Koh Lanta & Krabbi

Got here eventually & what a delight to see my lovely daughter Louise and to get to know my grandson. Arlo is full of life and there's never a dull waking moment with him, I admit it's also nice to have a break too when he got some sleep. Here's Arlo on Mum's lap with Dad Wade looking over the net in our favourite breakfast joint, the Drunken Sailor in Kantiang Bay.

Ok, I remember, this is a birding blog so I will post the other family photos in the Unwinged Gallery (click "More" on the Menu bar).  Yes there are birds to be seen on this delightful Island in the Andaman Sea, and here are some of them.

Birds on a Wire

Riding around the island on my rented motorbike was great fun and I got to see lots of birds on wires, this White Throated Kingfisher is a nice example

White Throated Kingfisher - halcyon smyrnensis

The Ashy Woodswallow (right) is aptly named, its feathers look like ash in two-tone soft grey, really nice and one of my favourite Thai birds.

Olive Backed Sunbird - nectarinia jugularis

Ashy Woodswallow - artamus fuscus

The little Olive Backed Sunbird (above left) is a common but very dainty little bird that loves to dip into flower blooms to drink nectar like a hummingbird, The Indian Roller is also a very common but colourful garden bird and always good to see. 

Indiqan Roller - coracias benghalensis

In Thailand even the pigeons are colourful, the Emerald Dove is a good example, as common as our Collared Dove probably, but better looking. Ok not on a wire this time but they often are.

Emerald Dove - chalcophaps indica

Back on the wire again with a Dollarbird, so named because of the coin shaped spots on the wings that look like silver dollars. This bird is in the Roller family and is as colourful as rollers usually are.

Dollarbird - eurystomus orientalis

In fact riding around on my motorbike was so cool I decided to ride off the Island for a spot of forest birding. So two ferries and a few hours of hard riding later I arrived at Khao Nor Chu Chi’s verdant tangle of lowland vines, bamboo and ancient trees. This is one of the few areas of genuinely old tropical rainforest left in Southern Thailand, an oasis in a desert of palm oil and rubber trees. Unfortunately for the birds it's a popular tourist destination with people flocking to bathe in the Emerald Pool (below). Birders also once flocked (sic) here to see the World's rarest bird, Gurneys Pitta. Gurneys was thought to be extinct until rediscovered here in 1987.  Unfortunately none have been seen here since last April so it seems to have been lost to Thailand again. There are reputedly populations in Myanmar but this will probably not last as that Country goes the way of almost all SE Asia, with the rapid destruction of forests through logging and replacement with sterile rubber and palm oil plantations.

Nevertheless I was not here for Gurneys Pitta, my target bird was the Blue Winged Pitta, another beautiful and enigmatic bird but one which is fortunately not on the endangered list. Seeing any Pitta is difficult, so to give myself the best possible chance I was up before first light and into the Park wandering the forest trails as the sun rose, with no tourists around to scare off the bird life.

I passed the Emerald Pool and before too long caught just glimpse of my target bird, deep in the jungle in poor light and obscured by branches. So I continued up to the Blue pool, another attractive natural spring-fed pond in which bathing is forbidden.

The Blue Pool

 As I stood and admired the watery view my eye caught a movement on the logs on the far bank, and there to my delight was a Blue Winged Pitta, right out in the open. My heart skipped a beat but I kept my cool and grabbed a shot just in time. Such moments are fleeting and it's essential to catch them while you can, and Bingo! I value this photograph above all the other birds captured on this trip to Thailand.

Blue Winged Pitta - pitta moluccensis

Birding is notoriously difficult here, the jungle is dense and is shrinking as the dreaded plantations encroach. Poaching is rife, I found several shotgun cartridges and the Park is not well managed, unlike Kao Yai and Kaeng Krachan. Little wonder then that Gurneys died out. The other birds I saw were nothing extraordinary, but I was happy with my pitta.

Grey-capped Pygmy Woodpecker - dendrocopos canicapillus

Back on Koh Lanta I picked up a nice pair of Grey-capped Pygmy Woodpeckers in the grounds of our former bungalow, and the Greater Racket Tailed Drongos were still in residence a year on.

Greater Racket Tailed Drongo - dicrurus leucophaeus

I ventured into the Mangroves by boat but it was not good birding, a few Common Sandpipers, lots of Maquaque Monkeys and Egrets feeding on crabs and sand hoppers, but nothing very interesting , certainly no Mangrove Pitta which had been an outside hope.

 I did pick up a huge White Bellied Sea Eagle at high altitude, a great sighting if not a good photo.


Later I spotted another raptor over the hills on the Southern end of the Island, Blyth's Hawk Eagle which is another lifer. I suppose it could have been Wallace's Hawk Eagle, but I can't tell the difference & Wallace's is a real rarity, so go for the obvious.

White Bellied Sea Eagle - haliaeetus leucogaster

Blyth's Hawk Eagle - spizaetus alboniger

Brahminy Kites are resident on the Island and can be seen daily along the coast at the Southern end which is less developed and still has plenty of wooded high ground for roosting.


