Introduction Although the province of Samut Sakhon is a very close
option for bird watchers in Bangkok it is seldom-visited except
for visits to the salt pans at Khok Kham for Spoon-billed
Sandpiper between the months of November and March. With the
Thailand having dealt efficiently with the covid-19 crisis
and restrictions being lifted I decided to take a trip into
Samut Sakhon to check out a couple of spots around Khok Kham
that I am not familiar with, not expecting much from it in
mid-May, as well as a location I had identified on Google
Maps as one that seemed to have a decent area of rough habitat
mixed with fish ponds and a golf course. With the urban area
of Bangkok spreading over numerous nearby provinces, undeveloped
land is becoming scarce so I was interested to see what this
patch of open land had to offer. Not officially birding in
Bangkok but certainly within the urban sprawl of the city.
Getting There
I used a Toyota Rivo that I was in possession of, but any
vehicle would be suitable as all the roads I used were paved.
I took Rama II Road out of Bangkok and turned off before reaching
the town of Samut Sakhon (Mahachai) onto Route 2004, crossing
over a large canal and then turning right onto Route 5031
and following signs for Best Ocean Golf Course. The best way
of navigating is to type the name of the golf course into
Google Maps and following the directions it gives. From central
Bangkok it takes less than an hour in the early morning to
reach the location.
Khok Kham is the most well-known birding site in Samut Sakhon
province but seldom visited in May due to very few migratory
shorebirds being present at this time of year. I have provided
information and directions to the site here - Birding
at Khok Kham.
Accommodation
I did this as a half day trip from Bangkok, but if you should
wish to stay in the area there are several places listed to
choose from here - Samut
Sakhon Hotels.
Food
I had breakfast before I left home and took some lunch with
me so had no need to buy any food. The area is densely populated
though and there are loads of places to stop and get food.
Field Guides
1. Birds
of Thailand by Uthai Treesucorn & Wich'yanan Limparungpatthanakij
Birding Highlights
Best Ocean Golf Course: Striated Grassbird, Oriental
Pratincole, Pink-necked Green Pigeon, Oriental Darter, nesting
Little Tern Khok Kham: Javan Pond Heron & Chinese Pond Heron
in breeding plumage
Notes
After having a quick breakfast at home I left at around 6.30am
and traffic was very light. Having never visited the Best
Ocean Golf Course before I wasn't sure how easy to find it
would be or if access to the area would be permitted as the
access road seemed to have something to do with a gated housing
development. I need not have worried as by following the instructions
given by Google Maps it took me only 30 minutes to make the
journey. The road which goes to the golf course also provides
access to an air field, passing through a lot of rought land.
A lot of the land here has obviously been earmarked for development
but the gold course itself covers quite a large area and there
is a sort of buffer zone of scrub and wetlands around it.
The golf course itself does not seem very well maintained,
although there were people playing on it, meaning that the
habitat of mature trees provides somewhere for a variety of
birds to live.
I started by stopping at a spot along the access road which
gave me a wide field of view, where I was able to stand and
scan for birds as well as drink the coffee I bought at a nearby
convenience store. With sunrise being early at this time of
the year it would have been better to have been at this spot
a bit earlier but I was still able to see birds sitting on
tree tops taking in the early sunshine. A couple of Painted
Storks were obvious while a Purple Heron flew past. Asian
Koel is ubiquitous in Bangkok and the screaming call alerted
me to one in a bare tree where a female Pink-necked Green
Pigeon was also sitting. With a fairly large area of dry open
land in front of me it was not a surprise to see a few Oriental
Pratincoles at this time of the year and as many as 6-8 pairs
of Little Terns were nesting in the area along with slightly
larger numbers of Black-winged Stilts, all of which were very
vocal. A Cinnamon Bittern in flight was a very nice sight
which was prolonged as it swerved and doubled back on itself.
A Paddyfield Pipit in song flight caught my attention and
this distraction made me notice a bulbul on a concrete post.
Looking more closely this turned out to be a Sooty-headed
Bulbul. This is a bird which is very common in some parts
of the country but not here; it is small things like this
which make birding interesting. A little further along the
road a muddy area held some Red-wattled Lapwings and a couple
of Lesser Sand Plovers and a stand of trees next to a canal
revealed both Common and Dark-necked Tailorbirds as well as
Common Iora, Brown-throated Sunbird and Olive-backed Sunbird.
