Recently I have been visiting birdwatching sites that I have either never been to before or visit very seldom. While it is always nice to go to well-known birding locations where certain key species are know to be found, I also enjoy going to relatively unknown sites and seeing what can be found. In this frame of mind I made the journey from home in Bangkok to Nakhon Pathom province, a trip of just over an hour, to a location I visited for the first time earlier this year, having discovered it while browsing eBird hotspots; Bang Khaem Fishponds.

This is a rather odd area, a collection of ponds surrounded by dry, barren patches of land and the odd copse of trees. Perhaps the weirdest part of the site is an area that is used for dumping the stones/pits of mangoes that have obviously been prepared for sale. This general state of unkemptness makes it an area that is used by a lot of birds with quite a nice variety of species to be seen. Although few birdwatchers have visited this site it makes a nice morning of birdwatching from Bangkok.

I used my morning birding at Bang Khaem Fishponds to get some video footage to put together as a “virtual birding” trip as well as take some photographs and add a couple of species to my Nakhon Pathom province list! I have included the finished video here along with a collection of bird photos from the morning.

After passing through some rice fields I took the turning onto the dirt track that runs through the fishponds at Bang Khaem. One of the ponds I first came to had a nice collection of  birds feeding in some floating vegetation including Purple Heron, Intermediate Egret, several Javan Pond Herons, Eastern Cattle Egret and some Bronze-winged Jacanas.

I did not really have any focus on which birds I would try and video/photograph so instead I just decided on finding as many birds as possible. Having said that on my last visit I found something quite exciting, Indian Nightjars roosting so I began by trying to get some good shots of these birds and in the end I spent quite a long time with these cryptic birds.

Although this area is named for the fishponds there is actually a lot of very dry, barren habitat here and this is favoured by species such as Indochinese Bushlark with its high-pitched song, Zitting Cisticola, Paddyfield Pipit, Red-wattled Lapwing and Oriental Pratincole. Something of a surprise was Small Pratincole which was nesting in the area and one of the things included in the video below is some footage of an adult Small Pratincole feeding a chick.

Birds were abundant in these dry areas so I spent a fair time watching them go about their business. It was good for photography as well as getting video footage with many species active with it being the breeding season.

Small Pratincole

Small Pratincole

Indochinese Bushlark

Paddyfield Pipit

While enjoying these species I heard the call of Freckle-breasted Woodpecker from an area of scattered trees and given that the habitat is very open it did not take long before I spotted first one, then two of these birds. I watched them for a little while through the foliage until they flew away.

Freckle-breasted Woodpecker

After they flew away I heard more woodpecker calls in the same tree so I tried to spot them but no matter where I stood all I could see were Asian Pied Starlings. It then occurred to me that what I was hearing may be mimicry and after watching a little longer I was able to confirm this. If you watch the video you can hear the Asian Pied Starlings mimicking the call of Freckle-breasted Woodpecker.

I moved on to wetter areas where I saw a Grey-headed Swamphen being chased by a pair of Bronze-winged Jacanas; it appeared that it was trying to predate their nest. Common wetland birds included Asian Openbil, Purple Heron and Little Grebe while Yellow-bellied and Plain Prinias were calling from every patch of vegetation.

Asian Openbill

Purple Heron

While watching the Purple Herons I noticed something out of the corner of my eye, a very large Water Monitor right next to the car that posed for some nice photos.

I had to get back home so I left Bang Khaem Fishponds at around 10.30am but on the way out I made several stops to watch singing birds such as Paddyfield Pipit, Indochinese Bushlark, Oriental Magpie Robin and Olive-backed Sunbird. It was a very pleasant way to finish a nice morning, and I will definitely make more trips to this little-visited area.

A number of people have asked me about what equipment I am using for videography and still shots so I thought I would leave a link to them here.

• Canon 7D Mark II
• Canon EF 100-400mm f4-5-5.6L IS II Lens