Thaibirds and more

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Emerald Cuckoo Today turned out to be a bit of an extraordinary day. It started out with me not feeling very motivated in any particular direction so I decided to leave a little later and mainly get my steps for the day in at a nearby park.    I went to King Rama 9 Park. A leisurely walk and birds started building.    I caught eyes on a Thai girl with binoculars but not dressed as a typical birder (you know the one in birding uniform)….   I thought it would be nice to say hello but then I got distracted by a flock of Small Minivets. Then the girl and her friend came running towards me saying ‘on the wire, Emerald Cuckoo’! Sure enough, a splendid male on the wire.    Both the girls were enthusiastic with a hunger to learn.    We looked at the Cuckoo for a bit and then turned towards a Yellow Wagtail and Paddyfield Pipit on the lawn. They hadn’t realized it was 2 different birds so a nice opportunity to point out a few things. Rama 9 is rathe...

  Today the charm was back on. Not very sure of where to go this morning as of last night but when I heard of a sighting of Orange-breasted Green Pigeon at Kasertsaht University I felt game.    I arrived early and there were quite a few Green Pigeons around...99% Pink-necked. Orange-breasted has never been recorded in BKK prior to this one and is not an easy bird to ID in the midst of many other green pigeons.   Krit Adirek who had reported the find showed up but had other plans so I was soon left for either a quick find or a long wait. Ha!    Well, I figured I should just park myself at the fruiting tree and see what happened. Birds kept coming and going as is often the case and I had reason to open the fieldguide many a time to remind myself the difference in plumage.    Well, after an hour suddenly the sweet assurance of seeing a male OB appear a bit obscured closer towards the trunk came about. I got a couple of pix, waited for it to come out ...

  Huai Chorakhe Mak 5/6 th August, 2020   I started birding too late to see a Sarus Crane in the wild in Thailand. But then in 2011 a group of birds were released into the wild in a wildlife sanctuary in Buriram province. Since then additional birds have been released and the birds have started to breed producing a number of offspring. Currently there are about 110 birds spread out in the province.   The area of release is called Huai Chorakhe Mak,   5 hours drive from Bangkok. I have held off a visit until now as I didn’t   want to drive so far for just one bird. But now I felt the time was right and so it turned out to be.   I did spend a night and did some birding at Sap Sadao to look for some birds with a preference for dry dipterocarp forest. It was on the slow side but Paul Farrell came down from Khon Kaen and it was fun to do some birding together. It took me 4 hours to get to this site then the following morning ...

A WEEK IN THE DEEP SOUTH OF THAILAND 6-12TH, JULY 2020 By Peter Ericsson Finally, after more then 3 months of not going anywhere overnight I had an opportunity to do so. Benjamyn Weil, a keen birder and a friend, had set out on a long journey from Bangkok to the deep South and back. We had agreed for me to join him on part of his trip. I flew down to Trang where Ben picked me up in his nice pick-up truck. Our first stop was Thung Khai Botanical Gardens near to the airport and city itself. It was late afternoon but surely something should be about. It was so nice to see green lush vegetation and to hear some sounds not heard back home. Stuff like Banded Woodpecker, Blue-winged Pitta, Grey-capped Woodpecker, Lesser Green Leafbird and Crimson Sunbird elated my being. There is a canopy walkway in the Gardens but this time of day and year was not very productive for birds. Here is a list of what we encountered: https://ebird.org/checklist/S71187382 After the birding we went to ou...

The first really long rains kept falling through the night making me decide against going out this morning. But after rains birds sing! First one as usual is the ever so noisy Asian Koel. I don’t think there is a single birder that doesn’t know it by sound. The distinctive whistles of Malaysian Pied Fantail follows. We have a resident pair in our garden and it is always fun to watch these little buggers hunt insects. The Eastern Jungle Crows, (Large-billed Crows) fly over our house in the early morning and some of them make a little stop on the rooftops or trees across the road. The loveliest singer of them all starts singing really early. Magpie Robin whereof we have several pairs in the immeditate surroundings. They often come for a drink of water or on the lawn to look for grubs. Greater Coucal is also mostly active in the early morning and you can hear its low pitched booming call. It must be a master of disguise cause as large as it is and as common as it is ...

The Oriental Reed Warbler is a form the Great Reed Warbler. It is the most common Acrocephalus in Thailand and quite easy to spot in the morning. It also is very vocal and  thus readily found.             It also enjoys to forage in trees some thing that Thick-billed Warbler also likes so caution           to be taken as to the ID. These 2 birds song sound a lot a like though the call note is quite           different. Also the ORW has a prominent eyebrow but is lacking in Thick-billed Warbler.          ORW is found primarily in Eastern Asia. It breeds mostly in China and southern Russia but          spend the winter in the warmer areas of primarily SEA.           Call note commonly heard:  https://www.x...