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LaughingDove Visits Thailand

Discussion in 'Thailand' started by LaughingDove, 31 Mar 2017.

  1. LaughingDove

    LaughingDove Well-Known Member

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    Morning in Bang Pra and Evening in Khao Yai:


    The next morning I had managed to persuade my dad to drive me around sunrise to Bang Pra Non-hunting area again that I had visited two days previously but I was keen to spend some more time there. I won’t go into too much detail because I have already described the place two posts ago but it was very nice to see the same place with the early morning bird activity. There was no one at the entrance to pay the entry fee to, but the gate was left open so I could just go in. They’re probably missing the majority of visitors by not having anyone there in the early morning because that’s when most birders would visit and I doubt many other people would visit the place.

    There were lots of birds around and I saw a large number of species including the main one and probably the main reason I revisited which was Rufous Treepie which is supposed to be easy to see here. There was also a very showy White-crested Laughingthrush singing on an exposed post which was very cool though unfortunately I couldn’t photograph it because my camera lens had become covered in condensation from being in the cold air conditioning to the extreme humidity in the forest. I also saw a tree shrew which was nice.

    After a few hours of birding I was picked up and I decided to have a try at getting into the private waterbird breeding centre that I saw the Greater Adjutant in on my previous visit to Bang Pra since the entrance is just up the road anyway. I didn’t really expect to get in because I doubt a guard at the entrance gate would have the authority to let people in, but it would only take a couple of minutes so it was worth a try. My mum spoke in Thai to the person at the gate to try and get access to have a look around, but as expected I wasn’t able to get in. The guard was surprisingly nice about it though considering that we had just showed up unannounced to a private breeding centre, and he said something about a new bird that had recently arrived that would be disturbed by people so there couldn’t be anyone visiting anymore.

    We then drove to Khao Yai National Park which was to be the final stop of the trip, having lunch and stopping to buy some food on the way because we would be staying within the national park itself for two nights. My main reason for wanting to visit Khao Yai was to get the only opportunity of the trip to look for nocturnal animals inside the national park and also to get a few more birds to add to the list. We got to the national park in the early afternoon and went to the Headquarters to check in to the bungalow that we had booked. Most national parks only have camping facilities, however Khao Yai has quite a number of options for accommodation and although they are fairly basic without luxuries like air conditioning, they are perfectly good.

    I will start here by addressing my experience in Khao Yai in general compared to what most people who visit say. I had previously heard how Khao Yai is not such an enjoyable place to visit because of rude/apathetic staff, crowded facilities, noise from visitors, unreliable and low-quality options for food, etc. I should also mention that all three days that I was in Khao Yai were during Songkran which is a major Thai holiday where I was also warned that all the national parks and everything would be horrible and crowded. As a result of all of this, I was reluctant to visit Khao Yai at first and when planning for this trip, I looked for alternative places that wouldn’t be as bad as Khao Yai but give all of the circumstances, there weren’t really any other options so Khao Yai it was. As it turned out, I had absolutely none of the negative experiences that I had been warned about and been bracing myself for. There were no rude or apathetic staff, the food was better than Kaeng Krachan, the campsites and accommodation areas weren’t much busier and I would not call them crowded and aside from a couple of particularly popular locations like one of the waterfalls, there wasn’t an excessive amount of noise or disturbance or any excessively large groups of people. Everyone must have gone somewhere else for Songkran or something because it seems that my experience with the national park seems drastically different from everyone else’s.

    I started the afternoon with a bit of birding, though even before going anywhere I had seen three species of mammals which are very common around Khao Yai – Northern Pig-tailed Macaque, Sambar Deer, and Red Muntjac – as well as a Hill Myna from the car. There are also loads of Ashy Woodswallows that can be seen perched on electricity wires in Khao Yai as well as an occasional bee-eater. That afternoon, I birded around what is called The Wildlife Watchtower which overlooks a pond and a salt lick and the trail to it goes through open grasslands so I saw quite a few open-country birds as well as three species of hornbills (Oriental Pied, Great, and Wreathed) flying into fruit trees around the watchtower.

