Early morning at Pak Thale always provides a sense of anticipation for visiting birders with the Critically Endangered Spoon-billed Sandpiper the much-desired prize. This was the feeling on stepping out of the vehicle at 7am on 23rd December with Graham and Penny Lower with the challenge being to find them a Spoonie with which to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. We were successful in this goal with a “his-and-her matching pair of Spoon-billed Sandpipers” as well as being able to enjoy enormous numbers of waders throughout the day resulting a in a total of 41 species of shorebird which included birds such as Nordmann’s Greenshank, Far Eastern Curlew, Greater Painted Snipe, Great Knot, Pied Avocet, Long-toed Stint, Malaysian Plover, Red-necked Phalarope and White-faced Plover. A wonderful day of waders with huge numbers, rarity and great variety in what is probably the number one wader watching site in the world.Leaving the Mariya Boutique Residence at 5am we were able to avoid Bangkok’s heavy traffic and arrive at Pak Thale in the early morning and it was nice to experience pleasantly cool weather.

Sunrise at Pak Thale

 Waders are always present at Pak Thale but the exact pools they are in changes on a regular basis as the salt pans go through different phases of salt production and contain the varying water levels that go with these. At first birds seemed a little few and far between but after scanning around we found good numbers of smaller shorebirds feeding and roosting in a number of places and it only took a short walk to find our first Spoon-billed Sandpiper which I photographed at some distance with the light behind it (below).

Spoon-billed Sandpiper feeding with other waders

We moved ourselves into better light to enjoy this and a second Spoonie feeding alongside many Broad-billed Sandpipers, a few Curlew Sandpipers and a mass of Red-necked Stints, Kentish Plovers, Lesser Sand Plovers and a few Greater Sand Plovers; what a way to start the day! We enjoyed watching these two special birds feed, at times together, until the whole flock lifted and dispersed to other pools after the salt workers began their daily chores. I did not manage any good quality photos as I did not want to go too close and disturb the birds but below is a better one from a previous trip.

Spoon-billed Sandpiper

On another nearby pool we saw lots of the commoner species including Marsh Sandpiper, Common Greenshank, Spotted Redshank, Black-winged Stilt, Black-tailed Godwit as well as few that are less common here; Terek Sandpiper and Red-necked Phalarope which were spinning around in their characteristic way.

Red-necked Phalarope

 We could see a very large flock of Curlews, most of which were Eurasian Curlew but we were able to pick out a Far Eastern Curlew by its darker shade, lack of obvious supercilium, slightly barred flanks rather than streaked and by its dark brown tail tip rather than white with barring although not by a longer bill as females of the orientalis subspecies of Eurasian Curlew have bills to match the Far Eastern. A little later, from a spot next to the road, most of this flock flew towards us and we could easily pick out 3 Far Eastern Curlews when the birds were in flight.

Curlew flock at Pak Thale

Joining this large flock were a number of other larger wader species including Bar-tailed Godwit, Grey Plover and Great Knot.

Wader eBird list for Pak Thale, 23/12/17

Driving along the road to Laem Pak Bia district gave us the chance to get close to some of the commoner species including Wood Sandpiper, Temminck’s Stint, Long-toed Stint, Common Sandpiper, Marsh Sandpiper, Little Ringed Plover and Lesser Sand Plover.

Long-toed Stints

Lesser Sand Plover

Wood Sandpiper

Temminck’s Stint

Common Sandpiper

Common Greenshank

Our next quarry was Nordmann’s Greenshank. Although not as iconic as Spoon-billed Sandpiper this species is not far behind in rarity value and they regularly winter in this area. What we found were vast numbers of shorebirds with many thousands of Black-tailed Godwits and Great Knot as well as plenty of both species of Sand Plover. Scanning through the flock found us more than 30 Nordmann’s Greenshank and we were able to see the key features of the bi-coloured bill and yellow legs. Pied Avocet and Red Knot were additions to the wader list for the day.

