Birding Trip with Tony"Eagle Eye" December 2010

In early December 2010, about 10 days before I was due to visit Mae Fah Luang Univertisy in Northern Thailand to give acouple of lectures witha brief stopover in Bangkok en route,I checked the internet to see if there was anyone who might be able to take me on a birding trip for a couple of days before I had to focus on work. To my surprise I found that there were indeed two
possibilities. I emailed both and, within 24 hours, I had a reply from Tony,Not having heard of him before, I did a little bit of web search of his trips, which sounded good, so emailed him within a few hours, got a positsive and encouranging response. Consequantly within a weekor so or departure for Thailand I had, at the eleventh hour,booked to go on a two day trip with Tony to Kaeng Krachan National Park.

What agreat trip it was!! Not knowing what was possible I briefy mentioned a stop over to see if we could find any shore birds enroute. Tony did't comment on this suggestion but in his reply
indicated that we would spend most of our timein the National Park. He picked me up from my totel in Bangkok at some ungodly hour in the morning and, shortly after setting off,I enquired,
hopefully whether we would see any shore birds"Yes"Tony said that was indeed the plan....
He had anticipated my wishes and first stop was Pak Thale , around 100 Kms south of Bangkok. This place turned out to be a superb shore bird location and, within a few hours, we had found a whole heap of wading birds including, sure enough, a lone individual Spoon-bill Sandpiper that Tony picked up in his telescope!!

It was then on to the national park where Tony had arranged for us to stay at a really nice little hotel that night. Late afternoon and early morning visits to the park resulted in a whole heap of forest birds the most memorable of which was a group of 5 Great Slaty Woodpeckers hammering on an old dead tree. In addition we came across three species of bee-eaters, three other woodpecker species, two barbets, an Orange-breasted Trogon that Tony called up, Lesser-necked Laughing Thrushes and many others. On the way back to the concrete jungle we stopped off at Laem Pak Bia where Tony had arranged for us to go out on a boat to an island where there were a few Malaysian Plovers and Sanderling....It was then back to Bangkok. In summary it was a most enjoyable, and rewarding, trip indeed. I certainly have in mind to follow up contacting Tony on my next visit to Thailand in the hopes of a similar experience sometime in the future.

Bill Breed (Adelaide, Australia).