On 23rd March I collected Andreas Egelund Christensen at 5am from his hotel near Silom Road: Room at Silom Hotel. We arrived at Laem Pak Bia at about 7am and made our first stop at the spot which has been used as a wintering site by a pair of Black-faced Spoonbills: Black-faced Spoonbill wintering site 2008. However, at this time they were not present but a walk around the scrubby vegetation turned up an Oriental Reed Warbler, a pair of Indochinese Bushlarks, an Oriental Skylark, a pair of Plain-backed Sparrows amongst some more common birds. The salt pans here held a single Little Stint in breeding plumage, a number of Curlew Sandpipers as well as Marsh Sandpiper, Kentish Plover, Lesser Sand Plover, Whiskered Tern and Great Egret. In the time it took us to look at these birds on of the Black-faced Spoonbills had arrived and joined a group of Grey Herons and as we watched, the other spoonbill flew in. They proceeded to preen each other in a fashion that suggested courtship behaviour and after watching for 5-10 minutes we left them to it.

Moving on we stopped in hope of Great Knot and Nordmann’s Greenshank. At first all we saw was a large group of Lesser Sand Plovers and Kentish Plovers. I say “all we saw” but at this time of year these birds are beautiful in their breeding colours. Whilst watching these we located a group of Great Knot but the Nordmann’s Greenshank were not present, although a group of over 500 Black-tailed Godwits was impressive.

Standing watching these birds we added White-winged Tern, Common Greenshank, Brown-headed Gull, Gull-billed Tern, Osprey, Red-necked Stint and Long-toed Stint to our list; Andreas was particularly interested in the latter as it was a “lifer” for him.

Rather frustratingly, 6 Nordmann’s Greenshank flew in but did not land, they just flew off into the distance. They could be identified by their pale appearance and white underwings, but this view was not at all satisfying. With this event we decided to move onto Pak Thale for the Spoon-billed Sandpiper.

There is now a sign indicating where to turn for this site at Pak Thale – it is very easy to see and is in English with a picture of a Spoon-billed Sandpiper – this map will also help: Spoon-billed Sandpiper map.

Unfortunately for us, most of the Spoon-billed Sandpipers seemed to have departed and recently have been infrequently seen. One had been seen early in the morning but had left by 9.30 am, much earlier than usual. Lots of other birds were available and Little Tern, Red-necked Phalarope and Broad-billed Sandpiper were nice. However, at the mangrove remnants on the sea a fantastic Ruddy Kingfisher perched for a while in a dead tree before flying into dense mangrove cover – what a piece of luck! Amongst the mangroves we found several Dusky Warblers, Pied Fantail and Golden-bellied Gerygone. On the mudflats a number of Eurasian Curlews were feeding as well as many Javan Pond Herons in breeding plumage – no Chinese Pond Herons in breeding plumage were seen.

Feeling the heat we went for some lunch and arranged a boat for the trip to the sand spit. Before the trip though we had time for an hour at the King’s Project. At this time of day the numbers of birds were not so impressive but we found a Black-crowned Night Heron, plenty of Indian and Little Cormorants, Little Egret, Great Egret, Intermediate Egret, Grey Heron and much more.

A monitor lizard eating one of its own kind was an amazing sight and offered a chance for some photographs. read about this encounter and see the photos here: Cannibalistic Monitor Lizard.

In the freshwater filter and reed beds we also found Ruff, White-breasted waterhen and a couple of Ruddy-breasted Crakes as well as a Black-browed Reed Warbler before we headed for our boat trip.

As usual we saw Collared and Black-capped Kingfishers and 2 Chinese Egrets treated us to a great close-up view before flying away. On the sand bar the usual collection of caspian, Lesser Crested, Great Crested, Little and Common Terns were present and on the sand spit malaysian Plover was easily found. However, our quest for “White-faced” Plover was rather trickier and required us to wade through water to investigate the beach further up. Great Sand Plover, Sanderling and many Kentish Plovers were easily seen and just as we were about to give up we found the “White-faced” Plover on a small sand island. After viewing it for some time we headed back to the boat but got very wet wading though waist-deep water as the tide came in!

