Thailand November 2022 (1 Viewer)

[Mysticete]

Honestly, if you are only going to get a single whale on a pelagic trip, Bryde's whale is not a bad one to get...

 

[opisska]

Yeah, it's great whales. The taxonomy is somewhat in flux, some people call those Eden's and split them from Bryde's, but you get the idea.

YuShan boasted about how cheap his trip was - well, we can't compete with it, as, after proper recalculation, just getting to Bangkok (flights + all transfers along the silly way) cost us 800 euro per person already. Locally we have spent about 450 euro per person - for a very comfortable trip, travelling by car, 6 nights in hotels (remaining 5 camping).

 

[Oldnintheway]

There are valid complaints to be made about Thailand, but the food? It's amazing!! Glad you had an enjoyable trip overall! Thanks for the reports.

 

[opisska]

Please tell that to my digestive system

We are currently having the last bits of fun - thanks to the strike of Austrian rail and incompetence of Turkish Airlines we are still in Vienna waiting for a bus ... to Bratislava none the less!

Some efforts to ID birds from photos were already done, I am pretty confident we have Nordmann's Greenshank from Pak Thale and Asian Dowitcher from a nearby rice paddy, not to mention the huge flocks of Great Knot, Spot-billed Pelican ...Also some egrets in the bay area look pretty Chinese... From KK it looks like we got not one but two Malayan Night Herons, Asian Barred Owl, Brown Hawk Owl, Orange-headed Thrush, Chestnut-bellied Malkoha ... all sorts of interesting birds for us! So far we have 140 species IDed with 36 lifers - turns out we had the "easy" species of the region quite covered already ...

 

[Steve Babbs]

There are valid complaints to be made about Thailand, but the food? It's amazing!! Glad you had an enjoyable trip overall! Thanks for the reports.

Agree amongst the best food I've had anywhere and certainly the best value. In 3 1/2 months there, over 2 trips, I was mildly ill once. Mind you in 4 1/2 moths in Malaysia I'd never been ill at all until I went last time and made up for it with giardia so there is a certain amount of luck.

Btw they drive on the correct side of the road.

 

[Paul Chapman]

Just seen this... Glad you had a good trip.

I wonder if we coincided. We were at Sakaerat Biosphere on 6th November, Khao Yai on 7th to 9th, Khok Kham on 10th, Kaeng Krachan on 11th to 14th & Pak Thale/Laem Pak Bia on 15th to 17th. The plan was always to see whether we enjoyed Asian birding & have made a booking to return for a proper effort north & south for 2024. Wading through pics to put a report on here. About 360 bird species seen & work to do on other incidental wildlife sightings. It was essentially birds only with an excellent bird guide though limited geographic area covered.

A few initial pics posted here on the life bird thread:-

Your Most Recent "Life" Bird

Fairy Prion in transit between the Falklands and Ushuaia.

www.birdforum.net

Hopefully report within next seven days.

All the best

Paul

 

[opisska]

We were roughly two weeks behind you. I am really surprised that Sakaerat is actually known! I thought I have discovered a hidden gem but apparently people go there regularly - which is also interesting because we have met noone there.

360 birds is insane, we will barely reach a half of that when we solve all the IDs a guess ....

 

[opisska]

I checked your highlights list - you have never been in SE Asia before? So you are starting to do world birding after previously doing mostly UK/WP? The firebacks are from Sakaerat, right? The ones casually strolling on the road?

 

[Paul Chapman]

I checked your highlights list - you have never been in SE Asia before? So you are starting to do world birding after previously doing mostly UK/WP? The firebacks are from Sakaerat, right? The ones casually strolling on the road?

Yes. First trip to SE Asia. A few very common things in the photos but they were pretty.

A few trips planned outside the WP now that I have retired.

The Siamese Firebacks were from Sakaerat. I really liked the country so it will be good if the plan works out to get back & up to Doi Inthanon etc & down to Khao Luang, Ao Phangnga, etc...

All the best

Paul

 

[opisska]

When the staff at Sakaerat told us "the firebacks are this way in the afternoon" I was not really expecting the scale of the situation with them coming a meter away from me

Yes Thailand is really nice. We also enjoyed Malaysia a lot, which can be combined with southern Thailand easily.

 

[opisska]

We got up to 188 species - with still some loose ends, for example I don't really get the ID of terns in winter and what can all be reasonably there ... but it's so many birds that it's not really feasible to put for ID requests, so maybe something interesting stays hidden.

