I had the good fortune to travel to Thailand for an 18 day photography outing in December.  I would rate Thailand 5 stars for birding and 1 star for eating.  I admit I am a very picky eater, but the food there was not to my liking. Fortunately, I took my peanut butter and jelly along as I usually do on foreign trips.  Enough of that!  This is a birding column so let’s get started on that subject.

The trip began in Bangkok, a very modern city of 15,000,000 people.  I was amazed at how clean and modern it was. There are many skyscrapers and ornate temples devoted to the worship of Buda, the religion of 99% of the population.  There are ever present pictures of their King, whom they call Dad.  I arrived on Dad’s birthday so it was a national holiday. The area in the south of Thailand surrounding Bangkok is a flat plain with adjacent coastal area. The Chao Pharya River flows through its center and empties into the Gulf of Thailand (Siam).  The first couple of days were devoted to some light outings, allowing time to recover from the 25 hour trip and day change travelers experience.  

 Our guide, Pan, took us to the coast near the city of Bangkok.  There I was able to secure a nice, close up picture of the most common gull in Thailand-- Brown-headed Gull.  This is a very handsome gull even in basic (non-breeding) plumage as you can see from the photograph.  The outstanding feature of this species is the bright yellow eye with black smudges in front and behind and a bright orange bill with a black tip.  In breeding plumage these gulls will have a brown hood.

Most of our day was spent driving around the many fish farms in the area .  There we encountered most of the species included in this article.  Thailand has some very colorful kingfishers as you can see from the photo included in this article.  The White-throated Kingfisher gets its name for the striking white throat that is set off by the brown head, blue wings and tail and its blood red bill.  Just as our American kingfishers they are usually perched above water waiting to plunge in and grab an unsuspecting fish.  They are such good fishermen many of the ponds have netting stretched across them to preclude their hunting over them.

The Asian Brown Weaver pictured here is one of the old world weavers, closely related to finches.  They are seedeaters and are best known for the highly complex nest they weave (see attached picture).  Our House (English) Sparrow is in this group of birds.  This is a female and the male would have a black cheek patch and throat offset by a yellow head.  They are found in the proximity of wetlands.

One of my favorite species, Bee-eaters, are also found in Australia.  These beautifully colored birds are gregarious and form colonies. Bee-eaters build their nest by burrowing into sides of river banks. The feed primarily on bees and wasp, but eat other insects as well.  They sally forth from their perch, grab a bee or wasp, and remove the stinger and venom by repeatedly striking and rubbing them on a hard object.  This Blue-tailed Bee-eater was the most common one we encountered.

This large stork is an Asian Openbill.  They are birds found primarily in Southeast Asia and India.  They get there name from the gap formed in there bill by the recurved lower and arched upper mandible.  They are not born this way but this occurs in their growth to maturity.  The reason for this structure is believed an adaption to eat their principal food, snails.  They are not found along rivers, instead they prefer inland wetlands.  They are often seen circling in large groups much like our American White Pelicans.

The Grey-headed Lapwing is a wintering species in Thailand.  They breed in China and Japan.  This species is found in rice fields and other wetlands.  They feed on worms and mollusk.

  And our final species in the Little Grebe.   This is a pretty grebe with a dark head and reddish neck and bright yellow eye.  They are found in small ponds and lakes and breed on the edges of these areas.  As with other grebes their legs are set far back and they do not ambulate well on land.