advice wanted for Thai owls (1 Viewer)

Hi folks I am planning a trip to look for white-fronted, oriental and collared scops plus bay owl in Thailand. Any advice on sites, time of year to go etc would be much appreciated.

Cheers, Iain

I heard all of those but Oriental Scops Owl at Kaeng Krachan in January. I saw White-fronted Scops-owl near the Ban Krang campsite, and I could hear it from my tent most nights. To locate it, I crossed the stream behind the campsite and went up a steep slope, getting good views after much effort.

Collared Scops-owl often calls along the road in the same campsite.

Oriental Bay Owl was only heard distantly from Ban Krang. Many people have seen it at the stream crossings, but an elephant-related fatality the week before meant that the rangers were strictly enforcing the curfew. We left pre-dawn with no problem, but it was very cold (the coldest winter for a long time in Thailand) and there was no activity in the morning.

white-fronted scops - Kaeng Krachan, sometimes day roosts are found and well-twitched
oriental scops - Kaeng Krachan and Khao Yai
collared scops - pretty widespread, I've even seen a couple on my downtown Bangkok patch in Dec/Jan
bay owl - seemingly hard to connect with but again widespread - Kaeng Krachan/Khao Yai/KNC are all sites where it can be found.

Elephant risk does need to be considered when night-birding at KK and KY.

In terms of time of year, I'd aim for Feb and try to hit full moon.