank map in the back, with indexed 35 birding hotspots. MORE