The Purple Swamphens of Thailand’s Everglade ... Thale Noi & Khao Sok kayaking trip report for May 2000

I’ve dreamt about seeing rare birds in Thailand, but I had no idea that it would be so easy.

Thale Noi, just north of Songkla, is a huge freshwater marsh area teeming with life.  “Thale” means sea “Noi” means little in Thai.  Since the Thai language puts the adjective behind the noun, Thale Noi means “little sea”.  It’s a popular vacation spot for Thai tourists from nearby cities, including Songkla and Hat Yai.

A friend from England and I were hoping to see birds from fresh, brackish, and saltwater areas.  We anticipated spotting different species in each of the environments.

When we to Thale Noi, we were immediately taken by the beauty before us.  Sturdy wooden walkways pass over the lush waterbird terrain, where we could see the big leaves of the Yellow Burhead as far as the eye could see. Water Lettuce, named that because it looks like little heads of fresh green lettuce, was everywhere.  Alligator Weed and the pink flowers of the water lilies added contrast to the verdant scenery.  The tiny dots of the duck weed colored the water surface.  The Sacred Lotus congests the area as well in which a spectrum of flowers were in bloom in every direction.  It was like a green and pink water pasture. 

Some birds actually have feet adapted to walk on the surface plants.  Jacanas, both the bronze-winged and the pheasant-tailed, were easy to spot.  Their feet are about the same length as their bodies.  My friend shot some superb video footage of a Bronze-winged Jacana walking on lilies looking for insects and tiny creatures.  Thanks to the wooden walkway, he got really close to a jacana.  The handrail made a superb make-shift camera prop. Luckily, while shooting, the jacana lowered its head and sped up.  It cocked its neck and shot its beak forward.  Something very small, sitting on a leave, in sunny southern Thailand, just became a snack for a jacana… and we captured the moment on film.

At one point, we had 5 Purple Swamphens in front of us!  A dazzlingly bright purple two foot tall adult was standing on some robust yellow burhead roots eating a chocolate brown apple snail the size of an apple itself.  Nick got his camera out and zoomed right in on the snail.  The swamphen’s long toes wrapped entirely around the snail as it pecked, gouging out meat.  This must be snail heaven for these birds.  Millions of pink eggs of the apple snail clung to the stalks of plantlife in the lake.

As the sun would be setting in a few hours, we opted to take a quick longtail boat tour around the marsh.  The traditional wooden boats used throughout the kingdom, get their name from their long propeller shaft and their ability to navigate shallow water.  We asked our driver to take us half way around the marsh and drop us off, so we could paddle the rest of the way home.

From the longtail, we crossed over the floating salad bar.  Along the way we spotted Little Cormorants, cute little Cotton-pygmy Geese, Pheasant-tailed Jacanas, Bronze-winged Jacanas, Purple Herons, Grey Herons, Chinese Pond Herons, Intermediate Egrets, Lesser Whistling Ducks, Brahminy Kites, Ruddy-breasted Crakes, and a White-breasted Waterhen… not to mention a range of birds usually see in other regions of the country.

Our friendly driver dropped us off late in the afternoon on the only bit of solid land in the area for our silent return through paradise.

The next day, we set off for points saltier.  It was somewhat disappointing.  The saltwater area was inundated with prawn farms, the biggest enemy of marshes and mangrove forests of Thailand.  In the past decade, Thailand has lost more than half of its mangroves to the prawn farmers and associated activities.  Unfortunately, it’s very lucrative and quite simple: Just cut down the expanses of mangrove to create ponds and buy some pumps to draw the natural water and expel the polluted by-products.

Since the mid 1980’s, most countries have banned prawn farming as it devastates the marine ecosystem.  It is unnatural for prawn to be in such concentrations and as a result produces dangerous viruses and high concentrations of oxygen-depleting algae.  In addition, the acidity of the water is extremely high due to the unnatural amounts of prawn feces and leftover chemicals, including fertilizers and antibiotics.  After just a few years of production, the soil in the ponds becomes extremely toxic.  As a result, nothing grows in the highly contaminated soil and in most cases, the farmers simply move on to the next forest, leaving a trail of destruction behind.  The birds have no reason to stay and move on, having their habitat constantly and forever encroached upon.

