On 17th April my wife and I were itching to get out of the house so we made our way to Phuttamonton Park even though it was midday. This is a large park on the Bangkok/Nakorn Pathom provincial border and whilst it is covered in trees, previous visits had found it to be rather sparsely populated by birds. The understorey of large areas of the park are highly manicured and I guess this makes for a rather sterile environment although there are corners of the park that are unkempt and should hold some wildlife.

We had some lunch at the canteen near the entrance and drove around a little in search of somewhere quiet to sit. We found a spot next to a pool and watched the large terrapins and catfish swimming around. I managed a rather fuzzy terrapin photo.

Nearby a pair of Red-wattled Lapwings were busy defending their chicks from a number of interested Indian Rollers and a large water monitor lizard. After a number of aerial attacks the monitor lizard wandered off looking quite unimpressed.

Phuttamonton Park seems to have lots of monitor lizards and I saw a few attempting, and failing, to catch birds. One was trying to creep up on a group of foraging Peaceful Doves and another attempted to stalk a Greater Coucal. In the past I have seen monitors trying to stalk Pond Herons and Egrets, but I have yet to see a successful hunt.

Another interesting event was a tiny squirrel which climbed down a close-by tree and then came and sat under the chair I was on. As if that wasn’t strange enough it then headed over to the water and went for a swim! I wondered if it would get snapped up by the terrapins or catfish, both of which could have easily taken it, but it seemed to manage its little swim okay. Perhaps it was just hot as it didn’t actually go anywhere, it just swam around in a circle.

As things cooled a little I walked around and hunted for birds. I found a Coppersmith Barbet and a flock of 20+ Black Drongos feeding alonside more than 10 Black-naped Orioles; presumably they were a migrating group. I also watched a flock of roosting Black-crowned Night Herons and Little Cormorants and as I did so a flock of 7 Red-billed Blue Magpies flew across the lake – a very nice sight indeed.

Other birds that I saw that I haven’t already mentioned were Little Egret, Cattle Egret, Collared Kingfisher, Oriental Magpie Robin, Pied Fantail, Common Iora, Olive-backed Sunbird, Common Myna, Eurasian Tree Sparrow, White-vented Myna, Streak-eared Bulbul, Large-billed Crow, Greater Racket-tailed Drongo, Lesser Coucal, Scarlet-backed Flowerpecker, Spotted Dove and Red Collared Dove; mostly common birds that one often comes across when birdwatching in Thailand.

Although I didn’t see a huge number of species I am sure that birders who make the effort to get here early in the morning and walk around the scruffy corners of the park will find a fair bit more.