Thailand Birds Present Challenge to Birders
February 20, 2010
By Steve Grinley

     I am back after three weeks of birding in Thailand. I actually arrived home last week, but between the jet lag and the catch-up, I’m just beginning to feel close to “normal.” Four of us, Rick, Jeremiah, Margo and me, spent sixteen intense days of dawn to dusk birding with a guide, Nick Upton, a Brit who has lived and birded in Thailand for the past thirteen years. After twenty-seven hours of traveling to Bangkok, we took a plane the first morning to Chaing Mai where we met Nick and his wife, and we set out in a Toyota van for our adventure.

     The first week, we visited three National Parks north of Chaing Mai, near the Mayamar border. We did a lot of hiking in the mountains and I found out quickly how out-of -shape I was. We then headed south, stopping at two more National Parks as well as other birding areas (on flat terrain), on the way back to Bangkok. We then headed south of Bangkok to do some shorebirding, in quest of the spoon-billed sandpiper!

     The birds were almost all new for Margo and me – except for rock pigeons, house sparrows, cattle egrets and a few shorebird and duck species. Otherwise we were like beginners. Despite doing some studying ahead of time, we weren’t prepared for looking at birds that we had NO idea what we were looking at. It was a humbling, and at times very frustrating, experience of just trying to FIND the birds in the thick bamboo forests or in the canopy of trees 150 feet above us! I had all I could do to describe the bird, let alone try to figure out what family or species it might be. And for me who likes to “bird by ear” and identify birds by sound, I had no clue as to what I was hearing!

     Nick was an excellent birder. He knew all the birds by sound and often knew exactly where the sound was coming from. He could pinpoint birds and did his best to describe where in the clump of tangles to look. He sometimes even knew which bush to look in for a particular species. As the tour went on, our frustration eased as we could identify a few of the more common birds and even a few songs. After a week or so, we began to recognize families of birds in which to classify some of what we saw. It didn’t help that so many of the birds had three or four-part names: white-crested laughingthrush or white-browed scimitar babbler. It is no wonder that I especially liked the dollarbird and the cutia.

     I could spend columns writing about the experience, but I thought I would just bullet a few of the highlights, birds and otherwise, that we experienced during those sixteen days (in no particular order):

* The sound of Great Hornbills flying overhead. Hidden by the thick canopy, they sounded like B-52 Bombers with their enormous wingspan. It was also thrilling to see the male feeding a female who was confined to the nest cavity, having been “plastered” in after her egg laying for protection.

* Trying see the tail-less pygmy wren babbler as it (and we) crept along the thick forest undergrowth singing its three whistle “three-blind-mice” song.

* Seeing our first purple and scarlet-backed sunbirds. All the sunbirds (the larger, hummingbird replacements of Asia and Africa) in the their brilliant iridescent colors, were stunning.

* Watching the beautiful white-capped redstart (or river chat), rufous-bellied niltava, and black-breasted thrush all coming to a feast of mealworms at the Ban Luang Resort

* Seeing not one, but five cutia. This large nuthatch-like bird, which is difficult to find, was first spotted by Margo.

* The nine woodpeckers of Mae Ping National Park, including the larger-than-pileated white-bellied woodpecker and the even larger great slaty woodpecker. We bush-wacked through the woods for views of the latter.

* Watching hundreds of thousands of wrinkle-lipped bats spiraling out of a cave near Khao Yai National Park at dusk. A shikra (hawk) waited at the cave entrance and picked off its evening meal. The bats billowed into the air like smoke for more than ten minutes, and filled the distant skies.

* Crawling over a hundred foot serpent to see the limestone wren babbler (it’s a long story).

* Seeing the spoon-billed sandpipers among the other great shorebirds (and familiar shorebird families) at Pak Thale.

* Watching thousands of fruit bats, the size of night herons, leaving their mangrove roost near Pak Thale and filling the skies like a scene out of the Wizard of Oz.

* Hearing the moaning wail of gibbons through the early morning forest.

* Feeling our van slide dangerously toward the cliff as we tried to navigate a steep, gravel-filled road up the mountain in Kaeng Kiechan National Park. (p.s. We survived.)

* Seeing the rufous-browed flycatcher, because after two weeks, I finally spotted a bird first, before the others. Of course, I still had no idea what I as looking at!

Steve Grinley
Bird Watcher’s Supply & Gift
Route 1 Traffic Circle
194 Route 1
Newburyport, MA 01950
BirdWSG@Comcast.net 
978-462-0775 
www.birdwatcherssupplyandgift.com 
Celebrating 24 years of service to the birding community! 
Like us on Facebook! www.facebook.com/birdwatcherssupply