Thailand; Day 14 - Pak Thale

   The day started abruptly when last nights party in Chiang Mai caught me out, and I did not set an alarm. A phone call at 05:50 asking where I was and why I wasn’t at the car quickly brought me to my senses, and I was our the door and packed in a matter of minutes, ready for our flight from Chiang Mai to Bangkok. Still it did mean that I spent the rest of the day exhausted and tired. Fortunately the day was mostly to be spent travelling, with only limited birding in the late afternoon.

  At the end of the afternoon we finally arrived in Petchaburi, a state on the Malay Peninsula where we would spend the rest of our time in Thailand. The birding was to involve mostly searching salt pans for wading birds, in the quest for the very rare Spoon-billed Sandpiper. Although afternoon is not the best time, we still set off to try our luck.

  The first set of salt pans had a lot of waders on, mostly Marsh Sandpipers, but there was excellent variety allowing us to get to grips with East Asian species. Obviously Red-necked Stint was new for me, but it was the only one. Good species we found here included a smart Long-toed Stint, in total for this site we clocked up an impressive 19 different species of wader. Non wading birds included our first Brahminy Kites flying overhead, as well as Caspian and Whiskered Terns, as well as Brown-headed Gulls.

  For the last hour of light we switched up and went to the main wader watching hotspot of Pak Thale, where we would stand the best chance of finding the Spoon-billed Sandpiper. There were more waders here, but the bulk of the birds were plovers, of the Greater Sand Plover, Tibetan Sand Plover and Kentish Plover varieties. Among them we picked out our first Great Knots of the trip, with a big roosting group.

  At almost the last minutes of light Rob managed to pick out the one we wanted. Although distant and with the light fading, we could still see the delightful little beak of the critically endangered Spoon-billed Sandpiper, nestled among the Red-necked Stints and Broad-billed Sandpipers. Although viewing was not ideal, it was still brilliant to get our main target so early into our time here, and a delightful little bird as well. What a great start to our time in the south.