Today got off to a scorcher and by 9:30 the heat was too much and the shimmer was to bad to scan let alone take photos. The best time was between 7:30 & 08:30 as the light was bright and strong but gave that crispness through the scope of early morning. Only a few hours at Khok Kham today but this was over the high tide period and I kept myself busy searching through the Great and Red Knot flocks for any colour ringed birds hoping for a Darwin Ringed bird but not this time. (photo above shows the kind of scene it was and I do like a Red Knot) Tii continued his daily search of Spoon Biled Sandpiper but without success today.
Photo above is of the estuary area at Khok Kham from where I have seen both Nordman's Greenshank and Asian Dowitcher's in previous visits. The photo below is of a small part of a 300+ flock of Marsh Sandpiper's during a feedig frenzy. This was good to watch at close range but I have never witnessed this behaivour before where they were all in a tight circle, feeding fast and constantly calling attracting other Marsh Sandpipers from the nearby pools of the salt pans. Towards the end even other waders such as Red Knot, Curlew & Broad Billed Sandpipers and Spotted Redshanks joined in the frenzy. The only thing I have seen similar to this feeding behaivour with waders was a group of wintering Red Knot in the Thames estuary where they also formed a tight circle and began to feed fast and constantly calling to attract other birds within the vicinity. Obviously there was a prey erruption taking place beneath the surface.
So after this we had breakfast and then I left Khok Kham and headed back to the hustle & bustle of Bangkok. I got my haircut, had another shower and sorted out my bags for my internal flight to Krabi tomorrow.I went to the money exchanger and exchanged some UK sterkling pound for Thai Baht and whilst in there a young group of Israeli's began talking to me in hebrew, I replied I only speak English and they said that they thought I was Israeli and that I looked Israeli. "I have never had that said to me before". Anyways I am here trying to upload this posting as fast as possible due to the fact I want to get away before the Lady boys and other earth dwelling creatures of the night start their routine nightly patrols of the area predating on the drunk and poorly sighted,lol. So I am gonna get the flock out of here. Video clip below shows a small part of the fast feeding frenzy of Marsh Sandpipers at Khok Kham.