And the bush has friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him, In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended, And at night the wonderous glory of the everlasting stars.

Banjo Paterson (1889)

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Thailand Birding - Krung Ching to Krabi

Life has been so busy lately, work, travels and other adventures, including an Albany pelagic trip last weekend, where I was requested by one regular viewer to put up some more blog posts! Ok, yes, it's time I at least finished off the Thailand birding series.



Yes, a silly picture, but one I had to take. We are now at Krung Ching, nice birding area, but unfortunately to park is starting to look very run down!



Some wonderful rainforest reptiles in the area. I still haven't properly ided this lizard, so if anyone can tell me what it is, please do.



The birding was at times was slow and tough, but this fantastic Green Broadbill on it's nest, made it all worthwhile.



This is one of our favourite Asian rainforest birds.



Time for a break from the hard birding, lunch at a small roadside cafe in the nearby village. This lady could work wonders with a wok!



I'm hot and tired, but the food here is great.



Yum!



After birding for so many days, Liz and I are both tired, but look at our poor guide Nick, he looks exhausted!



Our accomodation near Krung Ching, good food and lots of it.



Nice looking cabins, but you only get a cold shower. The water seemed to be very cold!



Krabi and our last day with Nick. Our main target here was the Mangrove Pitta.



Krabi is an interesting town with lots of limestone formations, and a short but good boardwalk in the river mangroves.



No Mangrove Pittas were seen that day (heard once), but we did get good looks at Brown-winged and Ruddy Kingfishers. We said goodbye to Nick, a great time with an excellent birding guide.



Next day we were on our own, and it was back to the mangrove boardwalk in the morning, for one last shot at Mangrove Pitta before we left Krabi.



We searched all along the boardwalk, with lots of Blue-winged Pittas calling in the distance, but not our target.



With only minutes to spare before having to return to our hotel, we heard and spotted two Mangrove Pittas feeding near the boardwalk. We are very happy!



Not the best of photos, but at least we had got our target!

Now it was time to catch a taxi and head towards Khao Nor Chu Chu and our biggest and most important bird target of the whole trip, Gurney's Pitta.