part two
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part two |
| After Krabi seven of the group
made their way back to Phuket Airport while two Kim Keang and Ju Lin had a
few days in the local area (they managed to find an Oriental Hobby at
nearby reserve!) and then made their way home.
The rest of us flew from Phuket back to Bangkok and caught taxis to Peter's residence near the airport where we met his family and had refreshments before driving to Kaeng Krachan National Park (KKNP) in Peter's van. Driving from one side of Bangkok to the other on an elevated tollway was an experience, when I complained about the speed that we were crawling along, Peter reminded me of the probable scenario below us on the normal roads. Finally we crossed the Chao Phraya River and headed west on the freeway to Petchaburi passing many salt-pans which are rather uninteresting from a birders point-of-view (though we did stop at a few promising areas that Peter had recommended on our return leg the following week) We arrived at KKNP in the dark and settled into our bungalow near the HQ, Large-tailed Nightjars were very common and obvious and a Collared Scops-Owl flew out a tree nearby. We were advised not to let the huge (30cm) Tockay Gecko that lurked above the door into the bungalow as they are supposed to have a vicious bite.......it certainly held my respect. |
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Sign at Kaeng Krachan National Park |
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Oriental Honey-Buzzards Image by Gan Tack Kong |
Crested Serpent-Eagle Image by Laurence Poh |
| Kaeng Krachan National Park is
one of the largest and most pristine in Thailand at 3000sq kms and
surprisingly as it is fairly close to Bangkok one of the least visited.
Unfortunately as the headquarters are about 30kms away from the 'Summit'
which is the furthest and highest point on the road inside the park, you
can spend a substantial amount of time driving every day, consideration
should therefore be given to camping as the camp-site is a reasonable way
inside, also as a 'farang' or overseas visitor you are required to pay a
200 baht entrance fee every day (which applies to all National Parks in
Thailand) even if staying at the HQ. We had planned to stay for 5 days in
the park.
On the first morning we arose at daybreak and drove to the campsite birding en-route, we saw large numbers of Greater Coucal and Red-wattled Lapwing also White-breasted Waterhen, Oriental Honey-Buzzard, Crested Serpent-Eagle and a pair of Laced Woodpecker on the road hunting for ants. We stopped at the campsite for breakfast, here the vegetation is relatively unspoilt and Forest Wagtail, Green Magpie and Green-eared Barbet were all seen. The group then walked while Peter took the van to the area known as kilometre 18. This is where birding started to get really interesting, soon we came across some large trees with huge bees nests on the branches and heard an odd monontonous barbet-like call, I was surprised to see a small owl calling to it's mate....a pair of Asian Barred Owlet, a first for me. Further along a nest was found hanging across the track, suddenly a bird flew out, another first.....a Silver-breasted Broadbill! This was followed by another nest less than a hundred metres further on, this time a Silver-breasted Broadbill was sitting on eggs watching us and looking very fish-like. |
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Bees nests in tree |
Asian Barred Owlet |
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Gymnastics! |
Silver-breasted Broadbill on nest |
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Silver-breasted Broadbill |
Silver-breasted Broadbill |
| After this we moved on to the
first creek crossing where the rainforest began to look its unspoilt best.
Here we found several birds of another species that was new to me, Dusky
Broadbill. These are much larger than Silver-breasted and they also
appeared to be carrying nesting material. Whilst we enjoyed these Kim Seng
spotted a Brown Hornbill in the distance..... another 'lifer' for most of
us! Several days later we found yet another 'newie' at the same
spot, an Orange-breasted Trogon. After another creek crossing there was a small
track going off to the right of the road where Peter had seen some quality birds in the past, and after crossing a fallen log Kim Seng had a nice view
of a Blue Pitta before it took off. Despite hearing it calling we failed
to see it again although Peter and Soon Chye saw another near Km28 several
days later. One difficult bird to see elsewhere in SE Asia is the
Streak-breasted Woodpecker which is very similar in appearance to the
Laced Woodpecker, several were seen in this area. One of the most intriguing
observations of this area was made by Ping Ling on her dictaphone, we
tried spot-lighting early one morning near the first creek and heard an
odd-call, later at the International Hornbill seminar she was informed
that the call was made by a Rufous-collared Kingfisher....a very seldom
reported species.
Nearby up to seven Black-thighed Falconets were perched at the top of a tall tree, and I managed to miss a Black Baza....yet again! |
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Black-thighed Falconet Image by Laurence Poh |
White-rumped Shama Image by Gan Tack Kong |
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Dusky Broadbill |
Orange-breasted Trogon |
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Land-Crab |
Butterflies |
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Butterflies |
Flower |
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Mountain Bulbul Image by Laurence Poh |
Kukri Snake? |
| Although the bird-life of the
park was incredible, it was difficult to overlook the quality and quantity
of the other wildlife, butterflies were so numerous that they were often a
nuisance, landing on ones head and neck. Land-crabs were fairly common and
often squashed by trucks providing nutrition for clouds of butterflies.
