Spoon-billed Sandpipers and Gurney's Pitta

These two birds were top of our list to see in Thailand and thankfully we saw them both and in the case of the Spoon-bills we saw not one but five of these amazing little waders but boy did they take some finding in amongst hundreds of other stints and plovers - but when we found one the excitement was immense - surely the best wader in the world.
The Gurney's Pitta was incredibly difficult to see and without the use of our guide Yothin Meekaeo I feel it would have been impossible - we spent about an hour in the company of this stunning female pitta (no male seen) and she was also joined by an absolutely stunning male Banded Pitta who in my opinion knocked spots off all the pittas we saw.  In total we had 4 species of pitta: Gurney's, Banded, Blue and Eared - the Eared was incredible, it was almost dark and we were on our way out of the forest at Khao Yai NP when Wayne heard it call so he called back to it and within seconds it zoomed in and sat within 2 metres of us for what seemed an age but was probably 30 seconds - the light was catching its silver ears protruding behind its head - books do it no justice at all and we didn't dare move so no photos.