Saturday, 12 December 2009

Return from Thailand

Well we're home and pleased to report we got all target birds and survived the leeches, mosquitoes and energy consuming humidity.  We just have to process a couple of thousand images now which could be a slow job as jet lag has set in big time but Spoon-billed Sandpiper and Gurney's Pitta images to follow shortly.  We managed to see 270 species in total which we were pleased with as we knew the forest birding would be especially slow at this time of year and made more so by having to pick the leeches off your bins first!  Apart from the heat and humidity Thailand was a joy - the Thais couldn't be more helpful and the infrastructure made this an easy country to bird independently.  Unusually for us we managed a non-birding day and spent a whole day minus bins in Bangkok and found that the cameras do take pictures of things other than nature so watch out for some pretty amazing architecture shots.  Despite eating at the doggiest road side stalls we had no stomach bugs and had some fabulous food.

2 comments:

  1. Hi there, Glad you got the Spoon-billed Sandpiper. Just yesterday I searched for 3 and a half hours strait to get one for a client but it just wouldn't show. First serious dip for me this season. Just wanted to let you know it is not something to take for granted.
    Did you also see the Greenshank and the White-faced Plover?

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  2. Hi - the Spoonys did take some finding but after a full days searching we managed to see one with ten minutes of day light to spare and so went back to the same spot at dawn and was very lucky to get 5! We did see the Greenshanks(24) but dipped on the plover - only had Malaysian and Kentish. We did see a possible Chinese Egret which we will be posting soon and would really appreciate your comments on. Kindest regards Clare and Wayne

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