Where Are All The Birds?

[aletta]

As i sit and type this topic i am looking out of my window here in Korat at the blue sky and it is totally empty of any bird larger than a mynah.So are the fields and trees.Its always been this way even before the bird flu.You would think in a tropical climate the sky would be full of raptors and carrion species.None.A dog or cat gets killed and lives by the road for weeks with no scavenging birds.

Are the locals poisoning them or eating them as in Isarn they do seem to eat anything that moves?

There are not even that many small species of bird and very litttle colour.The only flash of colour is an occasional scarlet backed flowerpecker.Are there any other bird watchers out there or am i the only bird watching geek on the forum.?

[davethailand]

As i sit and type this topic i am looking out of my window here in Korat at the blue sky and it is totally empty of any bird larger than a mynah.So are the fields and trees.Its always been this way even before the bird flu.You would think in a tropical climate the sky would be full of raptors and carrion species.None.A dog or cat gets killed and lives by the road for weeks with no scavenging birds.

Are the locals poisoning them or eating them as in Isarn they do seem to eat anything that moves?

There are not even that many small species of bird and very litttle colour.The only flash of colour is an occasional scarlet backed flowerpecker.Are there any other bird watchers out there or am i the only bird watching geek on the forum.?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Your looking at the wrong type of birds i'm afraid

[bina]

alletta i think you answered your own question;

forest destruction, pollution, being eaten..... some of the many hazards for wildlife in issan..... plachon wherever he is could answer you..... he was the environmental expert.....

http://www.tei.or.th/main.htm

try this site

[Gazza]

I'm not a twitcher but I've noticed more birds in and around my mubaan in North BKK than out in the flatlands of the outer provinces.

Here there's sparrows, pigeons, doves (looks like Collier) wagtails, mynahs, swifts or swallows, herons or ibis I see flying over the village often.

Possibly in the farmlands it's difficult for wildlife to breed. As you say, if it moves then it's lunch.

[aletta]

Thanks Gazza and Bina.Very kind of you to reply.I was concerned that such a dull topic might not get a response.Cheers.

[Gazza]

There are quite a few bird/wildlife sanctuarys around Thailand. The only one that I know of being nearest to you would be a sanctuary in Konburi district of Khorat province. Possibly one even nearer depending on where you are exactly.

Get a good map like those printed by PN Maps, they show NPs, tourists sites, bird sanctuaries etc., or search on google.

[kimberim]

As i sit and type this topic i am looking out of my window here in Korat at the blue sky and it is totally empty of any bird larger than a mynah.So are the fields and trees.Its always been this way even before the bird flu.You would think in a tropical climate the sky would be full of raptors and carrion species.None.A dog or cat gets killed and lives by the road for weeks with no scavenging birds.

Are the locals poisoning them or eating them as in Isarn they do seem to eat anything that moves?

There are not even that many small species of bird and very litttle colour.The only flash of colour is an occasional scarlet backed flowerpecker.Are there any other bird watchers out there or am i the only bird watching geek on the forum.?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

There are so many birds in fact widlife here in Thailand that its really unbelievable. Th key to finding them is in looking for the habitat that they live in as like most animals and birds they always stick to a certain location that is used by the species. A good bird book on Thai Birds should have it all.

Happy Birdwatching and take care

Mick

[tutsiwarrior]

Anyone have any info about bird watching in Kanchanaburi?

[Gazza]

If you're in Supanburi then there might be one nearer to you in Chainat or just south of Uthai Thani.

I've noticed signs for one when riding to the North along the R32. Don't know the name though.

In Kanchanaburi there's plenty of National Parks but can't see anything on my maps specifically for bird sanctuaries, which I assume are mostly marsh-type areas that attract waders and the like.

[ProfessorFart]

Try Wat Phai Lom and its environs in Nonthaburi.

Bird watching is like fishing. Patience and stealth are required!

[anna234cn]

A lot of birds in Samut Prakarn. I can see a lot everyday.

Once I saw several birds eating a dead bird in the early morning. really got scared. And sometimes birds relax on my balcony. But they are all in black, have a beautiful yellow eyebrow and a little feather under the wing is grey. I dont know what's the name for that kinda birds. I collected some feather of them. Very very beautiful.

[penzman]

They seemed to have all fled the area a couple of months ago but there's been lots of birds around here for 2 weeks now.

My Thai friend says that many species just flew back from China.

The local rice fields are filled with white cranes these days.

There are many nesting around the surrounding houses. A small bird fell from it's nest while I was painting and he managed to fall in the freshly filled pan, up to his neck in brigt yellow paint. I gently washed the paint off it with a toothbrush under the tap. I also fed it with a syringe.

My dog ate it later on

[anna234cn]

My dog ate it later on 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

o, I'll eat your dog.

[bkkmadness]

But they are all in black, have a beautiful yellow eyebrow and a little feather under the wing is grey. I dont know what's the name for that kinda birds.

