Enroute from Phuket to Bangkok we stopped for a couple of days at Khao Sok National Park in South Central Thailand. One of the oldest (160 million years) evergreen rainforests in the world, Khao Sok was made a national park in 1980. However, later that same year the boundaries of the park were redrawn in order to build the hydroelectric Rachabrapha dam and flood a huge area within the park. Ironically, the park visitors center clearly pointed out that dams were a major threat to rainforests around the world (I guess at least they admit it)!
Aside from the rich biological history of the rainforest, Heath and I were also very excited about the possibility of seeing hornbills within the park. As many of you know, hornbills are large, glamorous birds named appropriately for the prominent “horn” on top of their bill. We were told at our guesthouse that the best place to see hornbills was down at the reservoir created by Rachabrapha dam, but since we were boycotting the reservoir due to aforementioned rainforest destruction, we had to take our chances under the dense rainforest canopy.
Since we only had a couple days in the area, we armed ourselves with our crappy binoculars, bird book, bug repellent and water and quickly headed up to the park soon after checking into our guesthouse. It was late in the afternoon and we were greeted to the park by an ear-splitting chorus of cicadas. To describe this intense, penetrating sound Heath came up with the following description: “Picture the shower scene in the film Psycho, take the highest note of the knife-wielding soundtrack, amplify it by 100 and top it off with a Bangkok-size band of rattle shaking musicians.” Needless to say, between the diminishing afternoon light and increasing cicada accompaniment, we neither saw nor heard any hornbills (or anything else for that matter).
Fortunately, the cicadas are the most talkative at dusk and dawn which left us with plenty of birding opportunities the following day and also served as a convenient alarm clock. After some early morning birding around our guesthouse, we were treated to a hornbill flyby on our way to the park entrance. It was one of those speechless, or rather, inarticulate stuttering moments as Heath and I simultaneously tried to tell eachother what the enormous pair of birds flying overhead were. As luck would have it, we were unable to identify the bird to species, but narrowed it down to one of two, the Wreathed or the Plain-pouch Hornbill (size and a silly black stripe on the gular pouch distinguishes between the two)! Regardless, they were amazing and we hadn’t expected to see any!
We put in a good eight-hour day in the park amidst the incredible bamboo stands and buttressed trees thick with moss, staghorn fern and bromeliads. Though our sandaled feet were severely bloodied by the ubiquitous land leeches, it was a fantastic day for birds and wildlife! We saw a family of Spectacled Langurs feeding in the trees above us and while taking a break next to a creek we saw the white male morph of the Asian Paradise-flycatcher AND a Great Hornbill!!! Please look up “white morph asian paradise flycatcher” on Google Images to check it out, this amazing bird has a long white tail, white body, black head with crest and blue eye-ring.
The following afternoon we had to leave to catch an overnight bus to Bangkok, but we took advantage of the morning and walked on the roads around our guesthouse to the river. We met another birder on the way who pointed out a beautiful pair of Oriental Hobby (falcon) on a limestone cliff to us. We had to leave Khao Sok way too soon, but with a packed dinner of pineapple and tofu fried rice with cashews from our guesthouse and a free ride down to the bus stop, we felt a little more prepared for the long night ahead of us.
After the usual (and now expected) setbacks, we made it relatively easily to Bangkok by 5am on the 12th of January, with plenty of time to catch the sunrise at our favorite park in the city.
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