dwatsonbirder
Well-known member
Here is a brief trip report for my first visit to Thailand.
The trip was focussed predominantly on travelling through the country, sampling the places, culture and cuisine as much as possible in our limited time. One week of the trip had been set aside to volunteer at the excellent Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai province, with the remainder of the time divided to allow us to visit a number of locations.
We visited the following areas; Chiang Mai, Doi Suthep, Bangkok, Khao Yai National Park, Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park, Ko Tao and Ko Samui.
Part 1
Chiang Mai & Elephant Nature Park
Chiang Mai was our first port of call and my first chance to get out and do a bit of birding. We were staying very close to Wat Phra Singh, and I adopted this as my patch whilst we were in Chiang Mai. Considering that this is a busy temple with no water bodies I was quite surprised at the number of species I recorded in just a few morning visits. Many of the birds were common in the country, but new to me; Asian Koel, Oriental Turtle and Spotted dove, Brown and Taiga flycatchers, Coppersmith barbet, Scarlet backed flowerpecker, Oriental white-eye, Olive backed sunbird… In the end I recorded some 25 species in the temple grounds.
The Elephant Nature Park was set up by an amazing woman called Lek, who wanted to provide a home for elephants which have suffered years of abuse at the hands of their mahoots. I hadn’t realised the mechanisms of how elephants are “trained” and I was pretty shocked by the stories we were told. Needless to say I didn’t ride any elephants in Thailand and I never plan to. The park not only provides the elephants with the chance to live in a more natural state, but it also allows visitors to observe the animals at fairly close range without interaction.
I did manage to sneak off from time to time once volunteer duties had been completed, and as the park lies roughly 15km south of Chiang Dao National Park it put me in a good area for birding!
Around the park were many Pied bushchat, Siberian Stonechat and Taiga flycatchers, and the more forested areas held Yellow browed, Greenish, Two barred, Arctic and Pale legged/Sakhalin leaf warblers. A river runs through the area and attracted a flock of Common rosefinch one morning, whilst White rumped and Scaly breasted munia were more frequent visitors. A White breasted kingfisher was seen daily, whilst Wire tailed, Asian Red rumped, Striated and Barn Swallow hawked over the water’s surface.
I explored along one of the roads along the valley one afternoon and caught up with a variety of interesting species including Yellow streaked, Radde’s and Thick billed warblers, Brown and Long tailed shrike, Greater Coucal, Green Billed Malkoha and Little spiderhunter.
In the fields were Eastern Cattle egret and some small pools attracted Chinese pond heron and leucopsis White wagtail. Raptors were represented by Oriental Honey buzzard and Shikra and one afternoon I saw a large eagle spp, much too distant to put an ID to though. One afternoon we visited a temple at Tambon Kuet Chang where a pair of Crested treeswift and at least 3 Brown backed needletail flew above the canopy.
We enjoyed a full week at the sanctuary, but soon enough our time came to an end and we were ready to hit the road. We planned to stay in Chiang Mai a few days afterwards, hoping to spend a day in Doi Inthanon National Park (my Christmas present) and a day at a cookery school (my partners Christmas present!).
The trip was focussed predominantly on travelling through the country, sampling the places, culture and cuisine as much as possible in our limited time. One week of the trip had been set aside to volunteer at the excellent Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai province, with the remainder of the time divided to allow us to visit a number of locations.
We visited the following areas; Chiang Mai, Doi Suthep, Bangkok, Khao Yai National Park, Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park, Ko Tao and Ko Samui.
Part 1
Chiang Mai & Elephant Nature Park
Chiang Mai was our first port of call and my first chance to get out and do a bit of birding. We were staying very close to Wat Phra Singh, and I adopted this as my patch whilst we were in Chiang Mai. Considering that this is a busy temple with no water bodies I was quite surprised at the number of species I recorded in just a few morning visits. Many of the birds were common in the country, but new to me; Asian Koel, Oriental Turtle and Spotted dove, Brown and Taiga flycatchers, Coppersmith barbet, Scarlet backed flowerpecker, Oriental white-eye, Olive backed sunbird… In the end I recorded some 25 species in the temple grounds.
The Elephant Nature Park was set up by an amazing woman called Lek, who wanted to provide a home for elephants which have suffered years of abuse at the hands of their mahoots. I hadn’t realised the mechanisms of how elephants are “trained” and I was pretty shocked by the stories we were told. Needless to say I didn’t ride any elephants in Thailand and I never plan to. The park not only provides the elephants with the chance to live in a more natural state, but it also allows visitors to observe the animals at fairly close range without interaction.
I did manage to sneak off from time to time once volunteer duties had been completed, and as the park lies roughly 15km south of Chiang Dao National Park it put me in a good area for birding!
Around the park were many Pied bushchat, Siberian Stonechat and Taiga flycatchers, and the more forested areas held Yellow browed, Greenish, Two barred, Arctic and Pale legged/Sakhalin leaf warblers. A river runs through the area and attracted a flock of Common rosefinch one morning, whilst White rumped and Scaly breasted munia were more frequent visitors. A White breasted kingfisher was seen daily, whilst Wire tailed, Asian Red rumped, Striated and Barn Swallow hawked over the water’s surface.
I explored along one of the roads along the valley one afternoon and caught up with a variety of interesting species including Yellow streaked, Radde’s and Thick billed warblers, Brown and Long tailed shrike, Greater Coucal, Green Billed Malkoha and Little spiderhunter.
In the fields were Eastern Cattle egret and some small pools attracted Chinese pond heron and leucopsis White wagtail. Raptors were represented by Oriental Honey buzzard and Shikra and one afternoon I saw a large eagle spp, much too distant to put an ID to though. One afternoon we visited a temple at Tambon Kuet Chang where a pair of Crested treeswift and at least 3 Brown backed needletail flew above the canopy.
We enjoyed a full week at the sanctuary, but soon enough our time came to an end and we were ready to hit the road. We planned to stay in Chiang Mai a few days afterwards, hoping to spend a day in Doi Inthanon National Park (my Christmas present) and a day at a cookery school (my partners Christmas present!).