Thailand & Cambodia - Day Seven - Pak Thale

Pak Thale is around a 45 minute drive north from Cha Am. It's an easy drive along the 4028 coast road, minimal traffic, decent roads, and agreeable scenery.

Information on birding at Pak Thale can be found at thaibirding with comprehensive directions to the site and what to expect when you get there. It is an astoundingly impressive site for waders.

The salt-pans are clearly signposted, a right turn off the main road when heading up from the south. Park up on the right-hand side by the rubber tyres and start walking down to the shoreline.

There are thousands of waders here. I wondered how it was even possible to pick up Spoon-billed Sandpiper in amongst all the other waders voraciously feeding out on the mud.

As well as waders, Chinese Pond Heron moved stealthily around the muddy pools with Intermediate Egret and Eastern Great Egret there.

It was all about the waders, so many different species reside and winter here including Kentish Plover which were widely spread around the reserve. Greater Sand Plover and Lesser Sand Plover were ridiculously numerous as were Red-necked Stint, Little Stint, and good numbers of Long-toed Stint and Broad-billed Sandpiper.

Black-winged Stilt on the salt pans, the hot sun illuminating both bird and the shallow saline pools.

Marsh Sandpiper were everywhere, particularly on the salt lagoons.

As well as the waders, Terns were abundant particularly Whiskered Tern that numbered well over 300 birds along with Common Tern, Little Tern, and Caspian Tern with a few Brown-headed Gull tucked in with them.

There were small groups of Pacific Golden Plover present on the muddy pools. Grey Plover were also present here.

Eastern Black-tailed Godwit were seen flying round in small groups, the bills on some of these birds were comical.

The selection of waders were bolstered by some familiar species. Common Redshank, Common Greenshank, Common Sandpiper, Sanderling, Ruff, Spotted Redshank, Turnstone, and hundreds of Eurasian Curlew were all present. Of the rarer local specialities, a couple of Nordmann's Greenshank were picked out on the floods.

It was a scorching day. Around 35C. It was difficult spending lengthy periods out in the sun. the search for Spoonie had started, picking my way through the small waders, looking at bills, one by one. There were perhaps two birds still present on site. It seemed like a tall order and so it was in that today drew a blank despite a lot of searching, and a lot of walking.