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

Many local birders visit Soi 119, Bang Poo for good views of freshwater wetland birds. I had never visited this location before so after lunch at Bang Poo I went to take a brief look.

Now, Soi 119 is not to be mistaken for Sukhumvit 119 near Bang Na . It is slightly confusing as the road in Bang Poo area is also Sukhumvit Road, but here there is obvious potential for birding whereas the other 119 is completely built up. The soi 119 for birding is about 5-6 kilometres beyond Bang Poo, on the left hand side of the road as one heads towards Chonburi. It is actually easy to find and it runs through reedy wetlands. It seems easy to view birds from the car and road but birds were not in the same abundance as at Muang Boran Fishponds, although I was only here for a very brief time and may have missed the best spots. The main advantage here is that one does not need to walk any great distance in the heat or avoid barking dogs.

In the very brief time I was along soi 119 I saw a good number of species: Lesser Whistling Duck, Little Grebe, Blue-tailed Bee-eater, Greater Coucal, Plaintive Cuckoo, House Swift, Asian Palm Swift, Red Collared Dove, Peaceful Dove, Moorhen, White-breasted Waterhen, Watercock, Red-wattled Lapwing, Whiskered Tern, White-winged Tern, Brahminy Kite, Little Cormorant, Little Egret, Chinese Pond Heron, Javan Pond Heron, Cinnamon Bittern, Asian Openbill, Long-tailed Shrike, Brown Shrike, Black Drongo, Pied Fantail, Oriental Magpie Robin, Asian Pied Starling, Common Myna, White-vented Myna, Barn Swallow, Streak-eared Bulbul, Striated Grassbird, Plain Prinia, Yellow-bellied Prinia, Black-browed Reed Warbler, Yellow Wagtail (macronyx) and Scaly-breasted Munia.

 Interesting to note that here, all but one of the Pond Herons were Chinese Pond Herons and at Bang Poo, on the mudflats, all the pond herons were Javan Pond Herons. In Robson’s Field Guide to the Birds of Thailand it says that Javan is found particularly along coasts and Chinese in freshwater wetlands – this may help those who birdwatching in Thailand in January and February and are unable to distinguish the two species from each other in their winter plumage.

Although I only spent a few minutes at soi 119 I will certainly come back although Muang Boran Fishponds seems to have a higher concentration of birds.

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It was some time since I had been to Bang Poo but on Sunday afternoon (30/03/08) I spent the afternoon there. However, it was somewhat disappointing with thousands of people partying, feeding the gulls, picnicking and doing aerobics and not too many birds. In the past I used to get away from people by walking to the pools in the mangroves where waders feed and roost but this area has now been made into a nature reserve, sponsored by the WWF, and is now closed to casual visitors!!!!! A few local birdwatchers were in this area and when I appraoched the gate I was told, not too politely, to get out. Obviously the concept of public access to nature reserves in order to promote the message of conservation has not reached this corner of Thailand and I found it quite surprising that the WWF would sponsor a project that made access to this area so restricted when managing access for all those that wish to watch the birds here would be so easy.

On the pier I managed to watch the Brown-headed Gulls which had a few Black-headed Gulls for company but waders were limited to a few hundred Pacific Golden Plovers, 20-30 Common Greenshank, some Marsh Sandpipers, a few Lesser Sand Plovers and Kentish Plovers. It was interesting to note, however, that amongst the large number of pond herons present there were no Chinese Pond Herons at all, and with all the birds in breeding plumage this identification problem is now easy.

Tired of the noisy crowds I walked around the quieter corners of the site finding a pair of Chestnut (Black-headed) Munias, a couple of Plain-backed Sparrows, more than a dozen Wood Sandpipers, a Grey Heron, many, many Pied Fantails and a pair of Golden-bellied Gerygones feeding young. Quite frankly, things were quite slow and the large numbers of people milling around didn’t fill me with enthusiasm so I just played around with my camera, getting this blurry picture of a Little Egret.

As it began to get dark a few Mynas came in to roost, but in far lower numbers than I have seen in the past, but a group of cirlcing Asian Openbills gave me something to look at before leaving. Next time I come here it will certainly be during the week and I will try and find out how to gain access to the shorebird roosting pools. Finding the right information on birdwatching in Thailand can be tricky.

Here are a few photos from Bang Poo.

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.

birds, birding, thailand, nature, national parks, photography