On the 7th July I paid a visit to the Bang Poo Soi 119, Bang Poo and Muang Boran Fishponds with Andrew and Beth Ley from Australia. They were on a 2 day stopover on their way home from London and I collected them from the airport and we headed straight to Bang Poo Soi 119, arriving at about 8.20am. It has to be said that a 12 hour flight from London is not the best way to prepare for a day’s birding in the heat, but they got lucky with the weather and cloud kept things a lot cooler than usual.

Bang Poo, Soi 119
Our first stop in front of the university campus was by far the most productive of the day with a good selection of waterbirds. First birds of the day were a couple of lovely Pheasant-tailed Jacanas which were viewed at close range. On closer inspection around a dozen of this species could easily be found. These were swiftly followed by a number of Bronze-winged Jacanas which although they were more numerous were harder to get a good view of as they crept around in the vegetation.

Our tactic here was just to stand near the car and wait for what would reveal itself. In all, we probably spent about 1 hour at this spot and obtained good views of a nice variety of species including Cotton Pygmy Goose, Javan Pond Heron (which by now has very worn plumage), Cattle Egret, Little Egret, Little Cormorant, Yellow Bittern, Black Bittern, Long-tailed Shrike (including a juvenile begging adults for food), Plain Prinia, Baya Weaver, Asian Golden Weaver, White-breasted Waterhen, White-throated Kingfisher, Indian Roller, Chestnut Munia, Barn Swallow, Asian Palm Swift, Asian Pied Starling and Red-wattled Lapwing.

After squeezing all the species we could from this spot we moved along to a spot where a Baya Weaver colony is right next to the road. Stopping here we admired the beautiful nests with at least 3 males busy weaving away. I took a couple of photos of the nests, the best one is below.

Getting back into the car a Fulvous-breasted Woodpecker flew across the road, a nice addition to my list for this location.

As we cruised around looking for other bird hotspots things quitened down and it was tricky to find new birds. Baya Weavers were everywhere and we saw common species such as Red Collared Dove, Spotted Dove, Oriental Magpie Robin, Streak-eared Bulbul and Great Egret along the way. At this location Asian Openbill Storks are very common and we saw plenty of them circling on thermals, in fact one group easily numbered more than 1000 birds!

Struggling to add Koel, Black-winged Stilt and Scaly-breasted Munia to our list we moved back towards the university and stopped at a different set of pools. Here we found more Jacanas and a nice White-browed Crake – a bird which seems unusually common in this area. We also found a squeeky Pied Fantail lurking around a building and a pair of Scaly-breasted Munias feeding on ripe seeds. Striated Grassbird is usually easily found at this location but on this occasion we had to wait about 3 hours for our first sighting, but fortunately one flew in and landed right in front of us – a good view of one of my favourite species. However, the most noteworthy bird we saw was a single flyover Whiskered Tern in very worn breeding plumage; a failed breeder I would presume.

Lunch at Bang Poo
With a decent haul of birds we headed to nearby Bang Poo for some lunch at the excellent seafood restaurant at the end of the pier. We scanned the mudflats for early returning shorebirds and amongst the many Javan Pond Herons and Little Herons we found 2 Lesser Sand Plovers; early returning birds or birds that didn’t migrate?

For the record, this was what we ordered;

• Deep fried Snapper in garlic
• Crab fried Rice
• Shrimps in sweet chilli sauce
• Fried chicken and cashew nuts
• 2 bottles of coke
• 1 bottle of water
• 2 glasses of lemon ice punch

This came to a total of 610 baht, a little under £10!

Muang Boran Fishponds
After this excellent lunch we drove out to Muang Boran Fishponds for a short time but as Andrew and Beth were both starting to feel the effects of their long flight we didn’t stay long – long enough though to see plenty of birds: Pheasant-tailed Jacana, White-browed Crake, Little Grebe, Little Cormorant, Yellow Bittern, Oriental Pratincole, Bronze-winged Jacana, Large-billed Crow, Javan Pond Heron and White-breasted Waterhen amongst others.

With these species satisfying everyone’s needs I dropped Andrew and Beth off at the Avana Hotel, Bang Na for a much-needed rest.

birds, birding, thailand, nature, national parks