During a street photography walk, I spotted my old friends, coppersmith barbets in a small Bangkok park. I decided to return there with a telephoto lens. Look at birds I've found in the urban heart of Bangkok.
Coppersmith Barbet
I will start with my favorite feathered creature 😀
Coppersmith barbet with a 270mm (Nikkor 70-300mm) + crop
For me, this bird is a symbol of the fact that life always can surprise you: I spent three or four years in Southeast Asia (never was interested in counting exactly how long) but I never saw this colorful bird until I started my internet research this year and, then, searched for the coppersmith barbet in real life.
This is how ebird.org describes the bird:
While common, can be hard to see; listen instead for its call, a prolonged and unmistakable “kuk-kuk-kuk.”
So, it means that this is not me was blind all that time, this is because the bird is tricky! 😀 And now I can say: coppersmith barbet is everywhere in Bangkok! Just listen to his kuk-kuk (like a traffic light's audio signal).
Coppersmith barbets in Rommaninat Park with 240mm, without cropping this time (of Nikkor 70-300mm)
When I hear the barbet's song, I focus on my hearing and try to understand which tree the bird is sitting. If the tree has bare branches or stand-alone ones... I have a chance to spot a barbet.
What is easy about this bird: if you spot it on a tree today, there is a very good chance you'll find it at the same place, even the same bough tomorrow. This is why I came back to Rommaninat Park with a telephoto lens - I knew I would find barbets.
This is an exact place on google.maps where a couple of barbets enjoy kuk-kuking. 🙂
The time I observed these birds in the park: from around 16:30 to 18:30 before it was dark.
The bird is just a bit bigger than a sparrow so taking images with a regular phone isn't possible (without extreme luck).
Heron
A heron of unidentified species in Rommaninat Park, Bangkok. On 240mm
There are many herons of different species in Bangkok parks. This one catches fish at an elongated pond in Rommaninat Park. The bird lets you get close, so you can take photos with a 50mm lense, for example. Or a phone.
An image I took with a 50mm (just slightly cropped) during my first visit to the park.
Great Egret
Little egrets are common in Bangkok parks. As for the great egret (Ardea alba), I saw it for the first time. It just came down from the sky while I was watching the heron...
Amazing...
And I want to reiterate, no, this is not a zoo 😀, but an ordinary park in the center of Bangkok. 🙂
The Abode of the Large-Billed Crows
Crows aren't rare in Bangkok but this park has simply a ton of them.
Coincidence or not, these harbingers of trouble 🙂 abound in the park with the dark past - for a century there was a prison on this site.
The prison on Mahachai Road was established in 1890. Its first name was "Prison for Serious Crime". In 1991, the Ministry of Interior has issued an order to move it to another site (source). The prison's location was turned into a public park to commemorate the Queen Sirikit's the 60th birthday in 1992 (source).
An observation tower of the former prison
Another tower with a crow on guard
It would be not Thailand, if the crows were just regular ones which we, farangs 🙂, are used to.
This is Corvus macrorhynchos that, as wiki states, lives only in Eastern and Southeast Asia.
Hope to come back to take images of these birds for a separate photo story since they look just awesome.
A crow leaving the wall of the former "prison for serious crime".
Gorgeous profile
Another New Species in My List
It was getting dark when I spotted this one. It was constantly moving and there was no chance to get a sharp image. At home, I checked mynas but found no such a bird. I checked those whose name include "starling" and here we are! 😀 This is Siamese Pied Starling - check on ebird.org.
...And Most Common Birds
In Rommaninat Park, you also can find the most common Thai birds: charismatic but too familiar sparrows and pigeons including spotted and zebra doves.
Zebra dove
Common myna of Sturnidae family (starlings)
Common myna is another very usual bird in Thailand and the whole region of Southeast Asia so I usually don't bother taking images of them. But worth to mention, these birds are very smart and able to learn words. Someone's video showing how common mynas talk -
Common mynas expand their territory and threaten local species and agriculture. The IUCN declared it "as one of only three birds among the world's 100 worst invasive species".
Signed Up on Ebird.Org
Thinking of creating a list of all species I spotted and photographed in Asia... Already started with... guess which species?.. the coppersmith barbet! 🙂 Look at my first photo: https://media.ebird.org/catalog?taxonCode=copbar1&userId=USER3687750&mediaType=photo Not fantastic one compared what they already have but... this is just the very beginning! 🙂
Unidentified bird holding a twig with the beak in Rommaninat Park. Probably, streak-eared bulbul (Pycnonotus conradi).
My Birdwatching Adventure Continues!
I like street photography, you know... But when all my extraversion has been worked out to the bottom, when there is not even peeping introversion left, I want to throw my head up and not see people anymore. And at that time, the moment for birdwatching comes. 🙂
Thank you for stopping by!
More Bangkok stories are ahead! Check out the previous ones on my pinmapple.com
I took most of these images with a Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6E ED VR on a full-frame DSLR Nikon D750 (other with 50mm). March 2023 in Rommaninat Park, Bangkok, Thailand.