Doi Inthanon - Sunday 25th March

Our last morning on Doi Intahnon had us again on the summit (Chris still needed both Chestnut-bellied Rock Thrush and Buff-barred Warbler).  We picked up both these species pretty easily, with the Rocker singing from the tops of several tall trees, as if holding territory (Doi Inthanon is apparently the only place in Thailand where the species is resident, elsewhere it is a winter visitor only), and a couple of Buff-barred Warblers picked up by song (reminiscent of Wood Warbler) and seen well.

Rocker on patrol

We had several more Ashy Woodpigeons just below the summit, and more surprisingly, a female Silver Pheasant flew low over the road here.  Whilst waiting for some more thrush action we were joined by another birder who we'd talked with at Mr Daeng's the previous day.  On his way up the mountain he'd come across a group of 6-7 Speckled Pigeons basking atop a tree in the early morning sun, and he'd managed to photograph them. Taking this as our cue, we headed further down the mountain to see if we could find these birds - we never did, but we did have another Speckled Woodpigeon fly up the road towards us and then pass the car at close range. Tick.

We stopped  couple of times as we headed further down the mountain, picking up a couple of Hill Prinias, a small party of  Yellow-bellied Flowerpeckers and the only Mrs Gould's Sunbird of the trip.

Our last couple of hours birding were spent on the Mae Pan Waterfall road (within the first kilometer after leaving the KM 37 checkpoint) where we flushed a partridge (probably Mountain Bamboo) and had several Large Niltavas, and a female Vivid Niltava (which was the only bird to come in to playback of Asian Barred Owlet).

(not very) Vivid Niltava