Our day was almost over but we had time to take another look at Pak Thale. On the way some other birders gave us reason to stop and amongst the large flock of Great Knot, Pacific Golden Plovers, Grey Plovers and other shorebirds were a group of 6 Nordmann’s Greenshank – very satisfying.

However, we weren’t ot be so lucky at Pak Thale and encountered other birders on the same search as us. One more bird for the day list was added though – a Dunlin – a very uncommon bird in Thailand.

We both had a good day however, with almost 100 species seen and pleasant company. The journey back to Bangkok was a little tiresome though, taking over 3 hours due to heavy traffic.

Some photos from Laem Pak Bia/Pak Thale.

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On 13th March Mark Tunmore and Neil Armitage joined me for a trip to Laem Pak Bia/Pak Thale. Their priority species were Malaysian Plover, “White-faced Plover” and Black-faced Spoonbill all of which had been reported as still being present just a week previously.

The drive from the centre of Bangkok to Laem Pak Bia took the usual 2 hours and we made our first stop at the Black-faced Spoonbill site. It is worth noting that at this time in the morning, the spoonbills were not present but when we returned later in the day (about 4.30-5pm) they were both present and feeding amongst large numbers of Grey Herons and 17 Painted Storks. The morning stop at the spoonbill site did turn up some interesting birds though with Oriental Skylark, Dusky Warbler, Oriental Reed Warbler and Indochinese Bush Warbler. Amongst the Red-necked Stints was a Little Stint coming into breeding plumage.

The large flock of Great Knot were obliging at their usual spot but the Nordmann’s Greenshank, which are usually close-by, did not show up.

However, it was the trip to the sand spit which was most anticipated and we arrived just as the tide began to go out. Actually, a short distance from the spit is a sand bar and that is where our boatman (Khun Meta) skillfully landed us a short distance from a large group of terns without scaring them away. Amongst the many Common and Little Terns were 1 Caspian Tern, 5 Lesser Crested Terns and 17 Great Crested Terns. Moving on to the spit itself we quickly found Sanderling, Kentish Plover and the awaited Malaysian Plover. These birds are easily picked out from Kentish Plover by their longer legs, slimmer appearance and slightly different plumage. Many of the Malysian Plovers here also carry leg rings, making them even easier to seperate even in poor light.

Also on the beach was a Greater Sand Plover in breeding plumage – a nice sight! The “White-faced Plover” proved harder to see today than on previous trips and we spent much time scanning across the emerging mud flats and beaches looking for it. In this way we saw a Chinese Egret, a dark morph Pacific Reef Egret and a breeding plumage Javan Pond Heron as well as large numbers of Lesser Sand Plover and Kentish Plover. Occasionally we would see a pale-looking Kentish Plover, causing some excitiment, but the “White-faced Plover” is a really distinctive bird and easily picked out.

Just as we were beginning to give up and wilt from the heat a cockle-picker came along on a motorbike and flushed a group of birds from behind some rocks, onto the sand. Luckily for us this included our “White-faced Plover” which proceeded to run around and aggressively chase other birds away. Mark commented on the distinctive behaviour of this bird too as it seems to make long, fast runs across the sand where Malaysian and Kentish Plovers tend to make shorter runs.

Happy with our lot here we returned to the boat pier. We checked out the Spoon-billed Sandpiper site too but there was very little to see there – a later meeting with Uthai Treesucorn revealed that the Spoon-billed Sandpipers hadn’t been seen for 2 days. We did find 3 Pied Avocets though, close to the Black-faced Spoonbill site, and many other of the more common shorebirds.

We finished the day in the King’s Project area with drongos flying in to roost and many waders in the filter beds, including both Common and Pintail Snipe as well as a bird which was a possible Swinhoe’s Snipe – it had many features of Pintail Snipe (dark underwings, although slightly contrasting to the flight feathers, no white trailing edge to the wings, short call) but it had the long bill of a Common Snipe. If anyone has any information on the identification of Swinhoe’s Snipe I would really appreciate knowing. Other birds at the King’s Project were Black-crowned Night Heron, Ruddy-breasted Crake and Ruff.

We were very pleased with the sighting of “White-faced Plover” because it was high on the list of desired birds and because we had to work quite hard to see it. It will be interesting to know how much longer this bird stays for and when it departs for its breeding grounds -wherever that may be.

birds, birding, thailand, nature, national parks