    As mentioned, one of the primary reasons for my visit to Khao Yai was to look for nocturnal animals so that was of course my plan for that night. There are night safaris run by the national park that seem to be the obvious way to look for nocturnal animals but I had been warned that they were very busy and crowded and should be avoided. I therefore wasn’t planning to do a night safari, but since everything else in the national park seemed to be unlike what I had been told, I decided to try a night tour and I could always do other things afterwards. It is 500 baht (£11) for an hour for a car (a pickup with railings and seats in the back to stand/sit) with a driver and a guide/spotlighter picking you up and dropping you off from accommodation within the national park which doesn’t seem too expensive. As it turns out, I thought the night safari wasn’t bad.

    The person with the spotlight seemed to know what he was doing and knew where to look for animals and with me also spotlighting with my torch, we saw quite a bit. There were loads of Malayan Porcupines and Sambar Deer as well as a few Green Cat Snakes, an Asian Elephant and a Leopard Cat. I had heard that the vehicles wouldn’t stop for long enough to look at the animals but this was untrue and we spent quite a while watching the animals and whilst there were a few other vehicles around (maybe up to four in some places) I was expecting much worse especially considering that was the public holiday of Songkran and what I had been warned about. After the drive I did some spotlighting myself in the area around the bungalows (you can’t go spotlighting by walking down roads/trails because of the danger of elephants) and I was able to see a Common Palm Civet as well as a Great Eared Nightjar but I would have struggled to see everything seen on the night safari by myself since they do a route they know passing the salt licks making it likely to see things and obviously our hire car didn’t have a viewing deck at the back to be spotlighting from.
     
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  2. LaughingDove

    LaughingDove Well-Known Member

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    Full day in Khao Yai:


    The next morning I got another advantage of staying in the national park which was that I could be out birding properly at sunrise relatively easily so I started at sunrise generally walking the 4km between the bungalows and the headquarters but taking various detours going down some trails and things in the forest along the way. I saw quite a few interesting birds around and I also found a bird wave with lots of small birds flying around that added a fair few to the total. Another particularly cool thing seen was a group of very pretty Scarlet Minivets flying around that really are attractive little birds and there were lots of Black-naped Orioles too. With the help of a friendly park ranger who offered a lift in the back of his pickup for part of the way down the road, I made it to the headquarters area around 8 for breakfast and then did some of the trails around the headquarters. It seemed that by this time most of the bird activity had already died down and it was quite quiet though I did see a couple of cool things like Puff- and Stripe- throated Bulbuls as well as a Jerdon’s Baza and a funny Black Giant Squirrel sitting just near the headquarters making a lot of noise at everyone going past for seemingly no reason. I also saw my first leech of the trip. I think it’s surprising that I hadn’t seen more before this point.

    For the rest of the day I birded along various trails and areas of the national park following some recommended areas from thaibirding.com as well as generally just going around to places that looked promising. Much of the birding was extremely difficult and for long periods of time there was absolutely no bird activity at all but of course that is unsurprising given that the heat in the middle of the day is not conducive to birding and I was looking along trails in the forest itself rather than along the edge on roads and open areas which is much more difficult especially as I’m not experienced enough with Thai birds to know the calls. I was hoping to see some of the Khao Yai specialities like Blue or Eared Pittas, Coral-billed Ground-cuckoo etc. I didn’t find any of those, but things like Dusky Broadbill, Common Green Magpie, Asian Fairy-bluebird, and Golden-crested Myna were pretty cool to see. In the middle of the day walking along the trails I did see loads of reptiles though including lots of skinks of a number of species and two different Draco species but I managed to miss a crocodile that my brother and father who walked ahead at a non-birding pace saw. Apparently there are two introduced hybrid crocodiles along a section of a river that we walked along, though I was obviously paying too much attention to Slaty-backed Forktails rather than looking out for crocs.

