Asian Golden Weaver is not at all common in Thailand and becoming increasingly rarer due to habitat destruction, although it can be found at a few sites I know; the most reliable being Muang Boran Fishponds where it is easy to get fairly close  to a nesting colony without disturbing the birds. Ashley Banwell had contacted me with a small list of species that he was interested in seeing; for someone with as large a life list as he has finding lifers isn’t so easy but Asian Golden Weaver stood out as one species on his list that I knew I could help him with.

At 5am I met Ashley at The Hotel Manhattan in Sukhumvit Soi 15 and we headed off to Muang Boran Fishponds before the traffic built up. Because of the problems with parking and security, it is a good idea to park at Bang Poo, just a few kilometres beyond Muang Boran and get a taxi back to the fishponds and this is what we did.

As soon as we were into the site the birdwatching began and one of the first we saw was a male Asian Golden Weaver – that didn’t take long! However, it was quite distant and we were happy to wait for better views. There is always an abundance of waterbirds here and we quickly saw Cattle Egret, Great Egret, Little Egret, Little Cormorant, Black-crowned Night Heron, White-browed Crake, Moorhen, Little Grebe, Javan Pond Heron, Chinese Pond Heron and an impressive male Watercock, always a good bird to see.

Striated Grassbird is very abundant here and it didn’t take long before we were hearing them all around us and they are always easily seen, perched high up on posts and trees singing away. The open aspect of this site means that most birds can be viewed well and it is a great spot for getting pictures. Both Brown Shrike and Long-tailed Shrike gave good photo opportunites and Oriental Pratincoles were everwhere just waiting to be photographed. We also briefly saw an Oriental Skylark and Zitting Cisticolas flitting around in the grass.

Further along a large pond held plenty of waterbirds and we added Intermediate Egret, Pheasant-tailed and Bronze-winged Jacanas to the list. Pheasant-tailed breeds here, there are not that many places in Thailand where it does, and it can be found easily and in good numbers all year round here; they certainly look striking in their breeding plumage.

As we walked towards where the weavers breed we came a cross a tschutschensis race Yellow Wagtail and several Oriental Reed Warblers before hearing some weavers. I was expecting it to be Asian Golden as they are the commonest weaver at this site but it turned out to be a male Streaked Weaver! This is quite an uncommon species and one that I had managed not to see before – an addition to my life list and the Muang Boran Fishponds list. A couple of female Asian Golden Weavers also appeared but it was a singing reed warbler that Ashley spotted that got our attention. It crept up the reeds and sung from the tops and the song was quite different to the plentiful Black-browed Reed Warblers. We got a decent look at it and its slightly longer bill and thin dark eyestripe reaching only as far as the eye identified it as Manchurian Reed Warbler.

Eventually we decided to go straight to the weaver nest site and we got superb views of beautiful male Asian Golden Weavers making their nests and displaying to the females, all at close range. After admiring these birds and photographing them we decided to head off to Petchaburi as Ashley wanted to spend the next 2 days at Kaeng Krachan looking for White-fronted Scops Owl and Giant Pitta – ambitious indeed.

A few hours later, after lunch, we arrived at Tung Bang Jak, a little before Petburi town and we soon saw the photogenic Green Bee-eaters that are so easy to see here. Ashley got some nice photos of these beautiful birds before our attention was caught by some more weavers calling from the reeds. 2 female Asian Golden Weavers were soon joined by a superb male and then 7 male Streaked Weavers popped their heads out – suddenly these species were common! After enjoying these busy little birds we moved a little further down the road seeing most of the usual species that can be found here; Pond Herons, Egrets, Black-winged Stilt, Wood Sandpiper, Asian Openbill Stork, Plain-backed Sparrow, Red-wattled Lapwing, Mynas and Black-shouldered Kite; before finding our third weaver species for the day: Baya Weaver. This species is by far the most common here and it was strange that this was the one we found last, but all of Thailand’s 3 weaver species in one day (actually a few minutes) was quite pleasing as they are attractive little birds in their summer plumage.

We stopped for a while to watch a farmer in the rice fields and it made a nice picture to see a more or less traditional form of agriculture in action with lots of large waterbirds in attendance. This is a scene which is absent from many Asian countries where most birds have been trapped and hunted out of existence in farmland.

Having admired this scene and reflected upon how nice it was that lots of birds can still be found outside of national parks in Thailand it was quite upsetting to find a mist net strung up beside the road. I can only think that it was left in order to trap birds for the cage bird trade, the merit-making trade or for the table. If it was left unattended by a ringer I would be most annoyed at their idiocy for any birds that were caught in this net would die very quickly in the midday heat and humidity. Click on the thumbnail below and you can see a close up of the net which shows that it is inded a mist net and not something else.

After the mist net incident we found some Bronze-winged Jacanas, 100s of Asian Openbills and a beautiful pair of Pink-necked Green Pigeons perched on a wire. Keen to add some shorebirds to our tally we then moved on to Pak Thale.

The Spoon-billed Sandpipers seemed to have left Pak Thale a while ago but we were expecting to see plenty of other species. Unfortunately shorebirds were pretty thin on the ground here, most species are well into their migration I guess, but this is a good time of year to find Grey-tailed Tattler and we saw 3 here. Other birds included Red-necked Stint, Kentish Plover, Marsh Sandpiper, Little Tern, Curlew Sandpiper, Common Greenshank, Spotted Redshank and Common Sandpiper. A walk to the shore produced 3 Curlew and a Whimbrel but with little else we decided to go to the sand spit.

On the way we spotted a group of shorebirds which included breeding plumage Curlew Sandpiper, Red-necked Stint and Spotted Redshank.

After finding a boat we slowly headed out to the spit and I spotted a pair of Blue-throated Bee-eaters above the mangroves; an uncommon bird this far north. The tide was in and we could see a group of roosting shorebirds, hoping that perhaps a “White-faced” Plover might still be around. Unfortunately, as we landed,  two other birdwatchers decided that they didn’t want us for company, got up in a hurry, and walked straight at the shorebirds flushing the whole group!!!!!! Quite amazing how thoughtless some people can be! Luckily our boatman said he could land us at another spot where we got nice views of Malaysian Plover, Kentish PLover, Sanderling, Lesser Sand Plover and 2 Greater Sand Plover, all in breeding plumage, making sure we didn’t disturb the birds. No sign of the “White-faced” though.

With time ticking by we took a look at roosting terns getting very close-up views of Lesser and Great Crested Terns alongside Caspian, Common and Little Terns as well as Brown-headed Gulls due to the skill of our boatman. On the way back a Black-capped Kingfisher was still hanging around.

Our last stop of the day was to look for Black-faced Spoonbill, but it wasn’t to be seen. Instead we got 5 Painted Storks and Grey Heron alongside a number of egrets, all chasing fish around. In the nearby scrubland we found both Blue-tailed and Green Bee-eaters and the ever-present Indochinese Bushlark as well as a Paddyfield Pipit with an injured leg. That was it, a good day of birding with one lifer for both of us. All that was left was to drive to Ban Maka near Kaeng Krachan to drop Ashley off for his quest. The drive took a bit longer than expected but Gunn and Beverly at Ban Maka were very welcoming and quickly prepared food for us. We also added another bird to the day list – Large-tailed Nightjar which was everywhere near Ban Maka, you couldn’t possibly miss it if you went there at night – a fine end to a nice day’s birdwatching in Thailand.