Bala Wildlife Sanctury Trip - 5-7 March 2010
-*-*- Bala Wildlife Sanctury Trip - 5-7 March 2010 -*-*-
-Bala in the morning mist -
Last Friday came a trip I was looking for quite a time. My friends, A.Wanchamai, A.Kua, Kan, Ko, A. Yod, Duan, and I went to Bala Wildlife Sanctuary for 2 nights and 2 days for birding especially the hornbills. We spent around 3 hours traveling plus shopping roadside, arrived Bala at 5 pm. There're local farmers selling watermelons along the road around this time of the year. (I wouldn't dare get out of the car if I went alone, though.) Khun Siriporn, the head of Bala wildlife research, wasn't there, went out for business, but she did prepare for our rooms there. Lam, her assistant, was taking a good care of us and be our birdguide all the time. Thanks bro!
By the evening we get our rooms done, we taking my car out, went out for hornbills since they usually easily spotted in the evening flying back to their nests. Unfortunately, we saw only one flying and not a good sight. (We weren't even sure it's helmeted hornbill or Great Hornbill.) Lam told us he'd be our guide and meet him at 6.30am. So our hope ballooned up.
The first night we enjoyed ourselves doing what teachers always do: talking about students. I don't know why but we teachers always do that. And some did gazing the stars. They are the summer constellations which I know some, the Orion, the Canis Major, the Canis Minor etc. Around dinner time, I am so full I don't have a proper meal. After my trip from Trang the week before, I'd bet my weight is gaining up and this couldn't be a good sign. Slept very well, thanks to A.Yod's beer. Cheers!
In the next morning, I went out early to birding near the house and found a pair of red-eyed bulbuls (นกปรอดสีน้ำตาลตาแดง), my first bird there, and sighted a gibbon (ชะนีมือดำ). Lam took us out by truck to the fig trees that hornbills usually come to feed. They didn't this time. But we found them other place. We were very excited there're a lot of them flying here and there, mostly rhinocerous hornbill (นกเงือกหัวแรด), great hornbill (นกกก). They're so beautiful. Lam showed us a tree hole which hornbills used to used for their nest. Their breeding time is coming but not yet. We can see they paired up and went together all the time. Lam told us they may lay their eggs in a month or two to come.
-Red-eyed Bulbul (นกปรอดสีน้ำตาลตาแดง) -
- Gibbon (ชะนีมือดำ) -
Nearby we sighted some smaller birds Greater Green Leafbird (นกเขียวก้านตองใหญ่), orange-bellied flowerpecker(นกกาฝากท้องสีส้ม), asian brown flycatcher (นกจับแมลงสีน้ำตาล), grey-headed flycatcher (นกจับแมลงหัวเทา). We got excited with whiskered treeswift (นกแอ่นฟ้าเคราขาว)'s weird look and it's cuteness. A greater racket-tailed drongo (นกแซงแซวหางบ่วงใหญ่) perching here and there. It was fun birding time.
-Orange-bellied flowerpecker-
- Cream-vented Bulbul (ปรอดสีน้ำตาลตาขาว) -
At the time we got lunch back to the canteen, there're some birds around the bush nearby. We saw orange-bellied flowerpecker again but now with full sight. The small fig tree, the smallest fruiting fig tree I've ever seen, was a good easy place for kill-the-time birding too. We got cream-vented bulbul (นกปรอดสีน้ำตาลตาขาว) which I've seen and grey-bellied bulbul (นกปรอดท้องสีเทา) which I've never seen. Hooray! And I saw a yellow-breasted flowerpecker(นกกาฝากอกเหลือง) which was uncommon. But we wasn't lucky enough to found crimson-breasted flowerpecker(นกกาฝากอกแดง) which was rarer. Maybe it's saved to lure us there again next time. Well, there'll always be next time anyway.
- Grey-bellied Bulbul -
- Yellow-breasted flowerpecker -
Lam managed to get us to a natural bird bath. It's a kind of very small stream. I've got to get into the blind with my camera. But shot bird bathing with a 600mm lens isn't that great idea because it means I've to get a longer distance than shorted focus lens. This is officially my first time in a blind. It's kinda dark for taking photograph and I don't want to use flash. Anyway, the birds are great. We saw a chestnut-backed forktail (นกกางเขนน้ำหลังแดง), my new and first forktail ever. I saw a red spot flying in front of me and it turned out to be a rufous-backed kingfisher. Hooray again.
-Rufous-backed Kingfisher-
- Pale Blue Flycatcher-
-Good Bye-
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