Thailand Birding: Pak Thale & Laem Pak Bia

The dreary weather in Thailand continues and we had to deal with drizzle, mist and low cloud today at Pak Thale and Laem Pak Bia. However, we did not let this stop us from finding 3 Spoon-billed Sandpipers at Pak Thale within 10 seconds of beginning our search!

We were able to watch these critically endangered birds for about 30 minutes before they moved on to another area to feed. Also at Pak Thale were 2 Far Eastern Curlew with the Eurasian Curlew flock (identifying them in flight is really the only way), 1 juvenile Black-tailed Gull, 1 Dunlin, 3 Red Knot with a large group of Great Knot, 3 Pied Avocets and a Mangrove Whistler in nearby mangrove trees.

Long-toed Stint

Moving on to Laem Pak Bia we managed to beat the mist and find a total of 39 Nordmann's Greenshank hanging out with Grey Plovers and Great Knots. A flock of 43 Pied Avocets was an unusually high number and more than 50 Asian Dowitchers were seen in the same pool that they have been in for more than a month.

Our afternoon boat trip to Laem Pak Bia sand spit was pleasant and quite successful with a first winter Heuglin's Gull, 1 Lesser Crested Tern, 8 Great Crested Terns, 5 Malaysian Plovers, a male and female White-faced Plovers (alone, not together), 2 Chinese Egrets, 3 Pacific Reef Egrets keeping everyone happy.

Unfortunately, bad weather meant that we had a less than satisfying ending with no sign of any Indian Nightjars where they are usually common.

Helping Birds

Most birdwatchers would like to help birds, but many people don't go beyond feeding them in their back garden. Garden bird feeding is great, by the way, but for serious bird lovers there are lots of things that can be done to help birds.

People who have gardens have a great resource that they can manage for birds and simple things like not using weed killers, slug pellets or any other chemicals will ensure that there is greater biodiversity in the garden and consequently more food, particularly when adults are feeding chicks.

Less obvious things we can do for birds are things which benefit the environment in general, like use the car less - do you really need to drive hundreds of miles to go twitching? My friend Simon Tonkin said that when he does occasionally go twitching he tries to ensure that he gives other s a lift so at least one car is used rather than two (or three or four).

I recently had a look at a copy of Laura Ericsson's 101 Ways to Help Birds

There are lots of nice ways that bird lovers can help birds here (101 ways in fact!), and althought this is aimed at an American market, virtually everything is true for anywhere in the world. Sometimes specific American organisations are referred to, but these can be replaced by your national or local equivelant.

This book encourages birdwatchers to do more than just watch birds, and the section on becoming an ambassador for birds gives an idea of the philosophy behind the book.