We drove to a youth camping area that was filled with teenagers, all sitting cross-legged and listening attentively to an instructor teaching them about the wildlife in the park. Pretty amazing to see them all so interested and quiet. We stood on the edge of the lawn area and looked up into a fruiting tree. It was filled with birds all sizes from dramatic Great, Oriental Pied and Wreathed Hornbills to Thick-billed Green Pigeon and Moustached Barbet. A Giant Squirrel (~3 feet long!) ran through the tree until a troop of Pig-tailed Macaque monkeys scared off a lot of the birds. We showed some of the students what we were looking at as it was great to see kids so interested.
We’ve noticed several groups of Taiwanese tourists leaden down with amazing cameras with huge lenses and were told that bird watching is more popular than golf in Taiwan! There is a famous birding organization in Bangkok also and many people drive out from there for the weekend. So great to see so many nature buffs!
After catching up with our cooks’ van, we stopped for coffee, fruit and cookies on the side of the road and then David took us to a spot where he had heard a Japanese birder was staking out a Red-headed Trogon’s nest. We found the steps down into dense woods where the birder was, apparently having sat there for hours with his camera setup pointing at a hole in a dead tree trunk. It took a while to figure out that the female was wedged in the hole with her brown head just emerging out. We sat perfectly still for 20 minutes and suddenly the male, a beautiful 15” brown-ish bird with a lovely rosy breast and black and white tail fluttered in and fed the female a large walking-stick insect. Trogons are very secretive birds and would have been impossible to see if we hadn’t learned about the stake-out! A really lovely, but poorly named species as is often the case!
I was thrilled and settled back into the van for the ride back for lunch when Heidi who was sitting in front called out that she had seen something emerging from the underbrush and out came a Silver Pheasant, a really magnificent silvery white pheasant with a black belly and an intense red bill and face. He crossed the road and began displaying by fluffing up white feathers streaked with black hieroglyphics as a female and another male approached. I was in the back of the van and tried to get some shots through the windshield, not great as you can see, but it gives you the idea! So great to have one magnificent bird appearing right after another!!
We met up with the other van and had another great picnic lunch: soup with bok choi and a wok dish. As we were eating, Dion found a fluffy white aphid walking along the road.
We returned to the hotel to rest a bit and organize our gear: tonight our three vans are going to set off north with all our luggage and we will follow on a Royal Thai jet tomorrow afternoon with only hand bags.
We birded some more, but there was little activity; at 5:30 we drove to the base of a huge limestone cliff and waited until after six when it was getting dark. Suddenly millions of Wrinkled-lipped Bats started emerging from a cave in the cliff. They were high above us and resembled a dark horizontal tornado writhing across the sky!
We could just hear their wings beating and in moments it was over!
We returned for a delicious dinner Thai dishes and curries and off to bed.
Hi Katy and Bob, your trip sounds amazing! both the food and the birds and other creatures. Thanks for blogging....
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