    In the evening we went to an old golf course that presumably (hopefully) was cleared before the area became a national park where there were a few more cool birds seen like junglefowl and leafbirds and some other things before doing another night safari after dinner. Before going to the old golf course area was a funny incident when we tried to go down a very small poorly marked trail into the forest but as we were going down, the whole place suddenly started crawling with hundreds of leeches all waving their heads around and starting to crawl towards us. It had suddenly become very overcast and even more humid which probably drove the leeches out. At this point we decided to leave to find somewhere with fewer leeches since none of us had leech socks and birding over a carpet of writing leeches (maybe a slight exaggeration) isn't super-fun. Though at least I had proper boots so didn't get leeched, not everyone else was so lucky.

    After the evening birding though was the night safari. There are two rounds of night safaris each day, one from 7-8 and the other from 8-9. The previous day I had done the first time, but for my second (and last, because this was my last full day in Thailand) night safari I wanted to try the later session. I think the people at the HQ were a bit reluctant to book the second session but they did, and I think we were probably the only vehicle out at that time because aside from a couple of cars finishing off as we were starting, I didn’t see any other night safari cars that night. Of course we saw the Malayan Porcupines and Sambar again which are really common, but maybe as a product of it being later there were also some civets about and I saw both Large and Small Indian Civets. Another quite exciting thing was a whole herd of elephants at a salt lick including some young ones so that was cool to see in addition to the single one the previous day (though that was a much closer view) and it was only after a little while watching the elephants that I noticed that there were also some Gaur further back. One final particularly exciting sighting was near the end of the night drive when I spotted and the spotlighter/guide person also saw a Bengal Slow Loris in a tree by the road as we were driving through the dense forest itself. Unfortunately the driver didn’t see that we had seen something so I only got to look at it for a short time as we drove past (quite slow driving of course) which was a little bit frustrating particularly as a slow loris is such a cool thing to see. Other than that though, I don’t really have any complaints about the night safaris at Khao Yai which I wasn’t expecting considering all I have heard about them is how awful they are.

    After the night safari I went around the bungalow area spotlighting to try and see if I could see anything but I just saw some nightjars hawking overhead and a few Malayan Porcupines before stopping for the night.
     
    Last edited: 16 Apr 2017
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  3. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

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    that's excellent. I am honestly surprised at how good your reception at Khao Yai was. I haven't really met anyone (in terms of wildlife-watchers) who thought they were well-received there or that the night drives were well-run! Certainly actually stopping to look at the animals on the night drives is strongly at odds with the usual experience.
     
  4. LaughingDove

    LaughingDove Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, having read about the experiences of other people who have been wildlife watching in Khao Yai I was surprised too. My parents who regularly visited Khao Yai during a period of 10 to 20 years ago said that the sort of people visiting the national park was quite different with there being no drunks or noisy people during my visit and a big thing at the entrance to the national park about not bringing in any alcohol. Maybe that's why the national park wasn't super-busy for Songkran as I had been warned about since people wanting to get drunk must have gone somewhere else.
     
  5. LaughingDove

    LaughingDove Well-Known Member

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    Morning in Khao Yai and the End of the Trip:

    For my last morning in Thailand I had another opportunity to do some early morning birding in Khao Yai National Park and I had managed to persuade my dad to get up for sunrise to drop me off at a part of the park around 10 minutes drive away (the Pha Kluai Mai campsite) so I could do some early morning birding around there and along the trails and the roads nearby to add a few more species to my Thai list for the end of the trip.

