I am updating from the old bird centre at Khok Kham using Po (Tii's wife's lap top hacking in to the neighbours wi-fi network) drinking a cold Chang beer at 21:50 local time after scoring Spoon Billed Sandpiper on the first full day. It was a close call though as we didn't get on to site until 16:00 and then we only had 2 hours of light. Hi-lights of today were 1 advanced moulting Spoon Billed Sndpiper(seen just on dusk) over 400 Great Knot, over 1000 Red Necked Stint's, over 300 Broad Billed Sandpiper's, 200 Curlew Sandpiper's, 50 Pacific Golden Plover, 20 Grey Plover, and a single Dunlin (race not specified yet). over 20 Gull Billed and over 10,000 Whiskered Tern's (Thats right over TEN THOUSAND)!! plus a lot more dross type stuff...
Good to See Khok Kham progressing with it's aim of conservation protection. At the end of this month they are holding another field day for local people as per the advertising below. What a great picture as well eh ? and it is on the latest T shirt of which a couple are comming my way, lol...
The photo above shows a small part of a mixed flock of both Red and Great Knot's together. Both species are quite advanced towards their breeding plumage. I was really pleased to have seen both of these species side of side which I can't ever remember witnessing previously before and also especially pleased as it was at Khok Kham (my Asian patch)
The photo above shows a Curlew Sandpiper moulting towards summer plumage even though this bird has got a long way to go it is still a rather smart looking bird, don't you think ?
"Yeah I know" It's only a Black Winged Stilt but I don't get to see that many of them and seeing as we had at least 150+ I thought it was worthy of a photo slot in this posting.
The photo below shows a Lesser ( Mongoloian Plover) wearing a black colour flag ring over a green flag ring. This colour combination is part of the Thai colour ringing programme which is quite often carried out by cannon netting at Khok Kham itself.
Again, the 2 photo's below show 2 different Red necked Stints both wearing the black colour flag ring over green colour flag ring.
As I was scanning through a flock of Red Necked Stint's at one side of the salt pans Tii was scanning another, he then rang me alerting me that he had just located a Spoon Billed Sandpiper. I headed over to where he was but saw the flock of Red Necked Stints get up and fly but luckily went down on a near by pool. We scanned through them together and then I picked up a Spoon Billed Sandpiper. I got Tii on to it and he said that this was not the same bird he had been watching, so there was infact 2 on site at Khok Kham today, however there have been up to 3 different Spoon Billed Sandpiper's at Khok Kham this winter seen by Tii in February. The record / shot /photo below shows the 2nd bird roosting at near on dusk and I was took this photo shooting on 8!!! You can clearly see that the bird is quite advanced out of winter to summer / breeding plumage. " A good end to the first full day of this trip in Thailand. Tomorrow we head to Ban pak Thale and another site / location searching for more Spoon Billed Sandpiper's. Now for a Chang and a relaxing night! " Why did I ever start a blog ? it is hard work !
