Baan Maka Nature Lodge is always a nice place to stay near Kaeng Krachan national park in western Thailand and I was lucky enough to have Ian and Games as my host for a night while I checked out a few birding spots around Petchaburi province over the last few days. Things are very wet in agricultural land and forest in the area right now making birding rather tricky but a short walk around the garden on Baan Maka gave me the most interesting birding of my short visit with a good total of species including a few very nice sightings; this spot is a good one for birding in all seasons.

Of course, at the end of October raptor migration is in full swing so it was no surprise to spot a circling Black Baza from the garden just as the air was heating up. This was shortly followed by two more so that three birds circled together overhead. In my opinion this is one of the most striking raptors and always good to see.

One of the most anticipated groups of birds for birders visiting Thailand are the Hornbills. Well, it is usually a relaible place to see Oriental Pied Hornbill but this morning a group of them were especially intent on showing themselves to me, swooping low through the trees, appearing next to me wherever I went around the garden. They gave me lots of opportunities to take photos of them.

Over the last year a few trails have been established into the secondary forest that borders the garden and following these I came across groups of small birds that included Bar-winged Flycatcher-shrike, Crimson Sunbird, Black-naped Monarch, Two-barred Warbler, Black-crested Bulbul, orange-bellied Flowerpecker and a couple of Sakhalin Leaf Warblers. The best birds in this rather mosquito-abundant area were a pair of very vocal Large Scimitar Babblers.

Large Scimitar Babbler is a very shy bird and not often seen away from water holes overlooked by hides so it was great to see them close up and get this photo of one “in the wild” even if it is not a very good image.

The key to seeing a lot of birds is getting to a variety of habitats and with a lakeside seating area Baan Maka provided me with this. Sitting by the lake provided me with Plain Prinia, adult and juvenile Bronze-winged Jacanas, Chinese Pond Herons, White-throated Kingfisher, Black Drongos and White-breasted Waterhen. Actually this is not much compared to normal conditions but with water levels so high birdlife was not as abundant as usual.

More lazy birding put me at the restaurant where I watched a group of Lesser & Greater Laughingthrushes make repeated visits to the feeder to feed on bananas. These characters are always amusing to watch as they like to hang around in groups but always seem to be bickering.

Lesser Necklaced Laughingthrush

The two species often associate with each other so a close look to separate them is always wise.

Greater Necklaced Laughingthrush

Lesser Necklaced Laughingthrush

Watching birds do something interesting is far nicer than just ticking it off of a list and moving on to the next species, in my opinion, so it was also nice to watch this Coppersmith Barbet going into a bit of a frenzy excavating a hole in a dead tree.

Several Greater Racket-tailed Drongos, a leucogenis Ashy Drongo, 2 Hair-crested Drongos on a flowering tree, a Black-hooded Oriole, a Rufous Treepie chasing Bulbuls and a Greater Flameback rounded off my session and hopefully I will be able to find most of these birds again when I return next week.