Third Kaeng Krachan Day - Still with a Bird Guide

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I started early again at the same time because for my last day in Kaeng Krachan I had a second day with the same guide and vehicle. This time, rather than head straight to the highest altitude place, we started the morning birding at the lower altitude and we birded along the road stopping all along the way and looking at the various birds that could be seen from near the road. A particular highlight from this part was a Black Giant Squirrel. We then continued past the first campsite starting up the road to the second campsite, but we stopped still within the lower altitude area (mostly between the first and third stream and a bit beyond the third stream for anyone who knows the National Park) to find various birds walking along trails through the forest. The birding was extremely difficult and not very productive, apparently it had rained at night and that makes the birds inactive at the lower levels and also seemingly makes tons of bitey insects appear. The thought did occur to me though that there don’t seem to be many stingy or thorny plants than other places, but way more vicious insects. There were some particularly nice birds seen though including a Great Hornbill on its nest hole, Black-naped Monarch, and Orange-breasted Trogon as well as a gibbon. Apparently someone had found a new site for the elusive White-faced Scops Owl yesterday which the bird photographers immediately scared off and the owl wasn’t back there anymore. There used to be a reliable site for these, but my guide said they hadn’t been there for about a year so sadly I didn’t see any.

After the birding in the lowland sections, we had lunch in the lower campsite and as soon as the road to the top campsite was open (actually half an hour before it was technically open) we headed up to the top camp to see what could be seen there. A Silver-breasted Broadbill was seen on the drive up so that was awesome and then the most awesome thing was seen. A leopard. An actual leopard was sitting on the side of the road and it slowly wandered up and off while we watched it. I got some ‘record shots’ of the leopard through the windscreen of the vehicle before it disappeared off and it was amazing. The guide was incredibly excited too, and he hadn’t shown the slightest interest in mammals before hand but it turned out that he had *never* seen a leopard before with his own eyes. This is someone who I think was about 40 who must go to the national park so much and he had never seen a leopard before. I knew it was special and rare, but I didn’t know it was this rare. Although I have seen leopards in Africa before, the rainforest settting was very cool and it was much darker in colouration and possible a bit bigger than African leopards. Even in Africa where leopards are relatively easy to see, this was by far my best view of one. Funnily enough 10 seconds after the leopard vanished and while we were still reeling from the shock and excitement, a tiny little two wheel drive car (I don’t know how the car could possibly have made it that far) appeared around the corner travelling the wrong way which our guide was cross about and it turned out that everyone on the road above has tried to stop them and they said they would just go down a bit to turn around. They said they couldn’t find the campsite. One road goes up to the campsite and there are no other roads anywhere in the national park.

Anyway, as soon as we got up to where the other guides were (two guides with their bird photography groups) our guide immediately started showing off about the leopard looking at the pictures I and he took, etc. Obviously it was very rare because there seemed to be a fair bit of excitement. While there I also dropped in to see what the bird photographers were camped around today and it turned out to be a Common Green-magpie feeding its chick on a nest which I had a quick look at before going on. We then looked around the top camp where I added a few odd bits and pieces to the list like Streaked Spider-hunter and finally got a proper view of White-browed Scimitar-babblers that I had seen a lot of in the forest and then we birded quite a long way down the road out of the camp. I was looking for Racket-tailed Treepie and Banded Leaf-monkey mainly, I didn’t see either of those, but I saw lots of other birds including a bird wave with various things so it was a good end to the day. It was quite late by this point considering the long journey back down, so we drove straight down and out of the national park. I had a great time in Kaeng Krachan over the three days and I really liked the national park a lot. The wildlife watching is extremely difficult, even with a guide who knew all the calls and a number of nesting sites, the birds were still hard to find but there are lots of very cool birds and the potential for loads of mammal surprises too. The scenery and landscape is of course really nice too.

I’m probably not going to go spotlighting again tonight, there’s not that much to see on the dirt road and I’m exhausted from trying as much as possible to see birds. I hope to do plenty of spotlighting in Khao Yai at the end of the holiday when I am actually staying in the national park, and I will be up for sunrise again tomorrow to hopefully tick a few more birds on the grounds of Baan Maka before driving to Bangkok (hopefully with some birding on the way). I should get a big year list up tomorrow night since I’ll be back in civilisation with cell phone connection and wifi and I can check taxonomy and everything (though I have two birds and a bunch of frogs awaiting identification). I wish I had another two weeks in Kaeng Krachan. What a great place.

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