Almost all photographed birds are on iNaturalist

Observations

Observations by Jan Ebr

www.inaturalist.org

everyone is of course welcome to give any IDs, dispute existing etc... (the list has only 185 because we did not photograph Black-winged Kite and Asian Koel and some of the leaf warblers can be one of several species, which can't be indicated on iNaturalist in this way).

 

[Paul Chapman]

We got up to 188 species - with still some loose ends, for example I don't really get the ID of terns in winter and what can all be reasonably there ... but it's so many birds that it's not really feasible to put for ID requests, so maybe something interesting stays hidden.

Almost all photographed birds are on iNaturalist

Observations

Observations by Jan Ebr

www.inaturalist.org

everyone is of course welcome to give any IDs, dispute existing etc... (the list has only 185 because we did not photograph Black-winged Kite and Asian Koel and some of the leaf warblers can be one of several species, which can't be indicated on iNaturalist in this way).

Embarrassingly, I found the terns a nightmare. Almost all the terns we saw were Whiskered Terns & Common Terns though we did have a handful of White-winged Black Terns, Gull-billed Terns & Little Terns. In addition, we saw Great Crested Tern & Caspian Tern but I am sure those will have stood out.

I will have a look tomorrow.

Edit - having an initial look. A few things in there that I did not see! A few identifications.

This is Brown Flycatcher - Dark-sided Flycatcher (Muscicapa sibirica)

This is Claudia's Leaf-warbler - Leaf Warblers (Genus Phylloscopus)

This is Sulphur-breasted Warbler - Leaf Warblers (Genus Phylloscopus)

This is Plain Prinia - Prinias (Genus Prinia)

All the best

Paul

 

[opisska]

Your gull list is about what I am guessing about the terns... indeed there was a large flock of Caspians, these I know Littles and Gull-billed were quite obvioua and also that many are either White-winged or Black. Then it gets more muddy - someone suggested Roseate for one tern, I have to look deeper into that.

If the supposed Dadk-sided Flyc. is just Brown, then we lose a species

Regarding the Claudia's LW, there is another thread - Warblers, Thailand - where people with far more knowledge than myself explained to me that this is probably not IDable to species.

 

[Andy Adcock]

While Thailand is birded intensively and there is a big birding community of which some photographers seem to share the most perfect pictures of skulking pittas and other highly desired birds almost every day on my FB feed, the birding isn't always easy. It took quite some effort to see some pittas and pheasants, and there were plenty hours without a single bird seen or heard, especially in the afternoons.

This is because they are now using baited sites with screens.

 

[Paul Chapman]

Your gull list is about what I am guessing about the terns... indeed there was a large flock of Caspians, these I know Littles and Gull-billed were quite obvioua and also that many are either White-winged or Black. Then it gets more muddy - someone suggested Roseate for one tern, I have to look deeper into that.

If the supposed Dadk-sided Flyc. is just Brown, then we lose a species

Regarding the Claudia's LW, there is another thread - Warblers, Thailand - where people with far more knowledge than myself explained to me that this is probably not IDable to species.

Well... Yes. Of course, you can leave it unidentifiable and I defer to the contributors to that thread but overwhelming likelihood to me is Claudia's as I understand is the outcome there. If I understand the map properly, it was from the Pha Dieo Dai boardwalk & it was the default species there on 7th & 9th November. We had one call once where the Guide was interested in Davison's at one point but the only species that we saw of that complex from both Khao Yai & Kaeng Krachan was Claudia's Leaf Warbler. Unable to comment about Phu Khiao (next time maybe). I lack the knowledge myself.but the Guide was brilliant - one of the authors of the Guide book - & I started (just started) to pick up a bit on calls... Struggling with a few photos of my own. (He relied on sonogram for Pale-legged & Sakhalin's.)

https://ebird.org/checklist/S122019403

I suspect that we saw the same Warbler flock as you about ten days earlier. In the dark & the cold in England, it would be great to be back there starting on that boardwalk or sitting quietly waiting for something to come to drink....

I will post a Dark-sided pic later. To me that pic is an obvious Brown.

Most of your terns are Whiskered & Common with at least one White-winged to my eye but again, I will look properly later.

All the best

Paul

 

[opisska]

Yes it's the boardwalk. Fantastic little site, not long, but one of the most lively places in all Thailand, a continuous assault of small birds. Even in the thread, it was explained now that Claudia's is the most likely. I really think that the situation in here where everything is a Chiffchaff or Willow is far more practical than this maze of warblers in Thailand I have not even heard about these species before ...

