The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Broadbills.......!

There are a number of iconic SE Asian birds present in Kaeng Krachen National Park and I’m pleased to report that we saw a good selection today. We began with 4 Great Slaty Woodpeckers scoped at some distance along the main park road, followed by a pair of cracking Black-thighed Falconets. 

Black-thighed Falconet

We followed this with Black-and-yellow Broadbill and a skulking Blue Pitta. Not bad for a morning! 

Black-and-yellow Broadbill - wow!

Other species seen between 6am – 12noon included Cinnamon Bittern, Crested Serpent-Eagle, Common and Greater Flamebacks, Grey-headed Woodpecker, Grey-rumped Treeswift, Eye-browed Thrush, Ochraceous and Black-headed Bulbuls, Dark-necked Tailorbird, Thick-billed Warbler, Sultan Tit, Ruby-cheeked Sunbird, Thick-billed Flowerpecker, and a Golden-crested Myna. 

Grey-rumped Treeswift was new for this tour.

Sultan Tit

Ochraceous Bulbul

During lunch a Blue-eared Barbet was seen excavating a nesting hole beside the restaurant.

Blue-eared Barbet

We spent the afternoon ‘up the hill’ in search of one of the rarest birds of the tour – Ratchet-tailed Treepie. It took several hours but eventually we were rewarded with prolonged and close views of this strange-looking species. 

Ratchet-tailed Treepie

We came across a couple of large mixed-species flocks as well that held many previously seen species including Sulphur-breasted Warbler, Swinhoe’s Minivet, Black-naped Monarch, Yellow-bellied Warbler, and Lesser Racket-tailed Drongo amongst others.

Long-tailed Broadbill

We also found Rosy Minivet, Asian Paradise-Flycatcher and at least 4 delightful Long-tailed Broadbills that had been calling constantly for ages but proved extremely difficult to track down. Well that was until they decided to hang around over the road right in front of us! 

This displaying Mountain Imperial-Pigeon gave crippling views.

Overhead, a Rufous-bellied Eagle was a new raptor for us, to add to the Mountain Hawk-Eagle we had seen on the drive up.