Leaving the coastal salt-pans behind us we headed north to Kang Krachan National Park, where we would be staying at the Nana Resort, whilst stopping off at birding spots along the way. One of these sites was the Ton Maphrao paddies where we saw the amazing spectacle of over 200 endangered Yellow-breasted Buntings. A bird Al, Marc and I were particularly keen to see as none of us had seen one in the UK where they've become extremely rare in recent years. Persecution in China, where they were killed in their thousands to protect rice crops, has thankfully been reduced but there has been a continuous decline in numbers and redaction in range. They no longer breed in Finland where I saw them close to the Russian border when I worked there after leaving university in 1982.
What an amazing site and what a skittish bird! They hardly sat still and proved to be very difficult to photograph. in flight they were very reminiscent of Chaffinches with a big white shoulder patch and a similar flight pattern.
This site was extraordinarily productive for raptors with Black-winged, Black-eared and Brahminy Kite, Greater Spotted & Booted Eagle, Eastern Marsh & Spotted Harriers, Peregrine, Kestreland Shikra all being recorded.
Asian Openbills stalked the fields, Dusky Warblers 'tacked' in roadside vegetation and Red-throated and Paddyfield Pipits flocked around the wetter areas. Brown Shrikes seemed to inhabit every bush. It was here we had our best views of Plain-backed Sparrows mixed in with a flock of Indian race House Sparrows. Asian Golden Weavers and White-rumped Munias mingled with the flocks of buntings and sparrows in roadside vegetation before flying back to feed in the harvested paddy fields.
Plain-backed Saprrow
Asian Openbilled Stork
Brown Shrike
Lunch was once again interrupted by birds with Ornate Sunbirds providing fantastic views from the windows whilst a couple of Black Besra overhead caused a stampede as everyone grabbed their binoculars and ran outside to view these scarce migrant raptors. A grip back for the rest of the group as Marc and I had seen two flying over the golf course back in our Bangkok hotel.
Before heading to our hotel for the night Jay had one more treat in store for us. An island at Tha Laeng where Indian Thick-knees rested up undisturbed by predators during the day. We saw 14 of these relatives of our Stone Curlew at this site. The only place we saw them although we heard them during the hours of darkness at several other places.
Arriving at our hotel we met up for dinner at 7 pm and had time for one more new bird for the trip list. Jay found an Asian Barred owlet sitting in a tree outside restaurant. Unbelievably he located it by seeing its shadow cast on a wall by a street light! It stayed long enough for me to dash back to my room and grab my camera! Moral of the story - always take the camera. I didn't learn from this rookie error....
Another superb day and with an early start again in the morning it was time for an early night. Unfortunately that didn't go well due to a very noisy group of Thai local government officials on a jolly who kept me awake with their appalling karaoke renditions until the early hours of the morning. Tomorrow we were heading into the Kaeng Krachan National Park.
Our second full day of the 'Spoonful of Thailand' tour saw us leaving the lovely 'Fishermans Resort' hotel just after breakfast to head to the salt-pans of Pak Thale where we hoped to catch up with two more rarities in the form of Nordmanns Greenshank and Asiatic Dowitcher. Both are endangered and both winter in this area in comparatively small numbers. If finding Spoonbilled Sandpiper was like finding a needle in a field of hay these two are generally easier - only being a needle in a haystack! The flocks move around over the vast area of salt-pans so it's a case of stopping where ever you see birds and scanning the flocks or looking for carrier species such as Black-tailed Godwits. I was a bit chilled as I'd seen Nordmann's Greenshank along Cairns Esplanade in Australia whilst visiting a few years ago to dive the Great Barrier Reef and do some birding in the Daintree.
Dawn breaking over the salt-pans.
Fred Flintstones salt-pan buggy.
There were literally hundred of thousands of migratory waders in the area. Scanning through all the flocks waders and egrets Jay found a local rarity. A Chinese Egret. Superficially like a Little Egret but with a yellow bill. Another stop saw us looking at another uncommon bird - Black- headed Ibis - roosting alongside two Painted Storks.
Chinese Egret.
Black-faced Ibis with Painted Storks.
Painted Stork arriving at dawn.
