Bird Watching in Thailand

A non-hunting area in Phatthalung puts the southern province on birdwatchers' must-go list

Bird watching in Talay Noi Non-Hunting Area is a popular activity that draws thousands of visitors to Phatthalung, eight hundred and fourty kilometres south of Bangkok, every year.

Talay Noi is four hundred and fifty seven square kilometres (285,625 rai) of wetland in Khuan Khanun district of the province. It is the habitat of birds such as the painted stork and purple heron, lesser whistling-duck and little greb, black-winged stilt, brahminy kite, cormorant and whiskered tern.

According to Sirimanee Chumrieng, chief of Talay Noi Wildlife Conservation Development and Extension Station which is located in the non-hunting area, at its height Talay Noi was home to 43,000 birds representing one hundred and eighty seven species, including migrating birds that find refuge there from October to March every year.

``But their number has dwindled in recent years due to expanding human settlement and population around the sanctuary,'' she said.

Until 1960 Talay Noi residents lived in peace next to nature, birds and wildlife. Then arrived the hunters  shattering the calm. That's when things got out of control and the government declared the place a non-hunting area. In her grandfather's time, said Sirimanee, sarus cranes were a common sight but she hasn't seen any in decades.

Talay Noi, declared a non-hunting area in 1975, is also Thailand's first Ramsar site after the government signed the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, known as the Ramsar Convention, in 1998. It calls for conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources.

Talay Noi, meaning ``little sea'' in Thai, is a misnomer. Actually, it is a large freshwater swamp measuring twenty eight square kilometres (17,500 rai), or six per cent of the total wetland, that also connects to Songkhla Lake. The swamp is home to snakes and many aquatic animals including around forty species of fish, not to mention numerous species of plants that thrive in such conditions.

Even so, Talay Noi has its share of human inhabitants who live on margins of the lake. Most earn their living  fishing and weaving krajud  or lepironia, a plant of the sedge family, making mats, baskets and purses.

Some of them also raise buffaloes, not to work the rice fields but for sale. With plenty of grass all around the animals are allowed to graze freely, with the result that sometimes they end up trampling bird nests containing eggs.

Visitors to Talay Noi, which also includes a visitors' centre, can ride long-tailed boats to observe the habitat of birds, lifestyle of fishermen and buffaloes roaming the fields.

Talay Noi is 32 kilometres from Muang district of Phattalung. From the town, take Highway 41 and turn right to Road 4084 that leads to the lake.

The ideal time for a boat ride on the lake is early morning when the sun is not too strong and the birds are most active.

Source - The Bangkok Post