A unidentified snake sunning near Km28 was almost trodden on by KC, I believe it is probably a Kukri Snake but could have been a Mountain Pit-Viper. Although evidence of larger animals such as elephants could be seen on the road we failed to see the Black Panther that Peter had seen there some weeks before. Troops of Dusky Leaf-Monkey were common and one morning we were fortunate in seeing several White-handed Gibbons at fairly close quarters. |
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View of Kaeng Krachan |
Peter, Marie, Prof, and KS |
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KC and Summit views |
Tom, Kim Chuah, Prof and Kim Seng |
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Ratchet-tailed Treepie Image by Lim Kim Chuah |
The Audience
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| From the lower elevations of
Km15-18 we made our way up to Km28 and the 'Summit' where the Thai Royal
family has a retreat. On the first day at the summit the weather was very
wet and we all took shelter under the 'Lookout' buildings, despite this we
managed to see Thick-billed Pigeon, Mountain Imperial Pigeon, Mountain
Bulbul, Blue-throated Barbet and a highlight for me, Great Hornbills in the
distance.
The following day at the summit was drier and even more rewarding, whilst conversing with a dutch primate expert he exclaimed that shortly before our arrival he had seen a Ratchet-tailed Treepie (a crow species only 'discovered' in Thailand in 1992, generally confined to Indo-China) While most of us were concentrating on a 'bird-wave' I suddenly realised that I was staring at the same bird and 'yelled' out to the others, though not all managed to get there in time. However minutes later there was another great cry of 'treepie' and it had reappeared in front of the lookout for all to see. We were also informed that a professional photographer was doing some bird photography near Km28 and that he was working on a nest of Red-bearded Bee-eater at the time. As most of the Singapore birders were well acquainted with this species from Malaysia they were keener to see Blue-bearded Bee-eater which can also be seen at here but not found further south. Fortunately one evening we saw the Blue-bearded on our way back to the HQ in secondary vegetation. The Red-bearded Bee-eater is a stunning bird, we all went down to the nest-site at various stages taking care not to disturb the birds unduly. I managed to get a couple of shots of the parents bringing food, however the leeches at the site were pretty formidable......Professor Soon Chye was forced to take alternate seating arrangements when his privacy was invaded! As a whole the trip will probably be remembered by us for the amount of Broadbills that we saw, in fact we saw all the species of Thailand and nests of most too! At the pull-in at Km28 we found the photographer taking shots of the nest of Long-tailed Broadbill and nearby found a separate pair constructing one. Other great sightings in this area were Pin-tailed Parrotfinch in their favourite habitat of Bamboo, Plain-pouched Hornbill, Rufous-browed Flycatcher, Great Barbet and for Kim Seng a long-awaited Collared Owlet clutching a similar-sized babbler in it's talons. Peter managed to see White-hooded Babbler on a number of occasions although we only managed to get a very fleeting view. |
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Pigeon in the mist image by Lim Kim Chuah |
Blue-throated Barbet
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Grey Treepie |
Blue-bearded Bee-eater |
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Red-bearded Bee-eater image by Peter Ericsson |
Red-bearded Bee-eater image by Ooi Beng Yean |
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Rufous-browed Flycatcher image by Tee Lian Huat |
Long-tailed Broadbill |
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White-hooded Babbler image by Peter Ericsson |
White-hooded Babbler image by Peter Ericsson |
Towards the weekend the park
became much busier as a four-day public holiday commemorating the birth of
Buddha began. We decided to spend less time at the summit and birded on
the lower-slopes, although the birding was excellent we did not add too
many new species to the list. On the last day at the park Marie and I
birded in the vicinity of the HQ and were surprised by the different
species that we had missed, Vinous-breasted Starling was a 'lifer'
and a couple of Racquet-tailed Treepies were a great end to a fantastic
trip. I would whole-heartedly recommend Kaeng-Krachan to anyone planning a
birding-trip to Thailand, a similar distance from Bangkok to Khao Yai and
(in my humble opinion) just as exciting!
If you have been inspired by this web-page to take a birding-trip to Thailand or somewhere exotic, a great resource worth checking out is John Wall's WORLDTWITCH website, it gives plenty of trip-reports and the latest reports on how to find difficult species. Please refer to the checklists below for scientific names in this report. Send any comments to Tom and Marie Tarrant We would like to thank all those that travelled with us, Lim Kim Seng and Lim Kim Chuah, Prof. Ng Soon Chye, Tai Ping Ling, Lim Kim Keang, Tan Ju Lin and Peter Ericsson for their great company and entertainment. A special thanks to Laurence Poh, Gan Tack Kong, Ooi Beng Yean and Tee Lian Huat for giving me permission to use their images on these pages, we hope you find them as excellent as us and visit the Birds-Pix mailing-list where they show their work along with many other 'digiscopers' world-wide. (Please respect copyright and do not make illegal copies of their images) A last thank-you for the people of Thailand who gave great hospitality during our visit, we can't wait to return! Tom and Marie Tarrant, Samsonvale, Queensland, Australia 2001 |
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View from one of the restaurants near Kaeng Krachan NP HQ |
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