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Showing posts from 2016

Northern Thailand late October 2016

          Northern Thailand 25-31 st October 2016 James Huntington and Keith Camburn are two high ranking birders from the ABA list. They were on their way to Bhutan and wanted to do some birding in Thailand as well.  Someone else had arranged a tour of Central Thailand for them but they wanted to see the North also so contacted me. I had done Central Thailand with James and some of his friends a couple of years ago so doing the North was perfect for me. End of November is still the wet season here with potential bad weather and not all migrants have arrived yet. Still, the 8 days gave Keith over 150 lifers and James around 50. James had birded Central Thailand before as well as Bhutan but Asia was a new destination for Keith.  Day 1. Early pick up as usual. Keith was getting lifers from the car window but it all got so much more intense once we arrived at Beung Borapet, Nakorn Sawan. We only did an hour stop here but saw plenty of good birds: Freckle-brea

Fields of Petchaburi mid August

Watercock  Mid August isn't the best of months for raking up a long list of species in the field. But it is a lovely month with dramatic skies, green fields and local birds still being busy about. The Watercock is a bird that often doesn't show well and though it was rather distant we still got good looks of a breeding bird.  They have a booming sound and a nice contrast with their green surroundings. Still need a good image of this species. Purple Heron All you often see of the Purple Heron is a 'periscope' sticking out from tall rice plants.  Streaked Weaver There seemed to be Asian Golden Weavers just about everywhere. There breeding cycle last several months and I wonder how many sets of chicks each pair raise. Baya Weavers were also abundant but the one I enjoyed the most was Streaked Weaver. This time they seemed to  breed mixed in with Golden. In years past I have seen them in more distinct species designated colonies but

Eared Pitta

Everyone knows Blue Pitta is difficult. Now multiply that by 5 and you are getting towards the difficult degree of Eared Pitta. A lot of my pictures I get while birdwatching. In other words, opportunistic photography. But when it comes to Eared Pitta, the opportunity only comes when there is a stake out and a blind set up.  I spent 6 hours with this bird and in spite of the birds coming and going only got a handful of acceptable images. The bird showed extremely well but in difficult light and always on the move. Very challenging. Well, here is the male. His colors are a bit more intense then the female. He also did the bulk of the job of finding worms for the chick as the female spent time in the nest. She did come out but only a couple of times. Here she is on her way back into the nest. It was amazing how quickly those worms were digested. The residue had to be removed frequently!

3 days in July

18-20 th of July 2016 With Pete Mooney from New Jersey Pete is a herpetologist but has an interest for birds and so asked me to help out for a few days before he would join a couple of friends in Bali for some herping. We agreed to a plan as follow. Day 1. Fields of Petchaburi   in the morning and outskirts of Kaengkrachan National Park in the afternoon. Day 2. All day at the lower levels of Kaengkrachan. Day 3. Lower levels till noon and some fields on the way back to Bangkok in the afternoon Day 1. We got to the fields around 7 am. A lot less birds then in the dry season but still birdy enough to keep the interest. The 3 species of Weavers were still at it being busy in their breeding colonies. Asian Golden seemed to be the   most common this time. Some fields were full of Egrets and Openbills. A nice surprise was a Stork-billed Kingfisher that flew over our heads after it sang in some nearby trees for a bit. White-throated Kingfisher wasn’t far away eit