At the risk of sounding like a geek, is it a Common Mynah?

http://sres.anu.edu.au/associated/myna/pro...ynas6_large.jpg

[penzman]

My dog ate it later on 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

o, I'll eat your dog.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

She got to spend the day locked up in the doghouse

Poor little bird, thought I'd saved him.

.

[pautai]

surprised you asked , have you not noticed the guys going shotting at night ?

they wear headlights to dazzle the birds then blast them with those copies of muzzle loading muskets ! There are various small engineering outfits that make them in issan.

They fill the cartridge with black powder from fireworks , stuff in lead pellets , and ram it donw the barrel. They use a percussion cap from a toy pistol to set off the powder .

they have a very long barrel and are very accurate at shooting birds at night .

then they eat them , most varities are eaten . they dont shoot sparrows ! but everything else is game .

[eddie11]

surprised you asked , have you not noticed the guys going shotting at night ?

they wear headlights to dazzle the birds then blast them with those copies of muzzle loading muskets ! There are various small engineering outfits that make them in issan.

They fill the cartridge with black powder from fireworks , stuff in lead pellets , and ram it donw the barrel. They use a percussion cap from a toy pistol to set off the powder .

they have a very long barrel and are very accurate at shooting birds at night .

then they eat them , most varities are eaten . they dont shoot sparrows ! but everything else is game .

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I've seen these blokes at night walking through my wifes village in Surin, dressed in black, wearing balaclava's and carrying their home made rifles.Looked very suspicious until my wife told me they where only going lamping

[udon]

As i sit and type this topic i am looking out of my window here in Korat at the blue sky and it is totally empty of any bird larger than a mynah.So are the fields and trees.Its always been this way even before the bird flu.You would think in a tropical climate the sky would be full of raptors and carrion species.None.A dog or cat gets killed and lives by the road for weeks with no scavenging birds.

Are the locals poisoning them or eating them as in Isarn they do seem to eat anything that moves?

There are not even that many small species of bird and very litttle colour.The only flash of colour is an occasional scarlet backed flowerpecker.Are there any other bird watchers out there or am i the only bird watching geek on the forum.?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hi Aletta.

Have you tried putting out some wild bird seed on a hanging plate , in the shade?

Dunno if you can buy WBS in Los.

Be patient, you might see some beautiful parrots etc if you add some chopped up fruit to the seed.

good luck, you r not alone

Bird feeders

You could rig up your own feeder after a visit to a good garden center.

[aletta]

Be patient, you might see some beautiful parrots etc if you add some chopped up fruit to the seed

udon,if a saw a parrot in my garden i think i would faint.Blimey,a Coucal is about as exciting as it gets.

When i turned on the old PC this morning could not believe i actually got so many replies.Not the only sad old git out there then.

A little bored yesterday so took a stroll through the fields and saw i couple of mist nets between some trees so looks like the locals are having sparrow pie for tea.

[bina]

i was in a village near udon thani at a friend's house; i heard an amazing bird sing and looked for it; having spotted it, he went off to get his sling shot.......'sigh'.... you'd think three years of working with me in the 'old' zoo in israel he would have absorbed enough from my daughter's and my 'lectures' about endangered species, hunting, deforesting etc and the israeli enforcment of the law if he and thai cohorts were caught with traps..... his comment was always: there's a lot of *** foxes, weasels, rats, ravens, jays porcupines*** whatever same same in thailand.... sap ilee!!!

i have to say: when sompong accompanies me to the big jerusalem zoo its always fun; the last time the main zookeeper asked me what did my thai worker think about some new exhibit, i told him most comments were about if the animals were colourful or not, or tasty, not tasty... and the method used for hunting/trapping them...

[Gazza]

Be patient, you might see some beautiful parrots etc if you add some chopped up fruit to the seed

Not the only sad old git out there then.

Who are you calling an 'old git'?

You sound just like my great great great grandson.

[srisatch]

You should get Craig Robson's A Field Guide to The Birds of Thailand...He has written on The Birds of SE Asia,too. When the sainted Thaksin decided that the major bird sanctuary of Thailand down belw Prachuab, was it? should be devastated to stop a few rai of beach being washed away Robson was well interviewed in The Nation.

I don't eat grasshoppers and mangda and all kinds of things of which I am quite fond, because I suspect they have all been chemicalled to death....so the birds are going to be suffering too. However her in Sukothai ther is still a wealth of life. Birds in the rice paddies and my lovely fantails are breedingf a again in the garden. We have plentyn of Ioras and Sunbirds, too. Also have a drongo nest this year. The shrikes are the most striking things we see when we go driving about...and ther are birds just like the UK...Stonechats!!

[plachon]

alletta i think you answered your own question;

forest destruction, pollution, being eaten..... some of the many hazards for wildlife in issan..... plachon wherever he is could answer you..... he was the environmental expert.....

http://www.tei.or.th/main.htm

try this site

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hi Bina,

That's a bit OTT - "environmental expert"! - when really I'm just another sad old git that likes a bit of biodiversity in the back garden, round Isaan (and on this little blue planet of ours). Brightens things up a bit I reckon and makes our lives a little bit more interesting to boot. After all, what is (wo)man without nature?

