A couple of days ago I spent the day with Phil Round touring around a few sites in Petchaburi province. We began with Khao Look Chang, to look for Black-headed Woodpecker, then moved on to Laem Pak Bia, Wat Khao Takrao and then, finally, Nong Pla Lai.

Although early June is not the time of year that most people would choose for birding in Thailand over the course of the day we saw a fair number of good birds and enjoyed watching some species in breeding plumage and feeding young.

Khao Look Chang
This site is a fragment of dry woodland which has some level of protection from the temple of the same name. The woodland is not of the highest quality so there is not a profusion of species but it is the most southerly site known for Black-headed Woodpecker.

I took Phil to the spot that I often see them and we came across two woodpeckers quite quickly. One of them was an adult female but the other may have been a recently fledged youngster. Shortly after we came across some Rufous Treepies making a lot of noise – having a territorial dispute and feeding young.

A few hours walking around the woodland revealed Asian Barred Owlet, Spotted Owlet, Lineated Barbet, Greater Necklaced Laughingthrush, Hoopoe, Shikra, Golden-fronted Leafbird and Red-breasted Parakeet. Just outside the bounds of the woodland we found an area of short grass which contained 40+ Bee-eaters, mostly Blue-tailed but we were a  little surprised to find at least 3 pairs of Blue-throated Bee-eaters too.

Laem Pak Bia
Moving on to Laem Pak Bia we stopped at a small area of freshwater wetlands just before Had Chao Samran. We spent half and hour or so here and spotted quite a few interesting species including several Chestnut Munias, a couple of Great Egrets in breeding plumage, Oriental Pratincoles with young, Purple Heron, 2 Yellow Bitterns and a Common Moorhen in breeding plumage – an uncommon bird at this time of year. Phil took some time to record the call of a Watercock which I briefly saw.

After lunch on the beach we visited the King’s project at Laem Pak Bia. We did not see anything special here but a couple of lingering Whiskered Terns were a little surprising; a few Baya Weavers were feeding young in the reeds.

Driving through the salt pans we kept our eyes open for large waterbirds and soon spotted a total of 10 Spot-billed Pelicans and a few Painted Storks.

Wat Khao Takrao
Our visit to Wat Khao Takrao was to see if any other large waterbirds were present; a massive flock of Painted Storks numbered around 800. One bird looked like it was a Milky Stork but when we inspected it closely we could see dark flecking on the wings and some color in the tail – it was either a hybrid or a Painted Stork with aberrant plumage.

At least 4 Black-headed Ibis were active in another pond just a little out of sight and a single Grey Heron was unexpected for the time of year. A group of around 10 Cotton Pygmy Geese were also of interest.

Nong Pla Lai
Many birders know Nong Pla Lai as the raptor watch site but it gets its name from a nearby temple and a lake of the same name. I asked Phil if he knew the lake and he said that he did not, so we took a drive to access the lake itself. We were able to walk to the lakeside and although there did not immediately seem to be much there we did find around 10 Purple Herons and at least 4 Oriental Darters which seemed like they were occupying a nest site. As we were watching these at least 6 more Spot-billed Pelicans flew over and a few Painted Storks arrived.

Spot-billed Pelicans at Nong Pla Lai

At around 5pm we decided to bring to an end a pleasant and relaxing day and head back to Bangkok.