Monday, February 3, 2014

Thailand on fire (in a good way!)

There have been some very interesting bird records in various parts of Thailand in recent weeks that remind local birders to expect the unexpected, to keep an open mind and to look very hard at everything.

The latest gem is a Jouanin's Petrel seen off Leam Pak Bia yesterday, which follows hot on the heels of Thailand's first identified Bay-backed Shrike that has been present at Laem Pak Bia (and overlooked for a month!) until Peter Ericcson saw it and queried the ID last week. Subsequent trawling of photos shows at least one previous record of the latter species from Bang Poo in 2009.  

Add to this the drake Baer's Pochard and a pair of Long-tailed Ducks (Thailand's second record) at Chiang Saen, plus a Greater Adjutant (which would be the first in Thailand for several years) reported near Khao Sam Roy Yot NP and you have a pretty amazing set of records.


2 comments:

Gerry Brett said...

Dave I had no idea the Long-tailed Ducks were so rare and I didn't even know about the Adjutant!

Unknown said...

Hi,
I am actually doing a survey of the birds of Bangkok's parks for my Master thesis. Your blog helped me a lot to recognize the birds and I don't know if we could maybe meet one day for birdwatching in chatuchak park?