Dates:
Weather:
Localities:

19 - 22 Nov 2019.
Dry, with variable cloud cover. Temperatures ranged from 15°C to 28°C.
Omkoi Wildlife Sanctuary.

Grey-headed Parakeet

Ananta Yellow Sailor

Grey-backed Shrike

Abnormal Flash

Darkie Plushblue

This trip had several aims. Firstly, birding and butterfly photography, plus we wanted to explore the forest at higher elevation toward Doi Mon Chong. We'd attempted this on previous occasions, but the higher ridges in the area always appear to suffer poor weather making the roads impassible and the forest damp and cloudy. As November weather is usually stable, yet still warm, we hoped to be able to access these higher forests.

19 Nov. An early start from Chiang Mai to Omkoi, where we arrived around 10:00. We spent the whole day in the drier forests either side of Omkoi town within an altitude range of 850 - 1,000 metres. Best species of the day were White-bellied Woodpecker, Black-headed Woodpecker, Crested Treeswift, Black Baza and Rufous-winged Buzzard. Overnight in Omkoi. Restaurant options are rather limited in Omkoi, and tonight we discovered our usual eating hole had ceased. A simple restaurant nearby proved fine enough, with a good curry and cold beer, although they closed really early - by 18:30. Fairly typical of provincial Thai towns.

20 Nov. Intending to tackle Doi Mon Chong, we left Omkoi at 07:30, arriving at the control checkpoint, at 1,500 metres, an hour later. The ranger on duty was rather surprised to find two foreigners asking to drive up the mountain, but let us pass on making sure we had no intention to trek to the summit - this would appear to require a local guide? On questioning the state of the forest track toward the summit the ranger looked our vehicle over, noted it was 4x4, and informed us all was OK. According to the sign at the checkpoint the mountain is 18 kilometres farther, but how much of that is drivable is open to question. The weather at this altitude was decidedly cool and damp, with a stiff breeze over the ridge, and by 1,650 metres we hit the cloud base. Unfortunately, even though there had been no rain for more than a week, the track was still deep mud in places with some sizeable ruts to navigate. These ruts proved to require more ground clearance than we had and staying out of them was difficult without risking falling off the road, even with 4x4. After 6.5 kilometres we decided that getting stuck here would give too many headaches so retraced our steps. For sure this road would have been no issue if dry. Given the conditions we had few birds, other than White-necked Laughingthrush, Mountain Imperial Pigeon, Slaty-bellied Tesia, Grey Bush Chat, Grey-backed Shrike and a number of Black Bulbul.

On a whim we decided to try the dirt road downhill from the checkpoint. This track passed through reasonable forest with a few damp gullies. Several Rosy Minivet were the pick of the bunch, plus Square-tailed Drongo-Cuckoo, Blue-bearded Bee-eater, Large Cuckooshrike,Maroon Oriole, Hume's Leaf Warbler, Northern White-crowned Forktail and Olive-backed Pipit.

21 Nov. A rather cool morning at only 15°C. Today we'd decided to descend to the lower elevations near the wildlife sanctuary headquarters, where we spent the morning near the stream. However, the area was poor for butterflies, though did produce Red-billed Blue Magpie, Slaty-backed Forktail and Grey-headed Parakeet. For the remainder of the day we explored farther down the dirt road we'd tried yesterday, past the checkpoint, travelling down past the first village at ten kilometres. As the habitat was becoming more fragmented and agricultural we stopped shortly after and retraced our steps. Birds encountered included Bay Woodpecker and Oriental Turtle Dove.