For those of us lucky enough to travel internationally to see birds it quickly becomes apparent that in some countries birds are abundant while in others birders have to work harder to see a wide range of species. This was brought home to me most recently spending a morning at Sri Nakorn Kuean Khan Park within the Bangkok greater area, Thailand, seeing almost sixty species of birds within a few hours on a recent morning; it reminded me of how lucky I am to live in a country where birds are abundant. This came just a few days after returning from leading a birding tour in Vietnam, where we saw a lot of extremely high quality birds but where they came rather more slowly than is typical in Thailand.

Parks in and around Bangkok can always produce a high total of species, so long as birders are out early, before it gets too hot, but at this time of the year the number of species, and the quality of those species, is increased by passage migrants. Stormy weather is usually quite good for grounding migrant species and my morning in the park coincided with this type of weather which brought me some interesting passage migrant species, albeit in small numbers. With birds such as Black Bittern, Yellow-rumped Flycatcher and Crow-billed Drongo it was an interesting morning of birding.

Arriving in the early morning I spent a little time around the park entrance, which is quite open in aspect and allows views over the treetops with birds perched out in the open at sunrise. In this way I quickly saw plenty of Pink-necked Green Pigeons attempting to sun themselves on a gloomy morning and found a few individuals of the small population of Vinous-breasted Mynas that live in this area.

Pink-necked Green Pigeon

Both of these species are sort of specialities of this park and while I did not see the mynas again, big numbers of Pink-necked Green Pigeons were a feature of the rest of the morning. A recently cleared area of pools hosted more than twenty Asian Openbills, all foraging for snails in the shallows, and made an Indochinese Roller easy to spot perched in an isolated tree. A little more of a surprise was a male Asian Golden Weaver but considering the habitat of wet pools with Typha growing along the margins it was easy to understand why this species had colonized the area.

Walking along the entry road to the park proper it is always easy to add a whole load of common species to the day list with birds such as Oriental Magpie Robin, Common Myna, Coppersmith Barbet, Zebra Dove, Edible-nest Swiftlet and Orante Sunbird among several others. In much of Central Thailand Black-collared Starling is not a common bird but there are healthy populations in most of Bangkok’s parks. Sri Nakorn Kuean Khan park doesn’t really contain much of the manicured lawn habitat that seem to enjoy foraging in at other parks but there always seem to be a few to be found here in the early morning. On this occasion I saw two pairs close to the park entrance.

Black-collared Starling

Once into the park itself I came across the first migrant species of the morning: Black-naped Oriole. Three of these colourful birds were feeding in a fruiting tree and were joined by a Green-billed Malkoha, always an impressive bird. However, this early in the morning there were a lack of migrant species, which often seems to be the case at this time of the year. It seems that a little later, around 8.30-9am, is the time that migrants seem to become active, and so it would prove on this occasion. Other birds have suggested to me that this is because it takes a few hours for migrants flying over the Gulf of Thailand to make landfall in and around Bangkok, having taken flight at first light. However, it may be that it is around this time that insects become most active and thus results in the most bird activity. Another exception to that rule, on this day, was a leucogenis Ashy Drongo.

Ashy Drongo

With the opening of a snack kiosk I bought something to eat and drink and found a nice spot to sit for a while to catch up on a missed breakfast from where I spotted some more nice resident species; Greater Racket-tailed Dronog, Lineated Barbet and Collared Kingfisher. All of these birds are fairly common at this park, easy to spot and impressive birds in their own ways. Another impressive bird, which is a bit of a speciality of this park, is Stork-billed Kingfisher. This species is quite vocal and fairly common here but favours lurking in tangled woodland around pools of water but there is one spot, on an island in one of the larger pools, where it can often be seen in the early morning, and walking to this area I got lucky with one perched out in the open.

Stork-billed Kingfisher

By this time a looming storm was moving away and the sun was just starting to come through and close to the appointed time (8.30am) a few migrants started to appear. The sound of Ashy Minivets allowed me to track down a group of around six birds feeding in the treetops, while the call of a Forest Wagtail alerted me to its presence in the leaf litter. Several more Ashy Drongos, all of the subspecies leucogenis, followed but something high up in a big, spreading tree looked much more interesting. Hunched up on a high perch I couldn’t really make out what it was I was looking at until it fluttered around and landed in a more viewable spot: Square-tailed Drongo Cuckoo. This species is a fairly regular passage migrant in parks in and around Bangkok at this time of the year, but rarely numerous, so it was a nice sighting.

Square-tailed Drongo Cuckoo

Moving to another part of the park I had my eyes open for flycatchers. There is a spot where a cluster of small trees tend to attract various flycatchers,presumably they host the right type of insect larvae for the flycatchers to feed on. At first the only birds that were obvious were both Ornate and Brown-throated Sunbirds but by standing and waiting a few interesting migrants were to be seen. Asian Brown Flycatcher was the first of three flycatcher species I found here and probabky by far the most expected and commonest of the migrant flycatchers to be found in Bangkok’s parks during migration periods. Next, however, was a more colourful bird: Yellow-rumped Flycatcher. Always a beautiful bird I was lucky to find a total of three males within a small area, although getting good photos was very challenging as they flitted around almost constantly and stayed in the canopy.

Yellow-rumped Flycatcher

Joining these birds in the same tree was another colourful male flycatcher in Mugimaki Flycatcher. This colourful bird is another that often turns up in parks at this time of the year and although I had seen plenty of them recently in Vietnam, it did at least represent a Thailand year tick! It has often been pointed out to me what a strange name Mugimaki Flycatcher is and after looking it up recently I learned that it is from a Japanese word meaning “wheat-sower”.

Mugimaki Flycatcher

Further around the park a group of four Hair-crested Drongos were extremely argumentative and noisy while several more Greater Racket-tailed Drngos and Collared Kingfishers showed well too. Another migrant species was Crow-billed Drongo, a bird I usually only see one or two individuals of each year, and a couple of Eyebrowed Thrushes joined a group of Pink-necked Green Pigeons in a large fruiting tree. Things were getting very hot and humid by this time so I started to think about leaving, however, a clatter of movement and a large bird crashing through the foliage alerted me to a Black Bittern which luckily perched in a nearby tree to give me a great view of this wet season visitor.

Black Bittern

A very high proportion of my views of Black Bittern are of the bird in flight so it was a treat to see this one perched so close to me and I think this might be my first decent photo of the bird. This was certainly not the only heron/bittern I saw in the park on this occasion though with a Purple Heron, a couple of breeding plumage Javan Ponmd Herons, Striated Heron, Little Egret, a couple of Black-crowned Night Herons and a Chinese Pond Heron were also seen.

Although it was hot and sweaty, with the migrant species I was seeing I thought I would have one more look at a likely part of the park where I had seen the Drongo Cuckoo. Several Black-naped Orioles were feeding in the tree as were several Ashy Drongos. Staring into the canopy expectantly turned up nothing else but the high pitched call in the undergrowth was interesting. A little search of nearby undergrowth revealed a Sakhalin Leaf Warbler, identified by its call, which posed nicely for a few photos.

Sakhalin Leaf Warbler

Cool drinks were the next target, which were easily found at the kiosk at the gate, and lunch was calling me so I decided that it was time to go home. I tried to summon a ride using a couple of taxi apps but this location is a bit out of the way and no drivers were available so, instead, I found a local motorcycle taxi to get me to an area where I could find a taxi easily. A nice morning, with plenty of birds, including a few interesting migrants that I do not see that frequently.