On Monday the 5th we drove down to Radar Hill (Khao Radar) which is close to the Khao Pho highway service center. From Bangkok it's 400 km and we arrived at 4pm, just in time when the birds started to drop down from the sky after a hot day with strong upwinds. This place is one of the best in Thailand for raptor photography and some 70000 birds are counted here every year. The hill has a road to the top where there is space for a couple of cars to park. The vegetation has been cut down and it's an excellent place for observing the raptor migration and should under good circumstances provide great photo oppourtunities. However during a hot sunny day the birds will pick up the thermals and disappear sky high only to drop down many hours later in the afternoon.

Anyway it was interesting to see the migrating raptors and how skilled the experts are when it comes to identifying the species. Some birds were very high up and could only be seen with binoculars. You could see some going into the clouds making you wonder how many of them we didn't see.

Species seen:
Oriental Honey Buzzard (many)
Japanese Sparrowhawk (many)
Chinese Sparrowhawk (many)
Shikra (some)
Eastern Marsh Harrier (3)
Pied Harrier (1)
Black Kite (1)

Non raptors:
Blue-tailed Bee-eater (many)
Black Drongo (some)