After lazing on the beach at Bang Saen for most of the afternoon yesterday, my wife and I moved on to Bang Pra reservoir in Chonburi province to look at the late afternoon birds.

The non-hunting area is suffering badly from high water levels reducing the amount of grassland habitat and overuse of what remains both by livestock herdsmen and people driving around in vehicles. Compared to the amount of grassland habitat that used to be at Bang Pra, very little remains and what is left is in poor condition with almost no marginal habitat remaining – just one of many conservation issues in Thailand. In the 2 hours I spent there, however, I managed to see a good selection of species although numbers of waterbirds were very low.

What allows birdwatchers to see so many species at Bang Pra is that there is wetland habitat, grassland and woodland all next to each other and in the short time I spent there I saw a good range of birds from all three habitats. Green Bee-eaters nesting, Rufous Treepies foraging a few feet away and large numbers of Oriental Pratincoles were very nice sights.

These are the species I saw from 4.30-6.30 pm as the weather became pleasantly cooler.

Whiskered Tern, Little Cormorant, Grey Heron, Great Egret, Little Egret, Cattle Egret, Chinese Pond Heron, Javan Pond Heron, Black-winged Stilt, Red-wattled Lapwing, Common Greenshank, Wood Sandpiper, Oriental Pratincole, Black-shouldered Kite, White-breasted Waterhen, Common Kingfisher, White-throated Kingfisher, Black Drongo, Greater Racket-tailed Drongo, Large-billed Crow, House Swift, Asian Palm Swift, Barn Swallow, Green Bee-eater, Indian Roller, Hoopoe, Lineated Barbet, White-crested Laughingthrush, Taiga Flycatcher, Indochinese Bushlark, Paddyfield Pipit, Yellow Wagtail (macronyx), Grey-breasted Prinia, Yellow-vented Bulbul, Asian Pied Starling, White-vented Myna, Vinous-breasted Starling, Oriental Reed Warbler, Spotted Dove, Peaceful Dove, Racket-tailed Treepie, Rufous Treepie and Oriental Magpie Robin.

I also heard Chinese Francolin in the distance and a Greater Racket-tailed Drongo that had learned to mimic perfectly the sound of a car central locking alarm system – that tells you something about the overuse of the site by people in vehicles!

birds, birding, thailand, nature