So, yes, it's great to see there are some others on the board who also like to see some birdlife in their 'hoods (bar the urban, nocturnal variety with few feathers, frequently displaying in a bizarre mating ritual to overweight turkeys, usually pretty colourful and drawn to jewels and hard lucre, faster than any magpie you'll ever come across). But talking about the winged and feathered variety, Aletta, they are fewer and farer between than they ought to in Isaan, and it pretty much comes down to the reasons mentioned above. i.e. massive habitat loss over a relatively short period of time, coupled with relentless hunting pressure in the countryside and environmental stresses, like greater use of agrichemicals, air and water quality deterioaration and quite likely for the raptors, past use of DDT. Hence, birds have had a fairly hard time the last few decades, especially the forest and woodland species. One only has to go to a country like Sri Lanka, with just as little forest cover and higher density population than Thailand, to see the difference that hunting makes to bird diversity and density.

However, there are a few bright(ish) spots on the (smokey) horizon, that I've noticed in the past few years. A/ more birders in Thailand, which is a good sign that bird conservation is coming of age in the Kingdom, B/ More rural-urban drift, meaning that there are fewer young males with slingshots and guns prowling the fields and woods, C/ No or little DDT is used these days, and I fancy I see a few more raptors around than 10 years ago, but maybe its just my imagination, and D/ More silted up irrigation reservoirs is good news for waterfowl, although the RID dredging exercises then go and screw it up for the ducks!

I'm no expert on birds, but do like seeing them about alive rather than crumpled heaps of feather in a pouch, and on several occasions have almost gone ballistic, when a neighbour has blasted away one of our wee garden birds the size of a spudgie with a shotgun. It's at times like that the benefits of jai yen-yen deep breathing can come to the fore!

Am still occasionally looking in Bina, but v. little time these days due to other stuff happening. How's your goat and native dogdatabase coming on? Shalom!

[p_brownstone]

Be patient, you might see some beautiful parrots etc if you add some chopped up fruit to the seed

udon,if a saw a parrot in my garden i think i would faint.Blimey,a Coucal is about as exciting as it gets.

When i turned on the old PC this morning could not believe i actually got so many replies.Not the only sad old git out there then.

A little bored yesterday so took a stroll through the fields and saw i couple of mist nets between some trees so looks like the locals are having sparrow pie for tea.

"Coucal" and "Mist Net" would seem to identify you as someone who knows a bit about the subject of Ornithology rather than just "Twitching"?

Do you know the secret handshake!?

Patrick

[seville]

Like much of the more interesting wildlife in Thailand, many of the larger raptors and scavangers are on the threated species list. One of the things I do miss about California when I'm in Thailand is the lact of birds.

But last year it did seem to me that there were more shore birds about then I'd seen in the past and there is Fish Eagle that I know off and he/she is still around.

[aletta]

You should get Craig Robson's A Field Guide to The Birds of Thailand

"Coucal" and "Mist Net" would seem to identify you as someone who knows a bit about the subject of Ornithology rather than just "Twitching"?

The reason i know a little about mist-netting is that those ###### French folk are very partial to song bird pie and France is smothered in mist nets when the birds are on migration.Very,very sad to me as how much nutrition is there in a nightingale.The French like the Thais seem to be very keen to shoot and eat anything that moves.I believe the hunting lobby there is very strong and so politicians are fearful to upset them.

Have got Craig Robson guide in front of me.Great book but just a little depressing that so few of the species are here.Will have to get off my butt and go South i think.

bina,sorry no pictures of the local goats yet but it's Sod's law that they vanish as soon as i get out the camera.

[bina]

[srisatch]

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

There was a nice story a while back, probably apocryphal, that a park was stocked with wildlife in , I think, Tel Aviv,....but the Thai immigrant workers ate everything.

We were up in Mae Hong Son...and the birds are abundant...I think it is chemicals, more than hunting and/or mist nets. I don't know what the figures are for habitat loss here...but there are raptors, and quite a wide variety of species..resident and breeding...I'm not so serious a twithcher as to have a list...maybe we should all start. There must be a Thai Ornithological Society?? Robson has The Bird Conservation Society of Thailand..?? andf The Oriental Bird Club, Sandy!!!

The fantails have two chicks

[aletta]

Well done chaps,you've brought me some good luck.

This morning there was a commotion coming from a large tree in the garden with the finches fleeing.Looked out to see a small grey raptor which Robson says is a Shikra.New to me but small and beautiful.

srisatch,where did you buy the fantails.Am a huge pigeon fan.

[Gazza]

Aletta, anyone,

Are white doves native to Thailand?

Coming back from the Cambodian border I pulled into a petrol station on the main road in Kabinburi. While sitting outside the 7-11 drinking coffee I looked up and saw a pair of white doves sitting on the telephone wires overhead.

It was only when I looked at them again that I realised that I couldn't recall ever seeing them before in Thailand.

Doves that look like a smaller variety of Collier I see and hear everyday but not white ones.

I was going to ask the gf about them but I feared she might've seen a romantic significance in the sighting.