    There was quite a lot seen around here in the morning, particularly compared to the lack of birds in the heat of the day yesterday when I visited this same area. There were a lot of small birds around such as flowerpeckers and flycatchers and I got fantastic up-close views of Green-billed Malkoha, Green-cheeked Barbet and Oriental Pied Hornbill that were not very scared of people. The hornbill in particular was very showy staying right out in the open to the point that it could pass as a tame bird. There was also a Green-imperial Pigeon that I was pleased to see and just before leaving the campsite area I got a very close view of a White-handed Gibbon swinging around and the staying for a while in a tree overhanging the road just out of the campsite. I spent a couple of hours around here in the morning and then also spent a little while walking down a track near to the bungalows area by myself where I saw lots of Common Flameback Woodpeckers and a very cool Black-and-buff Woodpecker as well as a Besra (bird of prey) before I had to get back to pack in time for us to leave.

    We then checked out at the HQ and started the drive back to Bangkok and to the airport, though still within the national park I got a nice view of a Wreathed Hornbill flying across the road and we took a different route out of the national park so I got to see some new parts. On the drive back to the airport there were quite a few signs that Songkran - the Thai water festival and new year - was happening with some people throwing water some mad drivers and some highly decorated parade vehicles but this was pretty much the only time that I noticed that Songkran was happening at all. We got to the airport in the late afternoon for our Air China flight with a short stop of a couple of hours in Beijing back to Warsaw.

    So that was my Thai trip! I hope you have enjoyed these posts and I will soon be uploading some pictures that I will probably embed in this thread to keep everything in one place and easy to view. Overall I am extremely pleased with how the trip went and I saw a lot more than I was expecting with over 270 bird species, 27 mammal species and 23 reptile and amphibian species. I saw lots of species that I really wanted to see and although I missed a few things that I wanted to see like Banded Leaf Monkey, Brown Hornbill, Velvet-fronted Nuthatch etc. I’m very pleased with what I saw and I saw lots of things that I wasn’t expecting. Not bad for my first wildlife watching trip to Asia!
     
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  6. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

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    well done on the whole trip. It sounds like you had an excellent time, and you definitely found a lot of really cool animals. Is this going to be the start of "LaughingDove Goes To Asia" threads?
     
  7. LaughingDove

    LaughingDove Well-Known Member

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    I should go back to Asia, the trip was a lot of fun. More fun I think than doing organised itineraries as I have done in Africa, but a lot more tiring. This was probably the most tiring trip I have ever done because of how much I did in such a short time, I'd like to spend a week or two at Kaeng Krachan. There's plenty more of Asia to visit but there's more of Africa and Australia too and I've never been to the neotropics!
     
  8. LaughingDove

    LaughingDove Well-Known Member

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    I've just uploaded pictures from Kaeng Krachan, the first part of the trip, and the full selection of pictures that I've uploaded can of course be seen in the Thailand Wildlife Gallery but I will embed a few of the best pictures/highlights here for easy viewing within the thread.

    Day One: Drive to Kaeng Krachan via Pak Thale

    Coppersmith Barbet seen calling in the grounds of my accommodation in Bangkok:
    [​IMG]

    Lesser Sand Plovers, one of the more attractive waders seen at the Pak Thale Shorebird site:
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    A mudskipper, one of the very interesting species seen around the mangroves at Laem Pak Bia:
    [​IMG]


    Day Two: The first day (without a guide) at Kaeng Krachan

    Dusky Langurs, quite common all around Kaeng Krachan:
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    A pair of Greater Flameback woodpeckers, very visible around their nest hole in a tree in the middle of the lower campsite:
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    An Ochraceous Bulbul, one of a large number of interesting and unusual bulbuls at Kaeng Krachan which also includes things like Mountain Bulbuls and Flavescent Bulbuls (see pictures in the gallery linked above)
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    Day Three: The second Kaeng Krachan day, and the first with a guide:

    A Golden Jackal, the first of many lucky sightings for the day:
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    A pair of Red Junglefowl, one of coolest birds that were seen and heard a lot in Kaeng Krachan:
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    A Great Barbet, one of a large number of barbets seen in the early morning around the upper camp:
    [​IMG]

    The first of many things that I would never have seen without a guide, a Red-headed Trogon in its nest hole:
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    A particular highlight of the day was this Rusty-naped Pitta:
    [​IMG]

