Doi Inthanon

It sure was freezing up at the summit of Doi Inthanon this morning, although our sighting of 10+ Speckled Woodpigeons and a Striated Bulbul on some sunlit trees on the way up kept us going! As the sun slowly crept over the trees at the edge of the summit car park, a few common birds began to appear although not the hoped for Grey-sided Thrush. So we headed down the road a bit and struck gold when a Rufous-throated Hill-partridge began calling and when it ran down the slope towards us and perched on a log, giving its haunting call we knew we were on a roll. 

Rufous-throated Hill-partridge

Well a few cups of reviving, hot coffee later and we were watching one of the very few records of Brambling for Thailand along the boardwalk - only a shame I didn't get a pic. A White-browed Shortwing, Dark-sided Thrush, Green-tailed Sunbird and hordes of tourists later and we were back up on the main road. This time enjoying Ashy Woodpigeons in the morning sunshine and a little later enjoyed even more the close views of a Pygmy Wren-babbler singing from a horizontal branch right in front of us. 

Pygmy Wren-babbler

We then drove down the mountain and checked out a trail which was very quiet in the late morning heat, so drove down to our lunch stop. Still nothing coming to Mr Deang’s feeding station so after a short rest we staked out the Black-tailed Crake site without any joy, and continued our dismal run of failures today with a complete blank. And even extended this run to some night-birding to draw the day to a close. Funny how birding is a great leveller and from a great morning the day petered out into a damp squib, but fortunately everyone was in good humour and we still enjoyed our day.