When I first came to Thailand one of the first birds I saw was Oriental Scops Owl. I was walking around in a seldom-visited part of Khao Yai national park and a park ranger called me over and pointed out a pair of these tiny owls roosting, just a few feet off of the ground. Little did I know that this would be a bird I would see very few times over the next 25 years, just a couple of times in fact. So, having seen lots of photos of several Oriental Scops Owls roosting in bamboo at Phuttamonthon Park, in Nakhon Pathom province I decided to visit for myself and try to find them. Although I had some directions for where to look for them I knew there were lots of clumps of bamboo in the area and so it would not be easy to track them down, and so it proved, but of course I saw plenty of other interesting birds along the way.

Arriving just after first light one of the first birds I saw was Coppersmith Barbet. It is a common bird here but its call is one of the sounds of parkland in Central Thailand and they are stunning little birds so a good sighting like that above is always welcome. This photo was taken just before the bird flew away to eat its juicy fruit somewhere private.

The open nature of much of the park is perfect habitat for Red-wattled Lapwings. It would be impossible not to see lots of these smart birds particularly as they make so much noise one cannot ignore them. A friend once said to me that “Red-wattled Lapwing is the first bird that you actually get bored of in Thailand”. This is perhaps a bit uncharitable but does illustrate how ubiquitous they are as well as their scolding nature which seems to have no limit.

Another bird that flourishes in this parkland habitat is Indochinese Roller. Recently split from Indian Roller, as it was previously known, it is hard not to appreciate its amazing colour even if it is a very familiar bird to birders in Thailand. I noticed this one because of its harsh, rasping call as it was having an argument with some Common Mynas. I saw plenty of these as I made my way from the park gate towards the area I had been told the owls were to be found in.

Another bird which was very showy on my walk to the owl hotspot was Greater Racket-tailed Drongo. This is a fairly common forest bird that also exists in large parks and old orchards and I am always drawn towards them with their spectacular tail and jumble of complex sounds. These birds are good at mimicry and I can often hear snippets of the calls and songs of other birds in the drongo’s vocalisation. Phutthamonthon Park is a very good place to be able to observe these birds at length as the habitat is more open than the forest in which they are usually found.

These birds were all easily seen but I knew the owls would not be the same. I had a gps reference for the right area but there were many clumps of bamboo within 5 metres or so and it was frustrating to be searching for a long time without ever being completely sure I was searching the right bamboo clumps. After several hours of looking I was lucky that a local birder came along and told me the owls had moved to a different stand of bamboo and he was able to point out four birds quite quickly once we were at the right piece of habitat.

Roosting in dense bamboo these small owls were easy to miss but amazing when thery were revealed. These piercing eyes were especially nice. I spent a short amount of time getting some video footage of these Oriental Scops Owls as they sat sleepily in their bamboo refuge.

Happy that I had seen my main target I took a walk around some nearby, unmanicured parts of the park and quickly came across a White’s Thrush bouncing around in the leaf litter. This shy bird quickly disappeared into a dense area of vegetation and I could not relocate it. It was a little bit of a surprise, even though it had been seen about a week earlier I didn’t expect it to still be around.

Another interesting species was Large Hawk Cuckoo. I noticed this bird as it was chased out of a tree by a couple of Greater Racket-tailed Drongos and an Oriental Magpie Robin. These birds recognised the Hawk Cuckoo as a nest parasite and were not prepared to accept it in the area even though those species are probably not nesting right now, although they probably will soon do so.

In this area there were obviously a lot of insects as bird abundance was high, with a couple of Ashy Drongos busily swooping around after butterflies, a small flock of Ashy Minivets along with a pair of colourful Small Minivets, a Black-naped Monarch, a couple of Grey-headed Canary-flycatchers, two Forest Wagtails foraging on the ground, numerous Yellow-browed Warblers, a Pale-legged Leaf Warbler, two Sakhalin Leaf Warblers and a female Hainan Blue Flycatcher all in close proximity to each other.

Ashy Minivet

Small Minivet

Grey-headed Canary-flycatcher

One of my favourite raptors is Pied Harrier and I was treated to a nice male flying past, unfortunately disappearing before I got the camera ready but I also saw a male Shikra and a perched female Japanese Sparrowhawk, which was as equally camera-shy as the Pied Harrier.

Asian Brown Flycatcher was easier to capture on the camera, if a little less impressive and by this time I was getting too hot to chase around photographing the Taiga Flycatchers that were busy rattling away.

Having spent six hours birding in the park, during which time I had also seen Lineated Barbet, Stork-billed Kingfisher, Black-capped Kingfisher, Black-naped Oriole, Racket-tailed Treepie, Green-billed Malkoha, White-rumped Munia and lots more besides, I decided to head back to the park gate to catch a taxi home. On the way I came across one more interesting species; Olive-backed Pipit. Four of these birds gave themselves away with their call as they flew up into the lower branches of some trees to give me a nice view.

For more information on visiting Phuttamonthon Park my page on this location on thaibirding.com has everything you need – Phuttamonthon Park.