    A nest-building Long-tailed Broadbill. I can see why it is sometimes described as reminiscent of a teletubby:
    [​IMG]

    A pair of Collared Falconets seen around their tiny nest hole was a great way to end the day:
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    Day Four: The final day in Kaeng Krachan

    A Great Hornbill on its nest hole was the first major sighting of the day:
    [​IMG]

    Another bird on its nest, but this time a much smaller one was a Black-naped Monarch:
    [​IMG]

    There was also a really great view and photo opportunity of an Orange-breasted Trogon:
    [​IMG]

    And the probably the most exciting sighting of the day was a leopard seen on the road while driving up to the top campsite:
    [​IMG]

    Two more species of bird on their nests provided great views and more opportunities for photography, these being Common Green Magpie:
    [​IMG]

    And Grey Treepie:
    [​IMG]

    And a Collared Scops Owl in the evening on the grounds of my accommodation at Baan Maka was another great end to the day:
    [​IMG]
     
  9. devilfish

    devilfish Well-Known Member

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    Wow! I've just caught up! Some great photos, @LaughingDove! I'm glad you had such a successful trip. :)
     
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  10. LaughingDove

    LaughingDove Well-Known Member

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    I've just finished uploading pictures for the Bangkok section of the trip so I thought I'd embed a few of the highlights here.

    First on the drive to Bangkok was a stop at the rice fields near Petchaburi which had a fairly high density and diversity of birds with lots of herons and egrets as can be seen in this picture:
    [​IMG]

    Along with lots of weavers of all three Thai species and their nests such as this Baya Weaver:
    [​IMG]

    And on the non-bird front were a Western Striped Squirrel that was very obliging for photography:
    [​IMG]

    And a Changeable Crested-lizard:
    [​IMG]

    Of course more pictures can be found in the Thailand - Wildlife - Photo Galleries | ZooChat


    I then had a zoo day in Bangkok where of course I visited Dusit Zoo. I have a very large number of pictures of Dusit in the Dusit Zoo - Photo Galleries | ZooChat including some views of the zoo and enclosures, so I will just embed a few of the highlights here.

    The Mainland Serow was really cool, and possibly the highlight species of the zoo:
    [​IMG]
    The hoofstock collection in general was quite impressive with Siamese Eld's Deer and Fea's Muntjac also held.

    And the snake collection was fantastic as well with the highlights for me being the Banded Krait:
    [​IMG]

    And Ornate Flying-snake:
    [​IMG]
    But four species of viper and a couple of species of water snake were also very cool.

    Additionally the primate line up was pretty good as well with the Phayre's Langur:
    [​IMG]

    And Red-shanked Douc:
    [​IMG]

    And further highlights included the nocturnal section with Indian Giant Flying Squirrel and four species of civet such as this Large Indian Civet:
    [​IMG]

    And there were some interesting birds too like a Milky Stork and Sharpe's Sarus Crane, but possibly more interesting than the captive birds were a few wild Spot-billed Pelicans in the Asian Openbill Colony:
    [​IMG]

    After Dusit Zoo was an evening visit to Sea Life Bangkok Ocean World (more pictures here: Siam Ocean World - Photo Galleries | ZooChat)

    Where the seahorse collection was particularly impressive including species such as the Low-crowned Seahorse:
    [​IMG]

    And Zebra-snout Seahorse:
    [​IMG]

    A Gulper Catfish was pretty cool as well:
    [​IMG]
    Along with a Chao Phraya River Stingray and some Balloon Lumpfish which I think are both fairly unusual species though I didn't get great pictures of either.


    And for my second day in Bangkok I had a birding day in which I visited three separate sites. The first one, Muang Boran Fishponds, had quite a number of interesting waterbirds as well as little brown jobbies. Photography in general was quite difficult, but this picture shows two Bronze-winged Jacanas along with a Common Moorhen and a Little Grebe:
    [​IMG]

    Next I headed to Bang Poo where a short visit produced a very showy Golden-bellied Gerygone:
    [​IMG]

    As well as a few interesting waders such as the Black-tailed Godwits and Sandplovers shown in this picture:
    [​IMG]
    Though Grey-tailed Tattlers were the most unusual birds seen.

