More about Thai Birds

As my teaching career takes off unfortunately I have less time for birds and golf. Nevertheless there is an abundance of opportunities in the immediate Ratchaburi area for sighting birds. About one kilometre from home in nearby fields I have been having a lot of fun watching weavers and can now distinguish baya, asian golden and streaked weavers. Baya weavers in particular are great builders creating fantastic colonies of woven nests. I love the very distinctive bright yellow markings many of the males have on their heads. I have also been looking at flocks of brown and scaly-breasted munias in the local fields. The latter is a really beautiful little fellow. A wet Sunday morning recently allowed me the opportunity to get fully acquainted with the barn swallow; there was a flock of them parked on a telephone line and I got the scope on them and could make out their blue and orange markings. In fact there are many, many common birds which are sometimes hard to distinguish from others especially warblers where the size of their supercilium ( eyebrow!) and their call appear to be the key. I haven't been able to positively identify a single warbler at present but it is coming soon.

On a recent trip to Pong Salot, west of Petchaburi, I was able to add two new species to my list:lesser whistling duck and spotted owlet. There were four spotted owlets on a tree, presumably two sets of mating couples, guarding a nest and they made me laugh as they were cleaning each other in the way cats help each other, almost necking each other. I managed to sight a golden-bellied gerygone in the King's Project, while I was unsuccessfully attempting to identify a sunbird; this fellow came into sight and his lack of a curved bill but almost total similarity to a sunbird had me thumbing through the field guide....golden-bellied gerygone, a tiny fellow, and the book commented on its similarity to sunbirds barring its short stubby black bill, and it had one of them!

I am fairly strict about adding birds to my list. They don't get on it unless I am completely sure. If I have any doubt they don't get on. This makes it more interesting and makes it more of a discipline. I have to study the field guide!

In recent bird watching I have discovered a site less than 1 km form home where asian openbills roost. There must be several thousand of them in the trees and their low key honking-style sound is very distinctive. You can watch the birds fly in from all direction to park in the trees. A very distinctive sight.

One of the great attractions of bird watching is its randomness and unpredictability. You really don't know what you are going to see at any time. So much of it is about being in the right place at the right time, in other words good luck! It is great fun and now that I am working full time Monday to Friday I try to go out after work for an hour or so just to get school and its stresses out of my system. I am also considering some activity to involve the students. The school grounds contain a significant number of species including owls and coppersmith barbets and I have seen a black-shouldered kite in the vicinity. Add in sunbirds, flowerpeckers and so on.

Engrossing really!