Thailand Birding: Day Trips to Laem Pak Bia/Pak Thale

The Laem Pak Bia/Pak Thale area of Petchaburi province has established itself as the best shorebird site in Thailand and one of the best in the world. What is impressive about this site is:

1. The Size
2. The sheer number of birds
3. The variety of species
4. The quality of species

Recently, I have been to this area 6-7 times and each time have seen 85 species plus, including a number of very rare birds and a few that are uncommon. It is not that unusual to see more than 100 species in a day.

On the 8th December I spent the day at Laem Pak Bia/Pak Thale with Des and Tina Langford from UK and we had an excellent day starting with Nordmann's Greenshank (it's good to get this bird early before work on the salt pans flushes them away) and then moving on to look for Spoon-billed Sandpiper in it regular location (also good to see this bird early for the same reasons). This bird took some time to find and it was getting tot the point where we thought we might not see it; fortunately as things were getting desperate we found 1 bird on the last pool we looked at.

The Sand Spit We hired a fishing boat to take us out to Laem Pak Bia sand spit which is a great place to find Malaysian Plover. This is a non-migratory shorebird with a restricted range; confined to sandy beaches in Southeast Asia. As sandy beaches in South East Asia suffer from development pressure from the tourist industry, this species is threatened. The boat trip takes about 30-40 minutes to get to the sand spit and Malaysian Plover is easy to find. White-faced Plover is also usually present but often requires a lot more effort to locate - we found one in a roosting flock of Greater Sand Plovers, Lesser Sand Plovers, Kentish Plovers, Curlew Sandpipers, Sanderling and Red-necked Stints.

Freshwater Wetlands The Petchaburi region has a lot of freshwater wetland areas too and a short distance from the main shorebird sites are a small area where a good number of species can be found. From the main crossroads near Hat Chao Samran one should drive back towards Petchaburi and take the first right hand turning (about 1km). This turning is for a temple and as one approaches a village there are some nice reedy areas on the right of the road. Here we found Painted Stork, Asian Openbill, Black-faced Spoonbill, Purple Heron, Pied Kingfisher, Eastern Marsh Harrier, Ruddy-breasted Crake, Oriental Reed Warbler and Greater Painted Snipe.

Also in this area was a very strange Little Egret with some sort of aberrant plumage.

The King's Project This area is great for seeing lots of birds at very close range. Lots of egrets, herons and shorebirds such as Pintail Snipe and Ruff can be seen easily. One must enter before 6pm but between 5pm and dark large numbers of birds come to roost in the nearby mangroves. In the region of 10-15000 Black Drongos sometimes pass through and in the winter there are always small flocks of White-shouldered Starlings too. We saw around 150 White-shouldered Starlings and some other good birds we saw were Oriental Reed Warbler, Ruddy-breasted Crake, Caspian Tern, Black-crowned Night Heron and Collared Kingfisher. Indian Nightjar can be found here too. Upon entering, one is sometimes given a brochure which explains what the purpose of this area is.

Conclusion Whether you are with a guide or choose to go independently, birders will find that Laem Pak Bia/Pak Thale gives a great day's birding. Indeed, many experienced and well-traveled birders have told me that it was their best day ever! Most people visit for just 1 day but I am increasingly often spending 2 days in the area and by visiting a variety of habitats can see in excess of 130 species over the 2 days. I would suggest that more people take their time in this area and find many species that they did not expect on their Thai birding holiday.

Thailand Birding: Some Notes on Birdwatching in November

Throughout November I was away from home most of the time, visiting some of Thailand's best birdwatching locations with a number of visitors who provided some excellent company. The sites visited in November included Khok Kham, Laem Pak Bia/Pak Thale, Tung Bang Jak, Kaeng Krachan, Doi Inthanon, Doi Ang Kang, Huay Tung Tao and Doi Lang. All of these sites provided some of their specialities and one or two surprises.

November is a time of year that I have not done much birding in the past, so there were a few things I discovered that I will pass on here to others.

Generally, resident forest birds were rather quiet and difficult to find; this was particularly true around Ban Krang at Kaeng Krachan where woodpeckers, broadbills and kingfishers were almost impossible to locate. Local birders and rangers told me that they hadn't seen a broadbill for more than a month, however, towards the end of the month I did hear a pair of Banded Broadbills calling.

Despite resident birds being rather trickier than at other times, migratory birds were more rewarding. Although November is a little early for large numbers of migrants to be present, "falls" of migrants were quite obvious and it was interesting to turn up species that are either scarce passage migrants or winter visitors that were more active than normal because they had just arrived. At Doi Ang Kang, Bush Warblers were rather more active than at other times, with Aberrant Bush Warbler and 2 Manchurian Bush Warblers being seen. Perhaps they were busy feeding up after their long journey.

In the north Thrushes were beginning to arrive in small numbers and 2 Eyebrowed Thrushes were seen, 1 Dusky Thrush and 2 Black-breasted Thrushes. Also the Dark-sided Thrush had recently shown up at Mr Daeng's at Doi Inthanon and there was an arrival of caeruleus Blue Whistling Thrushes at Doi Inthanon on the 12th November.

In the lowlands things were exceptionally quiet at Huay Tung Tao with many of the regular birds being absent. There was no sign of Purple Sunbird, Lineated Barbet, Rufous-winged Buzzard, Bright-headed Cisticola or Chinese Francolin but the Wire-tailed Swallows were present.

November also saw the return of Nordmann's Greenshank & Spoon-billed Sandpiper to Pak Thale and Laem Pak Bia, with 1 Spoon-billed Sandpiper turning up at Khok Kham on 28th October. Any visitors coming to Thailand at the end of October/beginning of November would do well to visit Khok Kham as the bird always seems to turn up there first.

In the freshwater wetlands weavers and jacanas were in short supply, but plenty of other birds were to be found such as Reed Warblers, Spot-billed Pelican and Black-headed Ibis.

I hope that these random notes will be of some assistance to birders planning their trips to Thailand in the future.