Even though it was only 8am it was already very hot and a
blast of air-conditioning in the car was very nice as I drove
a bit further along, past the entrance to the golf course
and up to the airfield. From here I walked along a dirt track
through scrub, arriving at an area of fish ponds. A pair of
House Sparrows flew towards the airfield hanger but overhead
my attention was drawn by a circling Oriental Darter, followed
by two more. This species is getting more and more common
these days having been very rare in Thailand in the past,
but still a nice sight. A short snippet of a bird's call made
me listen more carefully and shortly afterwards I was able
to confirm the song of Striated Grassbird. Scanning the tops
of the trees I spotted this calling bird before it parachuted
down into the vegetation. The habitat here is not really that
in which one expects to find Striated Grassbird but with most
of its habitat around the Bangkok region is rapidly diminishing
so it is expected that dispersing birds from destroyed habitat
will turn up in odd places.
My walk took me through some low vegetation, which seemed
full of Yellow-bellied and Plain Prinias, towards some large
fish ponds with some emergent vegetation. Mid-May is a rather
late time of the year to see shorebirds but small numbers
were using the shallow areas in these ponds including 2 Pacific
Golden Plovers, 42 Lesser Sand Plovers in their very attractive
breeding plumage and 4 Marsh Sandpipers. Several Painted Storks
were feeding in the shallows too along with an Asian Openbill
while a Yellow Bittern panicked when it saw me and crash-landed
into some bushes.
Once again the heat was becoming really intense so I strolled
back to the car spotting several small groups of Pink-necked
Green Pigeons in small trees as well as a juvenile Asian Koel
that was begging for food from some Asian Pied Starlings that
seemed to have realized that they had been duped into raising
another bird's young and were trying to drive it off.
I decided to drive into the golf course premesis itself as
there were no security guards at the gate. A small network
of overgrown roads took me into some unkept areas which look
like they would be good for migrants but mid-May was just
a little too late to see any although a Black Drongo may have
been a late departing migrant although small numbers are resident.
A secluded pool surrounded by Typha held a late Black-browed
Reed Warbler although little else. A calling Lesser Coucal
showed itself as I drove out and as it was too hot to walk
around I decided that it was time to drive the short distance
to Khok Kham and check out a couple of patches of mangroves
that I was not familiar with.
Bird
Watching Trips:
If you only have a short time for birding from Bangkok,
there are a number of options for day trips or for a
half day to Khok Kham to look for Spoon-billed Sandpiper
from November to March. At other tims of the year there
are plenty of other birds to search for at a variety
of locations.
Contact me to arrange a birding trip and/or to discuss
the best bird watching options for you: nickupton@thaibirding.com
The journey took me past a couple of large fish ponds which
had been recently drained and were inundated with egrets and
pond herons. Large numbers of Little Egrets and Javan Pond
Herons in there smart breeding plumage were busy hunting and
among them a single Chinese Pond heron in breeding plumage.
Some Intermediate Egrets were among them as well as plenty
of Great Egrets. Some authorities have proposed splitting
the modesta subspecies as Eastern Great Egret and certainly
with their red legs and blue facial skin in breeding condition
they are distinctive at this time of the year.
On reaching Khok Kham I headed towards some areas of mangroves
but stopped when I found another large pool full of birds.
Once again there were lots of egrets and Javan Pond Herons,
this time with 3 Chinese Pond herons for company. This time
though there were quite a few shorebirds feeding among them.
Obviously these were late migrants doing their best to feed
and gain the energy to continue their journey, although small
numbers of shorebirds do over summer here, including a Spoon-billed
Sandpiper in 2010 - The
First Over-summering Record of Spoon-billed Sandpiper in Thailand.
This time, however, most of the birds here were Lesser Sand
Plovers, with over 200 individuals, accompanied by good numbers
of Common Redshank and around 10 Common Greenshank. A few
Black-tailed Godwits were also present and a group of around
10 Red-necked Stints flew in to join them (all in non-breeding
plumage). Looking more closely through the birds I found a
single Long-toed Stint and several Marsh Sandpipers too.
Moving on I reached one of the mangrove spots that I wanted
to check out but there was some building going on so I was
not able to have a proper look around, although I could see
that there was some sort of concrete walkway over the mudflats.
Predictably I saw a couple of Collared Kingfishers and Golden-bellied
Gerygones, both species that are common around mangrove fragments
in the Gulf of Thailand.
