Thaibirds and more

Yellow-browed Leaf Warbler and Davison's Leaf Warbler were easily the most common phylloscs.    It was a normal weekday when we visited the park but an incredible amount of traffic. Apparently the area has been popularized in recent years and the Thai middle class love to go for family outings in their nice vehicle to take in the scenery, cool weather, fresh vegetables and lovely sunrise/sunset. Pied Bushchat was common along the roadside. While photographing the Nepal House Martins I heard a little whistle. Not knowing what it was I tried some playback of the song of Jerdon's Bushchat. Out it popped! This is a hard bird to find in Thailand and a nice find.                                                                                                                                                                                A raptor was perched in a dead tree but I didn't pay enough attention to it. It wasn't until I checked the  images

 It had been many many years since I visited Pho Hin Rong Kla in the province of Petchabun. My good friend Bengt Legnell came with me on this trip as we both wanted to see the alleged Nepal House Martin on the mountain. We were not to be disappointed as we came across several hundred of birds if not thousands. One can only speculate as to the status of these birds. Is there a smaller resident population that increases dramatically in winter? Either way, the birds were a lot of fun to photograph. Fast fliers, twisting and turning made for challenging photography.  I used my Canon 7D with the 400F5.6. Had it on servo with 9 focal points and as high shutter speed as possible. The last two images are my favorite. Imagine trying to do the same with an old film camera? 

 I went to visit Prasae, Klang, Rayong, 2 hours SouthEast of Bangkok. Here there are some mangroves and areas where waders feed on exposed sandbars during low tide. During high tide they often perch on poles put in the water for various fishing contraptions. It is necessary to hire a boat and so we did along with a boatman. The birds have only fairly recently arrived from their breeding grounds in Siberia and were quite skittish. It was not as easy as I had hoped to get close to them. We counted 36 Nordmann's Greenshanks and 1 Grey-tailed Tattler besides the many Grey Plovers, Great Knots, Whimbrels, Bar-tailed Godwits, Common Redshanks and oodles of Sand Plovers. As I got home and checked my images I was pleasantly surprised to find this Spoon-billed Sandpiper in one of the images. This is the 1st time I have come across one outside of the sites on the Western coast of the Inner Gulf of Thailand.                                 Nordmann's Greenshanks h

I still have some T-shirts left of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper! The shirt is made in soft 100% cotton and comes in different sizes: M,L,XL,2XL. The price is 20US$ inclusive of shipping anywhere  in the world! Payment through Paypal account: pkknjj@yahoo.com Get yours before it is too late! Collectors item they are! 

For some reason I have a special interest in shorebirds and try to visit whenever I can. It is rather long to get to Paktaley (2 hours drive) which makes it a bit of an undertaking. November is an interesting month though that normally produce big numbers of birds. I reckon some of them are still on the move but most will settle for winter in the Inner Gulf of Thailand. The prime target is always Spoon-billed Sandpiper, Nordmann's Greenshanks and Asian Dowitchers. Having seen all of them already I spent time with everything else. I had come across a group of 30 some Red-necked Phalaropes and seen a few scattered ones in the area. I was aware of the 1st and so far only sighting of Red/Grey Phalarope some years back and so tried to see if any would be one of this kind. Since there is still a lot of water in the pans many birds were found 'knee deep'. I set out to photograph some Marsh Sandpipers when this Phalarope came real close to me. It wasn't until I poste