Later, we packed up our boats and moved along to find out about life in the brackish water area of the large lake region.  In a village here, we encountered friendly and inquisitive people, who quickly surrounded us with questions like, “Where are you from?”, “What are you doing?” and “What are those boats on your roof?”  We hired another friendly longtail captain and left the kayaks for another day.  We laughed with him and enjoyed the sunny afternoon, taking in the local expert’s humor and reflected upon the magnificent life we had experienced on the lake region. 

For adventurous birders who want to see a large variety of life in a reasonably short period of time, Thale Noi is a real winner.  If you’ve got time, go north a few hours to Khao Sok National Park.  There, you’ll see the largest variety of hornbills I’ve seen there… but that’s another story.

Whether you have little time and use local transport or have time delve deeper by kayak, you’ll be guaranteed a look into the spectacular wildlife habitats of Thailand.

Yet another Amazing Wildlife Excursion to Khao Sok National Park

If you’ve read some of our past newsletters about Khao Sok, this should come as no surprise.  We had an amazing amount of wildlife sightings in a recent trip.

This was the forth trip in a row where we saw wild pigs.  A nice fat one was rooting around on the shore near the floating bungalow cove.  This one stayed around long enough for most of our guests to see.

I saw a bird I hadn’t seen before.  We were sitting in a lovely cove where the trees are covered with orchids and other epiphytes.  The air was full of exotic bird sounds.  In one of the trees, a solitary bird sat perched in silhouette.  It’s head had a erect crest.  At first I thought it might be a Crested Serpent-eagle (they are common in Khao Sok).  Through my binoculars, I was able to check it out better.  It turned out to be a Wallace’s Hawk-eagle!

Helmeted Hornbills were in full force this time.  We heard their eerie calls throughout our stay.  It’s an interesting call to say the least.  It starts off with a set of solid “hoot” sounds.  Then it speeds up and eventually turns into fast “ha ha ha ha” sounds.  It actually sounds a little like it’s laughing.  It sure made us smile.  We also saw several.  It is very uncommon to actually see them.  At one point, we saw a Helmeted Hornbill and a Great Hornbill flying close to each other!

There were more Great Hornbills on this trip than I’ve ever seen.  At one point, we had several in a tree in front of us.  They stayed there long enough for everyone to take numerous photos.  Did you know that the way to tell a male Great Hornbill from a female is the color of their eyes?  The male has red eyes and the female has white eyes.  The male also has a dark area on the underside of his casque (the yellow hump on top of their bills).  The female casque is entirely yellow.

Gibbons, endangered primates, are easy to spot in Khao Sok.  Baby gibbons are prized by heartless locals.  They are extremely cute.  Uneducated tourists to this day are actually unenlightened enough to pay locals to take their picture with bay gibbons.  The reality is that several gibbons die in order to get one baby.  A mother gibbon doesn’t give up her baby.  They are shot out of trees.  If the baby survives, it’s in for a brutally cruel life.  Many end up in bar, often chained to them and forces to drink alcohol.  An adult gibbon is quite strong and not easy to control.  You can guess what happens once they are no longer useful.  If you are ever approached by one of these types of people with a baby gibbon, please don’t support their cruel enterprise.

Dusky Langurs, adorable black monkeys with white rings around their eyes and long white tails, were everywhere too.  They often made outrageous leaps from tree to tree.  They seem to follow the same arboreal trails.  They’re gregarious.  If you see one make a wild leap, you’ll likely be in for another show shortly.  We sat in coves watching langur after langur fly through the air landing on springy branches or bamboo. 

Pig-tailed macaques and long-tailed macaques entertained us repeatedly.  They occur in large groups.  This year’s young are now able to climb on their own.  We didn’t see any hanging on to their mothers.  One special accomplishment we watched a young monkey perform was to break a big piece of rotten bamboo.  He was holding on to a strong green piece of bamboo while bouncing on the rotten bit.  It eventually gave way with a loud crash.  The youngster then hopped up on the bamboo he was holding.

Khao Sok is undoubtedly the best place in southern Thailand to spot a wide variety of wildlife.  Just slip into a cove and sit still, you’ll see plenty.