02 December 2014
This may be a first record for this species in Cambodia, so I will give a quick account. There are no ebird.org sightings, and my 2008 edition of Craig Robson's "Birds of South-east Asia" does not list the species in Cambodia.
I photographed a European Starling (Adult, non-breeding plumage) this morning east of Battambang city, in western Cambodia. It was foraging in a wet field with a few other species. I past the site on several occasions, and photographed the starling and made a short video (Keen!). Birds seem to be eaten rather than kept as pets in Cambodia, so the chance of the starling having been a captive bird is slim.
If any keen Cambodian twitchers are in the area, the bird was seen about 3 kilometers east of the town center. There is a small library called Love Library (a collection of donated books from North America) set among the rice fields, and the bird was seen about 100 meters east of the library. If you have reached a series of mist nets and young boys with handfuls of dead Cinnamon Bitterns and Watercocks, you've gone too far.
My email account is not working at the moment, so I cannot respond to comments.
Thanks
Tom Wheatley