The next area I wanted to check out was the Aquaculture Research
Centre. This area consists of a collection of buildings with
ornamental trees around them, quite a different patch of habitat
to everything else in the immediate area. Due to the covid-19
restrictions I could not enter but it looked like it would
be a good spot to check for migrants at the right time of
the year. It was around 11am by this time and extremely hot
outside so I decided to call it a day. The journey back home
took longer than in the early morning.
Conclusion
The area around Best Ocean Golf Course and Airfield is an
fairly interesting birding site as it has some habitat which
is totally absent in the rest of the immediate area and is
qucikly accessible from Bangkok. Given that it is fairly close
to the sea and that the habitat has more trees than most of
the area, it is probably a good spot for migrants at the right
times of the year. However, it is also inevitable that development
will continue on parts of the site.
1. Little Grebe: KK. 2. Feral Pigeon: BO & KK. 3. Red Collared Dove: BO &
KK. 4. (Eastern) Spotted Dove: BO
& KK. 5. Pink-necked Green Pigeon: @10
at BO. 6. Germain's Swiftlet: BO &
KK. 7. Asian Palm Swift: BO &
KK. 8. Greater Coucal: BO. 9. Lesser Coucal: 1 at BO. 10. Asian Koel: A few at BO. 11. Plaintive Cuckoo: 1 at BO. 12. White-breasted Waterhen: 2
at BO. 13. Painted Stork: BO & KK. 14. Asian Openbill: A few at
BO. 15. Yellow Bittern: 1 at BO. 16. Cinnamon Bittern: 1 at BO. 17. Black-crowned Night Heron: BO. 18. Striated Heron: BO &
KK. 19. Chinese Pond Heron: 1 at
BO & 3 at KK. 20. Javan Pond Heron: Many at
BO & KK. 21. Eastern Cattle Egret: A few
at BO. 22. Purple Heron: A
few at BO. 23. (Eastern) Great Egret: Many
at BO & KK. 24. Intermediate Egret: BO
& KK. 25. Little Egret: BO
& KK. 26. Oriental Darter:
3 at BO. 27. Black-winged Stilt: BO
& KK. 28. Pacific Golden Plover: 2
at BO. 29. Lesser Sand Plover: 44
at BO & 210 at KK. 30. Red-Wattled Lapwing:
BO. 31. Black-tailed Godwit:
A few at KK. 32. Long-toed Stint:
1 at KK. 33. Red-necked Stint:
210 at KK. 34. Common Greenshank:
@10 at KK.
35. Common Redshank:@40
at KK. 36. Marsh Sandpiper:4 at BO & @10 at KK. 37. Oriental Pratincole:@6
at BO. 38. Little Tern:@
12 Nesting at BO. 39. Whiskered Tern:A few
at BO & KK. 40. Brahminy Kite:BO &
KK. 41. Collared Kingfisher:2
at KK. 42. Common Iora:A
few at BO. 43. Pied Fantail:Both
locations.
44. Black Drongo: 1 at BO. 45. Eastern Jungle Crow: 1 at
BO. 46. Zitting Cisticola: A few
at BO. 47. Yellow-bellied Prinia: A
few at BO. 48. Plain Prinia: Common at BO. 49. Common Tailorbird: 1 at BO. 50. Dark-necked Tailorbird:
1 at BO. 51. Black-browed Reed Warbler:
1 at BO. 52. Striated Grassbird:
1 at BO. 53. Sooty-headed Bulbul:
1 at BO. 54. Yellow-vented Bulbul:
A few at BO. 55. Streak-eared Bulbul:
Common at BO. 56. Asian Pied Starling:
Both locations. 57. Common Myna: Both
locations. 58. Great (White-vented) Myna:
Both locations. 59. Oriental Magpie Robin:
Both locations. 60. Scarlet-backed Flowerpecker:
1 at BO. 61. Brown-throated Sunbird: A
few at BO. 62. Olive-backed Sunbird: A few
at BO. 63. Asian Golden Weaver: @10
at BO.
64. Chestnut Munia: A few at BO.
65. House Sparrow: 2 at BO. 66. Eurasian Tree Sparrow: BO
& KK. 67. Paddyfield Pipit: 2 at BO.
If you are interested in arranging a bird
watching tour you can see some suggested itineraries here
- Birdwatching Trips
- and you can contact me at the above email address to discuss
the best options.
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