Thaibirds and more

 I am not quite sure how or when to begin this story. Back in the day when all I had was the birds in my garden and the fantastic illustrations of magical birds found in the field guide I could only dream of one day seeing them in real life. My life was restricted and very little opportunity to set out in pursuit of ‘imaginary birds’! Ha! Well, a long story cut short. Things changed and slowly I started to lay my eyes on the real things I had only seen drawn in literature. I remember my first Pitta, the Blue-winged, on an excursion to a waterfall with some rumbunctious kids but it didn’t stop me from seeing one crossing the pathway. (as a note, the late Jon Hornbuckle, who eventually saw all recognized Pittas of his day, told me his last one was the Blue-winged. Just goes to show how this rather ‘easy’ to see bird is not very easy unless you are in the right area at the right time.) So, here in Thailand we have a lot of Pittas. Some are regular, none are easy, and som

 Pelagic day trip 5th of Feb, 2022. Seabirding in the upper inner Gulf of Thailand is not something I do very often due to the scarcity of birds at sea. But the times I have done it I have been rewarded in many ways. The norm is to join one of the regular whale watching trips that mostly draw the general public who want to see both whales and dolphins. But there are some trips that cater specifically to birders and targeting some rarities when they do show up. This was such a trip. Jirayu Ekkul the man behind https://www.facebook.com/wildencounterthailand contacted me and I quickly decided it would be a trip for me. As the boat did not have to go very far out to sea in pursuit of whales the time of departure was later then normal. We did not leave until 10:15 and during our time at sea never lost sight of the shore. It did not take long to get on to a pair of Arctic Jaegers which was my personal target bird as I previously hadn’t seen it in Thailand. We were informed that the Arctic Ja