Baktaley and Lampakbia, 14th Nov 2012.

Brian Fletcher passed through Bangkok on his way from Sydney to Brasil via London.

Brian is a very keen birder who has seen well over 6000 species. He has tried for the Spoon-billed Sandpiper in Myanmar as well as Thailand on previous trips but failed to connect.

The drive to Baktaley went well and best of all, no rain. Since I had visited this site a few times already this season it didn’t take long before we had 3 Spoonies in the scope at pretty close range.

Oh, I forgot to mention that before looking for the Spoonie Brian mentioned he hadn’t seen Milky Stork. Milky Stork was a lifer for me 2 seasons back and I knew the hang about for the single bird presently in evidence at LPB. We found it feeding along side a Painted Stork so it was great for comparing.

After having viewed the Sandpipers extensively we set out to look for Nordmann’s Greenshanks as Brian only had seen them once. The numbers of Greenshanks have been relatively low this year and I could only find 2 this time.

We stopped by an open field to look for Oriental Pratincoles but they are gone and won’t be back till February. Instead we had lovely sights of 20 Grey-headed Lapwings and 3 Black-headed Ibises.
Next was a pleasant boat ride through the mangroves out to the sandspit.

There was a young Peregrine Falcon feverishly hunting and haunting all the Cormorants and Egrets along the canal. Apparently they are not very successful hunters as young birds with a low survival rate. Only 40% of the birds will reach adulthood.

A Chinese Egret was feeding with Great Egrets. Pacific Reef Egrets were in the mangrove trees. Something I have not seen before.

Out at the spit we found the White-faced Plover and studied the birds behavior and plumage at length. I have yet to meet anyone who thinks this should be a race of Kentish Plover. So different!
Lunch was a Thai sea-food salad, prawns in coconut curry and chicken with cashew nuts. Aroy! (Delicious in Thai!)

It was a sunny day but with a breeze so we decided to go back for the Spoonies. Again we got very good views of them . A flock of Terek’s Sandpipers was another good sight and a good variety of Terns as well. Scanning a flock of Great Knots picking out the odd Red Knot was also a fun practice.

In the end it was a pretty happy Brian I dropped off in Bangkok. Tx Brian, it was fun!