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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jos Stratford" data-source="post: 3152149" data-attributes="member: 12449">15 December. Kaeng Krachan.A warm buzz of cicadas, a barrage of bird calls echoing out from a canopy towering above, great floppy butterflies  floating through shaded glades, my first-ever steps in a south-east Asian tropical forest. Rising an hour or so before dawn, I had left Laem Pak in total darkness and was now entering  the vast Kaeng Krachan National Park as the first rays of the sun touched the tree tops. From slopes yonder, a haunting serenade of White-handed Gibbons filled the air, assorted gronks and whistles of exotic birds an accompaniment, all most magical. Upon the road, great dollops and broken branches revealed the passing of Asian Elephants, tracks in roadside pools likewise for Gaur.Deciding to leave the higher altitudes to the following  day, my plan for the this day was to explore the lower reaches of Kraeng Krachan, i.e. to take a slow meander up as far as the Bang Krang campsite, then pitch my tent for the next couple of nights, then perhaps wander a little further. Only about 15 km from the park entrance to Bang Krang perhaps, but  with numerous stops and wanders it still took me the whole morning to get there! Quite outstanding it was, Red Junglefowl one moment sauntering along the road, then the deep whoosh of air the next as massive Great Hornbills took to the skies, truly the juggernauts of the forest, ploughing through lesser flocks of Oriental Pied Hornbills, the latter themselves no  midgets!  Large Woodshrikes, Hill Myna, Asian Emerald Cuckoo, Greater Racket-tailed Drongos, Chestnut-headed Bee-eaters, a nice selection to start the morning off. The real bee's knees however was the simply stunning Sultan Tit, what a bird! It was also somewhere along here that I began the daunting task of trying to separate the umpteen phylloscs that winter in northern Thailand ... gee, they are designed to induce headaches! Two pages of near identical leaf warblers in the fieldguide, confused even more so by the fact that half seem to have been split and renamed since the guide was published. And then,  just to add to the challenge, the little blighters themselves liked nothing more than to stick to the canopy of the forest far above, flocks of them flitting by, mere flits the standard view, the result being a cranked neck and a half imagined presence or absence of a feature that may have been diagnostic or not. Needless to say, I didn't do very well with these on the first day! I did however do rather better with other small birds - no less than five new species of bulbul for me, along with rather nice Rosy Minivets, a Bar-winged Flycatcher-Shrike and several species of flycatcher, including Hainan Blue Flycatcher. At various points along the road, fruiting figs offered the chance to just settle back and watch a right spectacle of activity –  not only Dusky Langurs prancing around the trees, but also multiple Great Hornbills peering out of the crowns, along with even more Oriental Pied Hornbills and, another very attractive bird, Asian Fairy Bluebirds in flocks. Add the assorted Green-eared and Blue-eared Barbets and a bunch of others and, gee, those initial thoughts of not liking tropical forests were far from my thoughts now!Eventually, truly at midday, I finally rolled into the camp site.  Himalayan Swiftlets cruising overhead, Asian Brown Flycatchers and Taiga Flycatchers flitting from the well-spaced trees, a couple of Bronzed Drongos aside the small stream. Thankfully almost deserted of people, this would be home for the next couple of nights, time to pitch my tent. Afternoon to follow...</blockquote>

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