Although I am in Northern Thailand as part of a non-birding trip, I wanted to make time to look for a few rare species on the east side of Doi Lang along with it being a great place to get to grips with a new camera, blessed as it is with several species that are always suitable models. Although I was not trying to see a long list of birds I ended up seeing more than 70 species throughout the day and this was achieved by being in no particular hurry, in fact most of the time I just stood around and took photos of whatever birds were in the area. Over the course of the day I saw some good birds including Slaty-bellied Tesia, Chestnut Bunting, Crested Finchbill, White-tailed Robin, Amur Falcon and, one of my target birds, Spotted Elachura.

The road up the east side of the mountain is in very poor repair so that a pickup or better is a required vehicle for driving up; in fact the military at the checkpoint just will not allow most vehicles to proceed and with good reason. Half way up a very bumpy drive I stopped for a party of Mountain Bamboo Partridges which were sunning themselves in the road. These birds are far more colourful than most field guides indicate as you can see here.

Mountain Bamboo Partridge

After an extremely rutted stretch of the road my first stop was at the large concrete bridge. I spent a few hours here but bird activity was quite low throughout. I was unable to locate most of the birds I was after here but I did find a Chinese Leaf Warbler, Bianchi’s Warbler, Asian Stubtail, Slaty-backed Flycatcher, two Lesser Yellownapes and this White-browed Piculet.

White-browed Piculet

One has to be patient when looking for key birds but after a couple of hours of ever decreasing bird activity I was a bit bored of hanging around so decided to head uphill to the second checkpoint where I knew there would be some birds that would be easily photographed. Within moments of arrival I was mobbed by Dark-backed Sibias, Scarlet-faced Liochichlas, Silver-eared Laughingthrushes and a very busy group of Spectacled Barwings. Just the thing to practice with a new camera and the harsh light conditions proved quite a challenge.

Dark-backed Sibia

Scarlet-faced Liocichla

Spectacled Barwing

Other nice additions here were a female Himalayan Bluetail, a pair of Large Niltavas, Ashy Bulbul, a singing Slaty-bellied Tesia and numerous Mrs Gould’s Sunbirds. This is always a good spot for a few Phylloscopus warblers too and a couple of Buff-barred Leaf Warblers showed themselves quite well.

Buff-barred Leaf Warbler

Mrs Gould’s Sunbird (Eclipse male)

The forest here is very moist and mossy, it is always a nice spot to spend time at and one of my favourite regulars here is Chestnut-crowned Warbler. It is not a rare bird and has quite a wide world range but it is a very colourful bird and quite under-rated by most birders in my opinion. When I heard a pair of them I was happy to eventually get some nice shots.

Chestnut-crowned Warbler

While I was watching the warblers a male White-tailed Robin was doing his best to get noticed, often feeding just a few feet away from me. I took a lot of shots but the best one is where he is displaying his tail.

White-tailed Robin

Time at this area is always great, with a lot of birds performing at close range but I was still hoping for something rarer so headed downhill to another area of moist forest. Here I was happily surprised to get a very quick reply from a Spotted Elachura from the dense undergrowth. It took some time of struggling to spot the bird but eventually I managed to see this rare Thai resident creeping around in the undergrowth, a great result. With this in the bag it was time to head back to Fang for some dinner but on the way down I stopped for a couple of Crested Finchbills and while watching these a flock of small birds turned up including Little Pied Flycatcher and this nice male Chestnut Bunting.

Chestnut Bunting

Chestnut Bunting is a very scarce bird in Thailand these days but when I started birding in the late 1990s it was a very common winter visitor to forests in northern Thailand, seen multiple times daily, in sizeable flocks; a sad state of affairs that this sighting of a single bird on 25th December was my first of the year!

As usual, Doi Lang proved to be a great site for photography.