 

[temmie]

This is because they are now using baited sites with screens.

I know that.

 

[Paul Chapman]

Some thoughts on a few terns with caveats....

Whiskered Terns:-

Marsh Terns (Genus Chlidonias)

Marsh Terns from Muang Samut Sakhon, Samut Sakhon, Thailand on November 27, 2022 at 12:03 PM by Jan Ebr

www.inaturalist.org

Whiskered Tern (Chlidonias hybrida)

Whiskered Tern on November 27, 2022 at 10:21 AM by Jan Ebr

www.inaturalist.org

Whiskered Tern (Chlidonias hybrida)

Whiskered Tern on November 27, 2022 at 10:20 AM by Jan Ebr

www.inaturalist.org

Common Terns:-

Common Tern (Sterna hirundo)

Common Tern on November 27, 2022 at 10:05 AM by Jan Ebr

www.inaturalist.org

Common Tern (Sterna hirundo)

Common Tern on November 27, 2022 at 06:03 AM by Jan Ebr

www.inaturalist.org

White-winged Black Tern:-

White-winged Tern (Chlidonias leucopterus)

White-winged Tern on November 27, 2022 at 04:07 AM by Jan Ebr

www.inaturalist.org

I would also be unconvinced about the Hainan Blue Flycatcher & I would be thinking Blue-and-white Flycatcher. We saw the first but not the latter & it has not got the same jizz as the Hainan Blues from my memory...

Your observation - Hainan Blue Flycatcher (Cyornis hainanus)

Blue-and-white Flycatcher - ML320903641 Blue-and-white Flycatcher Macaulay Library

Hainan Blue Flycatcher - ML204265531 Hainan Blue Flycatcher Macaulay Library

Hainan Blue Flycatcher - ML216882101 Hainan Blue Flycatcher Macaulay Library

But not sure I would listen to me as I came across a number of pics with which I disagreed with the identity in eBird so maybe it is right.

A Dark-sided Flycatcher pic attached & a Brown Flycatcher pic attached. Sure on that one.

All the best

Paul

 

[opisska]

I realized I also have Brazil's East Asia book and there it's shown that Dark-sided differs from Asian Brown by long primary projection (I hope I am using the right term, it's how much the folded primaries stick out behind the secondaries, not how far along the tail they end) - and thought that our bird has it, but then we looked up many pictures online and Dark-sided has it even longer and the drawings are a tiny bit misleading in this aspect (or other subspecies not relevant for Thailand maybe?), so after a long fight, we give up and concede Asian Brown.

Hainan vs. Blue-and-white I literally don't know! I looked at many pictures of both, it seems the impression really depends on angle, fluffing of feathers ... I am really uncertain. Either one is a new species at least, never saw anything like that.

I put your tern IDs to the observations (you know you could do that yourself - they make a lot of sense, I don't know why I was so reluctant to put them in the first place. What do you think about this one though - Roseate Tern (Sterna dougallii) ?

At the moment, this sums up to 188 species - exactly the same number as Malaysia in 2018 and a rather typical result for us "lazy birders" in a medium-sized trip. 53 lifers.

 

[Grahame Walbridge]

I realized I also have Brazil's East Asia book and there it's shown that Dark-sided differs from Asian Brown by long primary projection (I hope I am using the right term, it's how much the folded primaries stick out behind the secondaries, not how far along the tail they end) - and thought that our bird has it, but then we looked up many pictures online and Dark-sided has it even longer and the drawings are a tiny bit misleading in this aspect (or other subspecies not relevant for Thailand maybe?), so after a long fight, we give up and concede Asian Brown.

Hainan vs. Blue-and-white I literally don't know! I looked at many pictures of both, it seems the impression really depends on angle, fluffing of feathers ... I am really uncertain. Either one is a new species at least, never saw anything like that.

Re Flycatchers Paul is correct absolutely on both counts, Asian Brown and male Hainan Blue, both relatively straightforward ID's. Blue-andWhite/Zappeys (both are possible in Nov) have a more extensive, well-defined breastband which is narrower centrally + blue tone is totally wrong for both sp. And for the record, though your definition of pp is correct, in Dark-sided, the longer wings do extend closer to tail tip. Judging pp accurately is not always easy (especially from photos) its relative length can alter depending on the bird's posture. Your image is a point in case.

Grahame