    And thousands of Brown-headed Gulls along with some Whiskered Terns:
    [​IMG]

    And at the end of the day was a visit to Sri Nakhon Khuean Khan Park, the highlight there being the numerous Pink-necked Green-pigeons:
    [​IMG]

    And also one of the few cuckoos that I managed to get a reasonable picture of, namely an Asian Koel:
    [​IMG]
    The Chestnut-winged Cuckoo also seen at the park was not as good with posing for pictures.
     
  11. LaughingDove

    LaughingDove Well-Known Member

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  12. LaughingDove

    LaughingDove Well-Known Member

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    I have now finished uploading pictures for my Thai trip so here are the pictures for the last part of the trip with visits to three locations: Bang Pra Non-hunting Area, Khao Yai National Park, and Khao Kheow Open Zoo.

    First from Bang Pra, the first birds seen were a large number of Hoopooes in the woodland area around the entrance:
    [​IMG]

    And then out in the open area around the lake there were loads of Openbill Storks with flocks on trees on the ground and flying around widely:
    [​IMG]

    And another highlight bird that I saw a number of were Racket-tailed Treepies which are really pretty cool birds:
    [​IMG]

    Small, open-country birds were abundant in the grasslands and flooded areas around the lake including this Yellow-bellied Prinia:
    [​IMG]

    But on the opposite end of the size spectrum were a few huge Lesser Adjutant Storks which were another highlight seen at Bang Pra:
    [​IMG]

    Also of interest were some birds in the government run and not publicly accessible Bang Pra Waterbird Breeding Centre which I could see from the public path including a Greater Adjutant which was really nice to see:
    [​IMG]

    There were a couple of mammals around as well including domestic buffalo but also a Northern Tree Shrew, some Variable Squirrels, and this Berdmore's Ground Squirrel:
    [​IMG]


    Very close to the Bang Pra Non-hunting Area is Khao Kheow Open Zoo. I have a large number of pictures including enclosures etc. in the gallery linked above, but here are a few highlight species.

    As well as the captive collection, there were a surprising number of wild reptiles around including two species of Calotes, skinks, and Common Butterfly Lizards as shown here:
    [​IMG]

    But of course being a zoo, the captive collection was the highlight. In addition to a wide selection of ABCs were a number of unusual species. Starting with mammals this included Asian Brush-tailed Porcupines which I think I are quite common in SE Asian Zoos but since Dusit does not have them, I had not seen them before:
    [​IMG]

    Mainland Serows were still nice to see here although I had seen them at Dusit a few days before
    [​IMG]
    and Red-shanked Douc were in the same category and although a species I have seen before at Dusit and numerous times in Europe, it was nice to see Khao Kheow's huge number of Binturongs including young ones:
    [​IMG]

    But the highlights of Khao Kheow's mammal collection were undoubtedly the cats including subspecies fulvidina of Jungle Cat:
    [​IMG]

    And the very unusual Flat-headed Cat:
    [​IMG]

    The bird collection at Khao Kheow was excellent as well starting with seven species of hornbill including three particularly unusual species, namely Bushy-crested Hornbill:
    [​IMG]
    White-crowned Hornbill:
    [​IMG]
    and Tickell's Brown Hornbill:
    [​IMG]

    Blue-rumped Parrots were another species that I was very pleased to see:
    [​IMG]

    And so was a Lesser Bird-of-paradise:
    [​IMG]

    Finally an unusual thing, though not necessarily something I would call a highlight, was a mixed enclosure with an Asiatic Black Bear and a 'White' Lion:
    [​IMG]

    Because I'm limited to 20 images per post, I'll split off the Khao Yai National Park Pictures into a separate post.
     