Next up was a visit to the nearby “Abandoned Building” where we speculated on what it may have been intended to be with the most likely thing being a hotel despite the strange location. In this area there were also large numbers of waders with massive flocks of Marsh Sandpiper interspersed with many Broad-billed Sandpipers, Curlew Sandpipers, a few Pacific Golden Plovers and a nice Asian Dowitcher.

Asian Dowitcher

The sheer number and variety of birds in this area was amazing and we enjoyed watching them at close range for some time, a real spectacle of nature.

Pacific Golden Plover

Broad-billed Sandpiper

The variety f species here produced close up views of Great Knot, Common Redshank, Red-necked Stint, Spotted Redshank and a single Ruff; this was birding at its best, surrounded by large numbers of birds all viewable at close range to enable us to see their plumage in detail.

Ruff

 
Spotted Redshank

If we had just gone home at this point it would have already been a superb day but after lunch we had a boat trip with Mr Daeng to enjoy, heading out to the sand spit in his little boat we were soon watching several smart Malaysian Plovers running around alongside hundreds of Great Knot, Sanderling, Greater Sand Plover and many others including another Terek Sandpiper and a single Ruddy Turnstone.

Malaysian Plover

Watching the flocks of Great Knot wheel around was quite spectacular as they periodically took flight only to return to their position on the beach where they would resume their feeding at the water’s edge.

Great Knot

Great Knot

Of course our other target here was White-faced Plover and we found two of these poorly-known birds including a nice male which was among the large numbers of Sand Plovers on the beach. On our way back we came across a couple of Whimbrel for our list.

Whimbrel

After the conclusion of our boat trip it may have seemed like that was it, all target species seen well and much more besides but a short drive took us to some nearby freshwater wetlands where we were to add to our wader day list with Red-wattled Lapwing, 2 Grey-headed Lapwings, a female Greater Painted Snipe, a couple of Common Snipe and a Pintail Snipe to conclude our total of 41 wader species for the day, a total that I have only exceeded on a very few occasions.

Grey-headed Lapwing

It is hard to know where else in the world birders can see such a high number of wader species in one day with such massive numbers as a spectacle to rival anything I have seen as well as some extremely rare birds.

The Complete List of Wader Species Seen

1. Pintail Snipe
2.  Common Snipe
3. Whimbrel
4. Eurasian Curlew
5. Far Eastern Curlew
6. Black-tailed Godwit
7. Bar-tailed Godwit
8. Asian Dowitcher
9. Spotted Redshank
10. Common Redshank
11. Common Greenshank
12. Nordmann’s Greenshank
13. Marsh Sandpiper
14. Wood Sandpiper
15. Common Sandpiper
16. Terek Sandpiper
17. Ruddy Turnstone
18. Ruff
19. Great Knot
20. Red Knot
21. Sanderling
22. Spoon-billed Sandpiper
23. Red-necked Stint
24. Temminck’s Stint
25. Long-toed Stint
26. Curlew Sandpiper
27. Broad-billed Sandpiper
28. Greater Painted Snipe
29. Black-winged Stilt
30. Pied Avocet
31. Red-necked Phalarope
32. Grey Plover
33. Pacific Golden Plover
34. Little Ringed Plover
35. Kentish Plover
36. White-faced Plover
37. Malaysian Plover
38. Lesser Sand Plover
39. Greater Sand Plover
40. Grey-headed Lapwing
41. Red-wattled Lapwing

While it is wonderful to experience the shorebirds of Pak Thale and Laem Pak Bia like this the numbers were exceptional. Why is this? Could it be that many other roosting/feeding sites around the Gulf of Thailand have been rendered unusable for waders and they are concentrating on this one area? Well, this is definitely a question that needs investigating as it is increasingly obvious to those of us who have been visiting this site for years that most of the salt pans along the way in Samut Sakon and Samut Songkram provinces have been either built on or hemmed in making them too disturbed for waders to use. These locations used to be full of birds in the past with great flocks visible from the car as one drove down the highway. These days the only thing to be seen in these areas are supermarkets, shopping malls, factories and shrimp farms.

Those birders interested in waders and particularly in their conservation should take a look at WaderQuest.