Daurian Redstart, male, Doi Ang Khang

We’ve just arrived back from an exhilarating but exhausting three week birding trip to northern Thailand. Ordinarily I’d have posted regular updates of our trip highlights as we went along. From previous experience this process is most usually interrupted by the lack of decent internet but on this occasion is was a broken lead that meant I couldn’t upload the photos! Fortunately Jane provided some excellent substitutes but the process was protracted and as we were birding pretty much non-stop it proved impossible to keep up.

Having spent most of yesterday uploading the photos, here is the first in a series of catch-up posts covering the remainder of our Thailand holiday highlights.

After Doi Inthanon we spent a few days at the excellent Marlee’s before moving on to the Myanmar border, at Doi Ang Khang.

Here the top bird was Daurian Redstart, a rare bird in Thailand. First looked for at it’s traditional wintering ground around the border check-point, in a bitterly cold northerly wind, at dawn – eventually seen at the Chinese cemetery in evening sunshine

 We visited a couple of bird ‘feeding stations’, a euphemism for the local midden, and had a fine collection of species, including this Rusty-naped Pita. Unfortunately, photographed practically in the dark

Several thrush species were also present including Eyebrowed – with it’s rusty underparts, Grey-sided and Black-breasted 

Warblers were well represented, with a mix of wintering and resident species. This Buff-throated, looking rather similar to our own Chiffchaff, was a welcome addition to the list

Along with one of the many ‘leaf warblers’, this one was Pallas’s I think

There was plenty of babbler action too, with several new ticks. This Crested Finchbill was a particular favourite

The next stop was Chiang Saen, for a bit of tropical low-land birding and a frustrating duck-hunt!