Thailand

Thailand is an extraordinary country and I visited for two weeks in February 2002 en route to Australia. Later in the year I made a second visit, this time on my return back to England.

Although Thailand is a fantastic place for wildlife watching, I spent the majority of my time enjoying the hedonistic trappings of Bangkok and the island of Ko Phi Phi. Drinking and socialising were high on my agenda and it wasn’t until a year or so later that I realised how much interesting stuff I could have seen with a bit of research and forward planning.

Regrettably I wasn’t really interested in birds at the time so I had little incentive to wander off the well beaten tourist trail. I had also made the assumption that many of the large Asian mammals such as Tigers, Leopard and Black Bear were almost impossible to see in the wild so didn’t give much thought to visiting the far flung national parks.  

Instead I made two very short and poorly researched trips to Khao Yai National Park where I had limited success seeing some wildlife. I also spent a little time seeking the city creatures that make their home in the huge, heavily developed city of Bangkok.

Khao Yai National Park

Khao Yai is probably Thailand’s most popular national park, helped no doubt to its relatively close proximity to Bangkok. Covering 2,168 square kilometres, the area is home to Asian Elephant, Tiger, King Cobra and a plethora of other interesting wildlife.

On my first visit to Thailand I hastily made plans to spend a night outside the park using a nondescript tourist office to purchase a bus ticket. To cut a long story short, I ended up staying at the Khao Yai Garden Lodge in Nakhon Ratchasima – a perfectly adequate guest lodge which organised various trips into the park.

I booked myself on a night drive which included a visit to a nearby bat cave where we watched the awesome spectacle of thousands of Wrinkle-lipped Free-tailed Bats emerge from the cave at dusk.

The actual night drive through Khao Yai was less inspiring, and involved sitting in a convoy of pick-up trucks as they drove around spotlighting some of the more habituated mammals of the park.

Most of the eye-shine belonged to Samber Deer as they munched on the roadside grass. Occasionally we saw a Muntjac and we also saw a couple of civets. One at least looked good for a Small Indian Civet, although lack of a field guide meant to others escaped unidentified. It still haunts me to this day that many of the Thai mammals I saw were not identified down to species level!

Other mammals such as Elephants and Asian Porcupines are occasionally seen, although not by me unfortunately.

I returned to Khao Yai seven months later, spending a couple of nights at the Jungle House Hotel. I took a guided walk into the park and was rewarded with two groups of White-handed Gibbons and a large troop of Northern Pig-tailed Macaques (below). Reptiles were surprisingly thin on the ground, although I did find a beautiful Speckled Forest Skink while trekking to one of the many magnificent waterfalls. A Pied Hornbill was also pointed out to me, but I was more interested in the many unidentified frogs which hopped around on the forest floor. No doubt countless exotic birds crossed my path and I would love to know how many rare endemics were seen by my guide, but not pointed out to me due to my apparent disinterest! Of coarse now things are very different and I would give my left arm to bird Khao Yai.

A night drive produced the exact same mammals as my earlier visit, including a couple of unidentified civets. Damn – I wish I had purchased a mammal guide!

It goes without saying that my two brief visits to Khao Yai barely scratched the surface of what this magical place has to offer. With more research, time and organisation I may have seen so much more, including some of the more elusive Thai mammals. A flavour of what can be seen with a bit of effort can be found here.

Bangkok

Either love it or hate it, there is no getting away from the fact that Bangkok is a huge, urban sprawl seemingly devoid of wildlife. However, like most big cities around the world, a surprising amount of fauna can be found if you know where to look.

Lumphini Park is a well known city birding spot where I spent a couple of hours here looking for reptiles. I was surprised to find a pond home to a population of Rice-field Terrapins and smaller numbers of non-native Red-eared Terrapins. While the former is indigenous to Thailand, I suspect both species were introduced at some point by locals.

A couple of Garden Fence Lizards were noted basking on tree trunks, while a small Asian Water Monitor was unexpected to say the least!

It turns out Water Monitors are a common site around Bangkok, no doubt taking advantage of the countless canals that crisscross the city. Food must also be plentiful in the form of discarded waste and associated rodents.

A visit to Dusit Zoo resulted in many more wild Water Monitors including a healthy population around the boating lake (above). Many-lined Sun Skinks were also spotted around the well manicured grounds, together with several Variable Squirrels.

Sun Skinks and Variable Squirrels were seen at several other locations around Bangkok, as were many Spiny-tailed House Geckos. In fact the later species seemed common around buildings where ever I went, including the heavily populated downtown area of the city.

Thailand is a fantastic country which I hope to visit again in the future. Now I know what can be seen with the right contacts, a good field guide and a little luck, there is no excuse to come away with a feeble species list again - so long as I keep away from the Singha Beer!