Central Thailand - November 2025 - Day 2 - Kaeng Krachan National Park - Upper Elevations

Breakfast at Baan Maka starts in the dark. This is the mark of a quality birding establishment. Accordingly Mick and I were up what felt like punishingly early in order to be ready to leave the lodge at 6ish with Mr Piak and head up to the National Park. Mr Piak is one of several guides that has a tie-in with Baan Maka, and was one of the reasons I booked to stay - simply far less hassle than trying to organise my own guide. Each of the guides has a different day rate, with Mr Piak being somewhere in the middle, partly I suspect because he does not speak a great deal of english. However it needs to be said that his english is a whole let better than my thai, and that he does know all of the bird names - that's the important bit. We were able to communicate reasonably easily despite the language barrier and we saw a whole heap of birds. I think the cost was 3800 THB for the entire day, about £90,which split between two for a 10-11 hour day with transport is emminently reasonable.

Mr Piak was also extremely punctual, and so after a quick breakfast and some coffee we got into his 4x4 and headed out. The Park entrance is perhaps 20 minutes from Baan Maka. You need cash to pay for the entrance fee of 300 THB, about £7. We stopped for the first time relatively soon after the entrance at an eBird pin called "tree tunnel", because Mr Piak spotted a pair of Greater Yellownape (a Woodpecker) in the trees here. Also present were two Green-eared Barbet, a Hair-crested Drongo, and two Hill Myna. A short distance further, at "km 9" we stopped underneath a large tree where some other birders were also stopped - a family party of Great Hornbill were feasting on the fruit - what amazing birds. The tree was also full of Thick-billed Green Pigeon, an Oriental Pied Hornbill flew in, and a Blue Whistling-Thrush was also feeding.

I hadn't appreciated how far it was to the top of the park. I kept thinking we were going to stop but we kept on driving. I mean we saw birds along the way, but we never stopped for longer than a few minutes and it all became a bit frustrating, especially as we couldn't really communicate with Mr Piak in any meaningful way. At one stage our progress was hindered by a large fallen tree, this was only resolved when one of the vehicles did an about turn and drove all or some of the way back to the entrance to summon a ranger with a chainsaw. Another half hour gone. But although slow going we did nonetheless see a lot of good birds on the way up, with top honours going to Crested Treeswift, Vernal Hanging-Parrot, Orange-breasted Trogon and Asian Fairy-bluebird. Along the way we also had to drive through two really quite deep streams, and the dirt road was in places very poor. You are not getting up without a serious 4x4.

Grey-headed Canary-Flycatcher

Banded Kingfisher

Blue-throated Barbet

Mountain Bulbul. What do you mean you can't tell?

We eventually made it to the top for exactly 9am, in otherwords a three hour trip from Baan Maka. I reckon you could probably do it in two hours without stopping, but bear this in mind. Finally out of the car it felt like the day had now begun. Our first stop was the viewpoint at Panoen Thung. Here you can look and see nothing but green hills, as far as the eye can see. There are no roads, only forest. It's fabulous. Crested Honey-buzzard flew over, as did a pair of Wreathed Hornbill, and I was amazed to hear Yellow-browed Warbler calling from a tree. This turned out to be a very common species along with Two-barred Warbler, Arctic Warbler and Taiga Flycatcher. Shetland anyone? The full list from this two hour wander is here, and it was truly excellent. We jammed Bamboo Woodpecker, and Mr Piak heard and then found a Banded Kingfisher - really hard work but what a bird. Blue-eared and Blue-throated Barbet were around, and Bar-winged Flycatcher-shrike looked as good in real life as it did in the book.

Sunbear

Yellow-throated Marten

We continued to bird around the upper elevations for until lunch, which was available at the main building for very little. Of note was Black Eagle overhead, a (I guess) habituated Sunbear that came to feed on the slope below, a Yellow-throated Marten, and a very toxic green Pope's Pit Viper that blended into the foliage was also found at about knee height, ideal for the unwary. It was perhaps around this time that I noticed that my trousers had a large splodge of red around the knee. Closer inspection revealed a leg covered in blood from a leech wound. Of the leech there was no sign, but it had made its mark and no matter what I did I just continued to bleed, as is of course typical. Bloody wildlife! That said, better the leech than the snake. Or the bear probably.

Pope' s Pit Viper

There is a one-way system in place on the road up, and so at 1pm or so we started a partial descent. At Km 27 we found a pair of enormous and very noisy Red-bearded Bee-eaters, a Black-winged Cuckooshrike, Blue-winged Leafbird, and a female Red-headed Trogon. Further down, at the Upper Campsite, we came across Brown Shrike, Olive Bulbul and Dark-sided Flycatcher amongst other things. The rest of the afternoon was spent coming down without  many stops and without adding any more birds. You probably need to have exited the Park by a certain time, and in any event Mr Piak had worked a full 12 hours by the time we returned to Baan Maka which is a long shift in anyone's book. It had been a good day, but also a day with a lot of driving. There is simply no getting away from the fact that the top of the Park is a long and slow journey, but if you want to see the birds that are up there this is what you have to do.

So at the end of Day 3 the trip was up to 193 species - very very decent indeed. We had a celebratory beer whilst I cleaned my leg up and worked on my various lists, and with another early start the following day went to bed pretty early.