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  13. LaughingDove

    LaughingDove Well-Known Member

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    So continuing on from the above post, the final place that I stayed at was Khao Yai National Park where I was able to add quite a few more birds to the list as well as see some more mammals and reptiles.

    Starting with mammals seen in the day, there are a few very obvious species in the national park. These being Pig-tailed Macaques which can be seen along the roads:
    [​IMG]

    Sambar Deer which are not shy in the slightest:
    [​IMG]

    And Red Muntjac which are a bit flightier but still very visible:
    [​IMG]

    In the forest are quite a few squirrels. The most common being Variable Squirrels which seemed quite variable in the amount of brown colouring ranging from more:
    [​IMG]

    To almost completely white:
    [​IMG]
    which is quite interesting.

    A Black Giant Squirrel was another very nice mammal seen during the day:
    [​IMG]

    But a lot of the mammal highlights were seen at night including the common, but very cool Malayan Porcupine:
    [​IMG]

    A few Asian Elephants including a very close view of a single individual on the first night:
    [​IMG]
    And a whole herd further away at a salt lick on the second night:
    [​IMG]

    Some civets such as this Small Indian Civet:
    [​IMG]

    And very cool was a Leopard Cat:
    [​IMG]

    There were lots of birds at Khao Yai too, many of them small and nondescript, and also quite difficult to photograph in the rainforest, though the small but colourful category included some fantastic Scarlet Minivets:
    [​IMG]

    Three species of hornbill were seen at Khao Yai - Great, Wreathed, and Oriental Pied - and some individuals of the latter were particularly obliging for photography allowing some up-close views and pictures:
    [​IMG]

    A Green-eared Barbet also posed relatively well for being photographed:
    [​IMG]

    As did a Green-billed Malkoha:
    [​IMG]

    The number of reptiles seen at Khao Yai was very high as well including the only snake of the trip:
    [​IMG]
    and I'm pleased that I saw at least one species of snake. I'm pretty sure it's a Green Cat Snake.

    But I was very pleased with the number of Draco (gliding lizard) species seen with two additional species seen in Khao Yai bringing the trip total up to three species. Below is an Orange-winged Gliding Lizard:
    [​IMG]

    Several Forest Crested Lizards seen were really nice as well, these being a very attractively marked species:
    [​IMG]

    And there were several species of skink as well including this Common Forest Skink:
    [​IMG]

    Finally towards the end of my time in Khao Yai, I got a great view of a White-handed Gibbon:
    [​IMG]

    I hope you have enjoyed my pictures from this trip! :)
     
  14. LaughingDove

    LaughingDove Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    16 May 2014
    Posts:
    2,492
    Location:
    Oxford/Warsaw
    Just for fun, here are some statistics for the birds seen at different locations:

    Grounds of accommodation for the first night in Bangkok: 15 species, 14 year birds, 8 lifers
    Pak Thale and Laem Pak Bia: 54 species, 46 year birds, 26 lifers
    Baan Maka Chalets (near Kaeng Krachan) over three days: 36 species, 17 year birds, 17 lifers
    First Day in Kaeng Krachan: 41 species, 31 year birds, 29 lifers
    Second Day in Kaeng Krachan: 73 species, 38 year birds, 38 lifers
    Third Day in Kaeng Krachan: 60 species, 22 year birds, 22 lifers
    Petchaburi Rice Fields: 44 species, 14 year birds, 14 lifers
    Muang Boran Fish Ponds: 51 species, 18 year birds, 17 lifers
    Bang Poo: 24 species, 8 year birds, 4 lifers
    Sri Nakhon Khuean Khan Park: 11 species, 4 year birds, 4 lifers
    Bang Pra Non-hunting Area (over two visits): 80 species, 23 year birds, 19 lifers
    Khao Yai National Park (over all three days): 95 species, 38 year birds, 35 lifers

    Total: 280 species, 278 year birds, 233 lifers
     
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