Friday 10 March 2017
Three Buckinghamshire birders, Jim Rose, Dave Parmenter and Jackie Newcombe left a damp and chilly Heathrow airport on the overnight Thai Airways flight arriving in Bangkok late afternoon the next day.
This blog is a site by site record of where we went and the birds we saw. We have included as many photos as possible, all of these being taken by ourselves during the trip. We are primarily birders and not photographers, so the quality of some of the photos may may be somewhat lacking! If you would like any further details on our trip please contact Jim Rose.
Each major site has its own page with lots of bird photos (see menu selections above). The photos below are a selection of largely non-birdy photos taken at the various places we went to.
Saturday 11 March 2017 - Bangkok
After arriving at Bangkok and making our way to the Mariya Boutique Hotel we rushed out to make the most of the last hour of light. We found a small stream which surprisingly, considering the urban location, harboured several birds including a Common Kingfisher, White-breasted Waterhen, Black Drongo and a very noisy Asian Koel. Also somewhat surprising was a huge Water Monitor that was wandering around in a large deserted car park!
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| Bangkok - View from our hotel. Colourful! |
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| Water Monitor - In a car park in central Bangkok! |
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| Pak Thale salt pans. Our first days birding. Not great for birds when in this state but an impressive visual image. All of the mounds were created by manual labour. |
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| Pak Thale - Large numbers of waders were present. Here are a group of Lesser Sand Plover. See the "Pak Thale - Laem Pak Bia" page for more waders photos. |
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| Boat trip to the an island at Laem Phak Bia so see waders and terns. |
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| Kaeng Krachen - The track that runs through the park.Here it crossed a stream that was a magnet to thousands of Butterflies. |
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Strangler Fig at Kaeng Krachen
The original host tree is completely engulfed and the Fig disappears high into the canopy. |
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| Sometimes the tall trees led to a bit of neck ache!! |
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| Wat Praphuttabaht Noi - An impressive temple within the equally impressive limestone gorge. |
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| The impressive hotel frontage at Phang Nga. Despite this the hotel was virtually empty of residents. |
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| The stunning view from our hotel room at Phang Nga. |
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| Birding on the coast |
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| Laem Pakeram beach - after the waders had flown off! |
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| Si Phang Nga National Park. |
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| The team - Jackie, Nick, Dave and Jim (just) having a lunchtime break at a waterside setting. |
Our Guide
Nick Upton runs
Thai Birding and his excellent
website contains just about all you need to know about birding in Thailand. You can also follow Nick on Facebook and Twitter for reports on the latest trips.
Nick was an excellent guide and must surely be one of the top birders in Thailand. His knowledge of the birds, their ID, their calls and where to find them was outstanding. The organisation of the trip was excellent and all of the accommodation was more than comfortable for a birding trip. The trip was certainly intensive with birding from dawn to dusk most days. We also learnt a lot from Nick about the country of Thailand, it's history, politics and generally what life is like in Thailand. All interesting stuff. All in all Nick comes highly recommended.
