Thaibirds and more

This time I managed to get a bit closer. Still need that 'real close up' one day as the 400mm simply isn't enough for such a small bird. 

 Brian Fletcher stopped over for a day on his way from Sydney to a birding tour in Northeastern Brazil with Birdquest. Brian had tried to see the Spoonie on two different occasions, once in Myanmar and once in Thailand but failed. This time he was rewarded with some of the best views possible. We spent several hours enjoying 3 birds as they fed in the salt pans. Brian also added Milky Stork to his world list as well as White-faced Plover, so it was quite a happy man that boarded his plane the day following.

Rick and Elis Simpson has set out to see as many waders as possible within a year of birding. Their journey began with an attempt to see Spoon-billed Sandpiper at Baktaly, Petchaburi, Thailand. They had allotted a week for their visit to Thailand and I was able to join them on their 1st day. It still has rained a fair bit and the salt pans are full of water. This makes it a bit hard to find the smaller waders. It took us about an hour before we got sight of our Spoonies. 3 birds were feeding next to a narrow piece of soil at the end of one of the pans. This naturally gave cause for rejoicing. We kept going and ended up with 28 species of waders for the day.                                           Spoon-billed Sandpiper                                           White-faced Plover                                            Chinese, Pacific and Little Egret                                           Sanderling 1. Spoon-billed Sandpiper - 3 2. Curlew Sandpiper

There had been storm warnings for over a week and that put a little concern over the scheduled one day trip to Muang Boran fish ponds with Lars and Inger from Sweden. As things worked out it was the sunniest day in a long time and very hot. The walk ways at the ponds were very wet and the ponds themselves   had higher water level then normal. This led to the absence of a few otherwise regular birds. Either way, since Lars and Inger never had birded in SEA before it didn’t really matter much. We had lunch at the restaurant at the end of the pier at Bangpoo where all the Brown-headed Gulls gather.   There were about   50 gulls there already and at least 1000 Whiskered Terns. We had one weird sighting at the fish ponds: a single Blossom-headed Parakeet in the top of a tree with some Blue-tailed Bee-eater.   His call was so different and not something you ever hear around this place. I suspect it must be an escaped bird though it is found in the wild in more suitable habitat

The Tereks were a bit easier to get close to but it is still early in the season and having just arrived from their breeding grounds they seemed rather skittish as well. Here are a few shots I managed. The last image has a Grey-tailed Tattler mixed in with the sandpipers.

 This is a bird I don't see very often. It is primarily a passage migrant and doesn't show up much on salt pans or away from the coast. When I heard there were a few of them at Prasae, Rayong some 200 km from my home I 'did the dash', hired a boat and got some pix. There were 5 of them mixed in with about 300 Terek Sandpipers. The birds were skittish and I never managed to get as close to them as I would have liked. Some of the birds were still in breeding pluamge with scaly breasts. Others were more plain looking in winter plumage.

One never get tired of seeing the Painted Snipe. They are normally crepuscular so it was highly unusual to see them out in the open in good light like this. These birds have reversed sex rules where it is the male that raises the young and the male with the duller plumage.

Prior to this I had only seen this bird once. That time I only got an image by using a friends 600mm with two stacked 1.4 TC. This time I got a lot closer though it was back lit. A week later this bird was joined by another one so hopefully they don't need to feel so 'lost'!

Bahk Chong - Khao Yai - Nakorn Nayok The other day I did a 420km drive to visit 3 different locations. It felt very nice to be out of Bangkok again. My 1st destination was Bahk Chong, near to Khao Yai, where there are some grass lands near a reservoir. I was after Small Buttonquail, a bird that has eluded my until now. I managed to see one bird crossing the dirt road but got no picture. Instead I got this lovely Peacock Pansy Paddyfield Pipit Lesser Whistling Tree Duck Oriental Pratincole I also saw several Oriental Skylarks and amazingly so this is my very 1st shot of this species. Great looking bird! After some delicious local food I drove up to Khao Yai. On the grasslands some Red-whiskered Bulbuls hung around. And the Golden-headed Cisticolas had started to moult out of breeding plumage. A drive to the Military Acadamy at Nakorn

 There isn't much that can compete with a closer  encounter of a Pitta. The Blue Pitta is fairly common but never ever easy to see as many can testify to. This particular individual called right next to the road and responded well to my playback from the car. The bird even hopped across the dirt road a few times and circled  the car. This is the male.