Unlike the previous day where my eyes were fixed on the Spoon-billed Sandpiper to the extent that I virtually ignored every other waders, apart from just a cursory glance, today I enjoyed sifting through the flocks and watching such UK scarcities as Broad-billed Sandpiper, Marsh Sandpiper and Black-winged Stilts.
Broad-billed Sandpiper
Marsh Sandpiper
Black-winged Stilt
Tibetan Sandplover
Eventually the needles in the haystack gave themselves up and we found flocks of Asiatic Dowitchers and Nordmann's Greenshank. We counted 26 Nordmann's Greenshanks in one flock which represents a good percentage of the world populations which is thought to number around 1000 birds. The Asiatic Dowitcher is a commoner bird with a global population thought to be in the region of 20,000 but a flock oof 80 is still a good number. Unfortunately both species were to far for photographs and by now the heat haze was making photography very difficult so I settled for a couple of phonescoped videos.
Once again the ground team led by Jab excelled themselves in the choice of lunch venue and we sat overlooking a small estuary whilst eating a superb meal before embarking on a boat trip down the estuary to Lem Phak Bia 'Sandy Island'.
Whilst eating lunch we had our first sighting of Black-capped Kingfisher as it fished along the banks of the small tidal estuary adjacent to the restaurant.
After lunch we set off for our boat trip along the river to Sandy Island where one of the highlights was stopping off to see A colony of Lyles Fruitbats in the mangroves surrounding the estuary.
As we chugged sedately down stream Collared Kingfishers hunted for mudskippers and other small fish from posts alongside us.
The sandspit was full of birds. Lesser and Greater-crested Terns mingled with Caspian Terns whilst Greater Sandplovers ran along the tide edge with Kentish Plovers. Highlight though was a pair of Slender-billed Gulls that showed well alongside the commoner Brown-headed Gulls.
That evening was to be our last at the Fishermans Resort and the following day we were taking in a few birding sites on the way to the Kaeng Krachan National Park.
Caspian & Greater-crested Terns with Brown-headed Gulls, Sandy Island
Spoonbilled Sandpiper was one of the birds I most wanted to see in the world ever since I'd seen an illustration or one in a book years ago as a kid. This enigmatic little wader is critically endangered with only about 300 suspected still left in the wild. Breeding in the high arctic areas of Russia it winters in coastal Southeast Asia with Thailand being one of the few places where it can be seen regularly in the winter months. Its a very rare bird with only a few turning up each year to winter on the saltpans along with tens of thousands of other migratory waders including Tibetan Sandplover Greater Sandplover, Marsh Sandpiper, Broad-billed Sandpiper, Nordmann's Greenshank and Asiatic Dowitcher.
For years I'd been planning a trip around visiting our daughter and family in Australia but had never got round to doing anything about it. When I heard Alan Davies and Ruth Weaver were planning a trip earlier this year I enquired more about it - see here for more details about their company 'Birdwatching trips'. I've known Alan for quite a few years and he quickly replied to my expression of interest. With a visit to see our Australian family planed immediately after Christmas the birding gods aligned when Alan gave me the dates . It meant I could keep Jan happy by attending a couple of days of the Australian Open Tennis in Melbourne and fly directly to Bangkok whilst she flew home to the UK. I signed up!
Arriving in Bangkok several days before the official tour began I made my way to the Eastin Thanin Golf Resort Hotel that we were all meeting at. I'd visited Bangkok a few times with work over the years but had forgotten how busy the airport was and how bad the traffic could be during rush-hour. After the dry heat of Australia the humidity hit me like a hot wet flannel. With Alan arriving with Marc Hughes later that day we'd have a full days birding locally before the tour officially started.
Settled into our very comfortable rooms we birded around the resort grounds - although we weren't allowed on the golf course! Oriental Magpie Robins seemingly sang from every lamp post and squabbled around the gardens whilst painted Storks flew overhead and Streak-eared and Yellow-vented Bulbuls came down to the swimming pool to drink and Blue-tailed beeaters sallied over the golf course.
Blue-tailed Beeeater
Oriental Magpie Robin
Star bird though was a magnificent Orange-headed Thrush found by Marc in a quiet location between a pond and some houses just on the edge of the resort. A scarce bird this was only the 4th one to be seen around the Bangkok area this winter period and gave prolonged views.
