Thailand Birding: Suan Luang in the Afternoon
Recently I seem to be making a habit of going birdwatching in Thailand at the wrong time of day, and yesterday I decided to go to Suan Luang for the last few hours of light as I was bored with lurking around the house. Although Suan Luang can be quite a nice birding spot in the morning, I wasn’t expecting too much on this visit as the park gets busy in the afternoon. However, with such low expectations I was pleasantly surprised with a nice selection of birds.
These days they seem to be charging people 10 baht to enter the park, which I guess is fair enough considering how well-kept it is. Just a little way into the park many of the most common species were very obvious; Common Myna, Oriental Magpie Robin, Peaceful Dove, White-vented Myna an loads of Streak-eared Bulbuls, many feeding fledged youngsters. I sat in a shady spot near the water for a few minutes and a pair of Pied Fantails squabbled nearby and a pair of Common Ioras fed overhead. Despite being avery common bird, Common Iora is an attractive species and interesting to watch as it collects caterpillars from the trees.
Moving on I hoped to find a few more birds around one of the ponds which is allowed to get a bit overgrown and usually attracts a number of species. It proved a good strategy with a number of Brown-throated Sunbirds, 2 male Plaintive Cuckoos, a pair of Koels sitting still in a tree, a White-breasted Waterhen walking around on lillies, 3 Black-crowned Night Herons and a Little Egret. Overhead a few Asian Palm Swifts and House Swifts were feeding and the only migrant I saw passed by; a single Barn Swallow. On other occasions this pool has been more productive and in the early morning I have found some interesting migrants. This pool is labelled on my map on thaibirding.com as “Night Heron Colony” - Suan Luang.
Moving along I stopped on a little bridge and witnessed a three-way tug-of-war between a Streak-eared Bulbul, a female Oriental Magpie Robin and a Common Myna. They seemed to be fighting over a large grasshopper or something similar, and predictably, the larger Myna won the battle. Staying on the bridge I then noticed a pigeon feeding in a tree, and after looking through my binoculars I saw it was a female Pink-necked Green Pigeon; nearby a pair were also feeding. The male is a particularly nice bird and seeing this species in the park made the trip worthwhile. A Javan Pond Heron in breeding plumage walking on the lillies was also a nice sight.
I spent some time taking some photos of Suan Luang for the thaibirding.com website. Here they are.
After the photo session I decided to begin my way to the back gate of the park. I had been hearing Coppersmith Barbets everywhere the whole time but now as it began to cool down I also began seeing them everywhere. Another nice bird on the way out was a very tame Long-tailed Shrike which sat on a lampost as people jogged right next to it. I managed to walk right up to it and take a photo; unfortunately the light was beginning to fade and the picture isn’t as good as it should have been.
I saw a few other species on the way out; a pair of Olive-backed Sunbirds, 2 Asian Pied Starlings foraging on frshly mown grass, 2 Scarlet-backed Flowerpeckers chasing each other around, a pair of Yellow-vented Bulbuls bathing in a puddle and a pair of Paddyfield Pipits with a very nicely marked juvenile, allowing me to approach very closely as they hunted for insects on a sports field.
Close to the back gate there was a very noisy and well-attended aerobics session in progress where the chance of seeing any birds was zero so I walked out of the park to get a drink. I saw 31 species in the 2 hours I spent in the park, which I guess isn’t bad, although most of them were the most common species that can be found when birding in Thailand.
birds, birding, thailand, nature
