Thaibirds and more

  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 another 2 hours to Buriram.

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.xeno-canto.org/462181           Song:   https://www.xeno-canto.org/462826           THICK-BILLED WARBLER            A bird often associated with water but not always reeds. Can be found in more wooded areas.             The taxonomy is still confusing

This is a bird that I badly wanted to photograph.  It took me a long time to even see one well, let alone have one come out in the relative open.                                                                                   Eventually it paid off and these images were taken from my car as the bird emerged from            the reeds into the scrub.            These birds are real skulkers and this was actually only my 3rd proper sighting of the species.            I had seen it at Bangpra, Chonburi and at Num Kum, Chiang Mai prior to this. Rather heavy streaking on the breast.             Baikal Bush Warbler is another Locustella found in Northern and Central Thailand.     It breeds in the southern parts of Far Eastern Russia and northern parts of North Eastern China.     I don't hear it often in mid winter but towards March/April it starts to vocalize a lot more. Here is the normal song: https://www.xeno-canto.org/549297 And here the rath

  It took me quite some time to develop an interest in various types of Warblers. There are so many other more obvious birds full of color and easier to see then this often rather skulky group of birds. But evidently one starts to wonder what is making all those sounds  that eminate from the reed beds so armed with curiosity and a lot of trial and error the quest began. This spring before these bird migrated to their breeding grounds in Siberia etc I spent more time getting to know them and trying to learn both sounds and behavior a bit better. One of the more attractive one is the Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler aka Rusty-rumped Warbler. It belongs to the family of Locustella warblers but this family which now has been split in to 2 clades. Helopsaltes is a genus of passerine birds in the grassbird family Locustellidae . A comprehensive molecular phylogenetic study of the grassbird family Locustellidae published in 2018 found that the genus Locustella consisted of