We also took a taxi out to an area of cultivated fields where we'd seen a report of Yellow-breasted Buntings but we couldn't find any but did find a flock of Golden-headed Weavers as well as adding Zitting Cisticola and Spot-billed Pelican to the fledgling trip list.
The official tour started on the 20th of January and wit heveryone now arrived we met up with our guide, Jay, expert 'fixer' Jab and our two drivers early morning to head down to the salt pans at Khok Kham where a Spoonbilled Sandpiper had been seen as recently as the previous day. At this point I was feeling a bit apprehensive but I needn't have worried. As we pulled up the saltpans were teeming with birds but we spotted two distant photographers hunkered down intently looking at something. Alan immediately picked up a single Spoon-billed Sandpiper in his 'scope and the relief was almost overwhelming.
Once everyone had seen it distantly we moved it a bit closer taking in th spectacle of thousands of migratory waders. And there it was. In all its odd-shaped bill glory. One of the most enigmatic and rarest birds on the planet and a bird at the top of my most wanted bucket list.
An amazing and moving experience knowing that this little bird is still critically endangered despite the International efforts to try and halt the population decline.
Back to our hotel for the night, before exploring the saltpans at the Pak Thale Nature Reserve the next day, Alan, Marc & I set off to explore the nearby beach where we found the only White-headed and Malaysian Plovers we saw of the trip!
This lake, a couple of minutes drive from the house, is stocked with fish for kids to catch and I'd promised our grandson I'd take him fishing whilst I was here. Given that most of the local water sources have dried up we called in on the way back from a trip to the shops. Sadly the lake is almost completely dry but the remaining water had attracted a huge number of waterfowl so I took the opportunity to go back with the camera.
I'd seen Yellow-billed Spoonbill at this site previously but today there were 7 and they'd been joined by two Royal Spoonbills.
Royal Spoonbill
Yellow-billed Spoonbill
Among the spoonbills, Australian Ibis, Straw-necked Ibis, White-necked and Pacific Herons was a solitary Australian Pelican dwarfing everything around it.
Straw-necked Ibis
The few patches of water were teeming with other waterfowl with Maned Duck and Pacific Black Duck being the commonest with a few Grey Teal among them.
With all the birds congregating in the limited open water available it was a good opportunity to study Dusky Moorhens that were sharing the space with introduced European Coots.
On my previous visit I'd seen some small waders distantly on the muddy margins around the island in the centre of the lake and today, with the binoculars, I could see they were Black-fronted Dotterel.
After an hour and a half I'd had enough of the midday heat and with the temperatures hitting 40 C + I headed for the air conditioned car!
Patch list (walking distance from house): 136. Garganey
What this blogs about.
This is my blog about birding on the Wirral, in Cheshire and beyond. Its basically an online diary of my sightings and trips. It'll be updated regularly to include photographs of birds (and other wildlife) I've photographed both in the UK and abroad. Why a blog? It's a way of keeping memories of good birds. good trips and interesting ringing sessions for me to look back on when I get to old to be bothered going out in the cold and wet anymore!!#
All photo's are taken by me unless specified and I retain the copyright. Photos shall not be used for any other purpose without express permission.
Moved to Cheshire in 1983 and settled there after marrying in 1986. I've been birding since I was 7 or 8 - it was that long ago I can't remember!
My formative years were spent in Suffolk and birds became a passion in my teens. Started twitching when still at school but began seriously whilst at University in the late 70's and early 80's. I am old enough to remember Nancy's cafe!
Took a bit of a break due to other committment but now able enjoy getting out birding both locally and for long distance twitches and trips.
Married to my beautiful wife Janet since 1986 and have two grown-up children and 4 gorgeous grandchildren.
Trained as a ringer firstly in the 1970's but let it lapse after leaving University in 1982. Re-trained again a few years ago and now a regular with Hilbre Bird observatory and SCAN ringing group.
I first became interested in photography whilst still at school and used an old Zenith SLR with a Tamron 300 mm lens. I've rediscovered my earlier interest and have graduated to digital - much easier to use for an amateur like me!
