Friday, March 5 - Exploring Doi Ang Khang

Friday, March 5 - We had breakfast at the hotel at 6 AM and off in the vans by 6:30. We all drove to a nearby, but little-used road and walked down it for several hours, seeing many unusual birds and a really neat 8” walking stick insect.

At ten the cooks provided coffee and commercial biscuits of various kinds, today’s specialty being Cream Buns, soft cakes with custard inside.

We continued birding, seeing some nice butterflies, such as the Common Sailor, and then stopped for lunch at a small pull-off. The cooks outdid themselves today, providing us with soup with pork-stuffed squid, sautéed shrimp and a dish of pea tendrils! We returned to the hotel and had a luxurious 3-hour siesta, which I spent catching up on computer stuff in the beautiful hotel lobby and walking around the hotel grounds.

At 3:30 we set off with Dion in one van and cruised through some beautiful flower fields as fresh flowers seems to be a successful local business, and with the King’s encouragement, replacing opium of years past.

We then took a wrong turn and ended up in a tiny village of Chinese who had moved here years ago.

Reversing our route, we ran into a birder who told us about a nearby small hotel with a tiny waterfall where we could find the very rare White-capped Water Redstart. We sat beside the stream for about an hour and got some very good views of this lovely reddish bird with black chest, head and wings and a snowy white cap that skulks along water courses. It was getting late by then, but we continued on trying to see pheasants that come out in the evening. We got back to the hotel at 6:50 and were told to meet for the List at seven, but Dion and David relented and let us off until 7:15 which just gave me time for a quick shower before the usual evening’s activities of List and Thai dinner.