My time with Louise, Wade and Arlo was eventually up, and I decided to spend a day in Krabbi on the mainland for a last bird quest before flying to Singapore for the long flight back home.


I tried an early morning walk along the Krabbi Town Mangrove Walk, but apart from one Brown Winged Kingfisher saw nothing. The days of picking up Mangrove Pitta here are I believe long gone

Brahminy Kite - haliastur indus

Common Tailorbird - orthotomus sutoris

I hired a motorbike and rode out to the Tiger Cave Temple which still has a pocket of ancient rain forest around the base of the mountain. This is a sacred Buddhist site & the mountain summit has a golden Buddha which is reached via 1,256 steps. I am not a typical tourist however, my interest lay in the grounds behind the Temple where the monks retreat lies in some nice forest. Here I picked up two new species, an Orange Bellied Flowerpecker . .

Orange bellied Flowerpecker - dicaeum trigonostigma

...and what I at initially thought was a simple Blackbird as at first glance it looks and sounds like one, but closer inspection revealed a a Blue Whistling Thrush. This is dark purple/blue with paler spangles and a largish powerful yellow bill. It is found across the Himalayas, Indian Sub-continent and Indo-China. It is a monticola, related to our Rock and Blue Rock Thrushes. I had not seen this species before and here it was living around the huts of the buddhist monks.

Blue Whistling Thrush - myophonus caeruleus

Other sightings here include Common and Dark Throated Tailorbirds, Tickells Blue Flycatcher and Common Iora amonst other very common species.

Dark Necked Tailorbird - orthotomus atrogularis

My final birding endeavor was a short boat trip to the River Estuary in Krabbi. Unfortunately it was high tide, not the best time to be looking for waders. However I made the best of the situation and took a few fairly distant photos of birds on the sandbanks that were still visible. 

Greater & Lesser Crested Terns - sterna bergii & bengalensis

Here we can clearly see Crested terns, I think both Lesser and Greater Crested varieties together. One or two black billed terns are mixed in that I am not sure about, Little Terns are apparently rare in this region. The larger wader in the foreground is difficult to identify positively but it looks like a Bar Tailed Godwit, pity we cannot see the bill.

Lesser Sand Plovers with Common Terns

In this shot we can see several Sand Plovers, Lesser are more common so I will go for that. The Terns in the foreground I think must be Common, except that the one on the left has a black tipped yellow bill so possibly River? I am just not expert enough to be sure. In other photos not worth posting I can also see Greenshank and Kentish Plover

Loose Ends

Finally I post a few extra shots, ones that "Got away", that is they are poor photos but worthy of inclusion for the record. The Chestnut Breasted Malkoha below is definitely a desirable tick on any birder's list, as is the Ashy Drongo which caught me by surprise. White, (or nearly white) forest birds are almost non existent. Both species were in kaeng Krachan Forest. Unfortunately my auto focus locked onto the tree branch beyond the Drongo so the image is blurred, but there is no mistaking this strange species.

Chestnut Breasted Malkoha - phaenicophaeus curvirostris

Ashy Drongo

I post this partially obscured view of a Black Capped Kingfisher as a record because it was another lifer, not one I had seen before. It would be nice to have a better photograph but that is not always possible, and that's birding. I was very pleased just to see it.

Black Capped Kingfisher - halcyon pileata

The familiar Whimbrel below was on a rocky beach in Koh Lanta, I only post it because it's quite a nice shot in good light.

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Whimbrel

Finally I couldn't resist the Red Dragon below. The Fulvous Forest Skimmer is quite a common species in Thailand and this shot was from the grounds of the Morakot Resort at Kao Nor Chuchi.

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Fulvous Forest Skimmer - nurothemis fulvia

In may 2014 I posted a list of birds identified on our last visit to SE Asia. This time I will just add the additional species positively identified on this trip. It was not possible for me to ID all the hirundines and swifts, I will just add the very common species & the ones my bird guide Biak identified. So far 188 species which is not bad in just two visits. There are many more that I can't identify, particularly swifts, hirundines and seabirds which are distant and/or in flight.


Bay Banded Cuckoo
Large Hawk Cuckoo
Common Cuckoo
Ochraceous Bulbul
Black Capped Kingfisher
Blyth's hawk Eagle
White Fronted Scops Owl
Blue Whistling Thrush
Lesser Crested Tern
Greater Crested Tern
Lesser Necklaced Laughingthrush
Siberian Blue Robin
Orange Breasted Flowerpecker
Scarlet Minevet
Black Thighed falconet
Emerald Dove

Spangled Drongo
Ashy Drongo
Black Drongo
Forest Wagtail
Racket tailed Treepie
Yellow Bellied warbler
White Browed Scimitar Babbler
Bamboo Woodpecker
Black & Buff Woodpecker
Crimson Winged Woodpecker
Large tailed Nightjar
Asian Barred Owlet
Yellow Rumped or Narcissus Flycatcher
White Bellied Sea Eagle
Oriental White Eye
Striated Swallow
Large Scimitar Babbler
Lesser Sand Plover
Bar Tailed Godwit
Greenshank
Kentish Plover