Thaibirding.com is a website that I designed to provide information on the best birdwatching locations throughout Thailand. The website contains free and comprehensive information on many locations, including maps, travel advice, facilities and the bird species likely to be seen at each site. In addition there are checklists and many trip reports from a number of contributors and recent bird sightings are updated as I receive them.

The original inspiration for thaibirding.com came from the fact that it was difficult to find out information on birdwatching locations in Thailand, and that one had to spend a lot of time on the internet garnering scraps of information from a number of websites. Finding information on whether accommodation existed at a number of birdwatching sites was particularly hard to find.

Thaibirding.com aims to provide answers to all the questions that visiting birdwatchers might have when planning a trip to Thailand as well as encouraging them to submit their records for the benefit of others. The website has already expanded to include some papers on ornithology and hopefully this collection will grow and encourage others to study birds in more detail.

Most ambitiously, thaibirding.com aims to earn some revenue through advertising and affiliate programs and to use a portion of this income for bird conservation projects in Thailand. Already thaibirding.com is assisting in the establishment of a conservation program in the Chiang Saen region of northern Thailand.

To make navigation of the website as easy as I can, I have divided it into the following sections;

Guiding - A number of itineraries are suggested for those that want a birdwatching guide. Those that need aguide can contact me through this section.

Locations - This is the directory of birdwatching sites around Thailand. Each page contains information on accommodation, birding highlights, how to find birds and links to related pages as well as maps.

Trip Reports - A large collection of Thailand birdwatching trip reports.

Checklists - Checklists for all the birdwatching sites covered on thaibirding.com.

News - This section contains birdwatching, environmental and other news relating to Thailand.

Ornithology - A collection of ornitholigical papers relating species found in Thailand.

Features - A selection of articles on various topics related to birdwatching in Thailand.

Book Reviews - Book reviews on birdwatching and other wildlife books relevant to Thailand.

Hotels & Guesthouses - Book accommodation in Thailand at discounted rates.

Forums - A place for the users of Thaibirding.com to interact.

Newsletter - Users can sign up to my newsletter which contains alerts to new pages and unpublished information.

One of the most attractive prospects to birdwatchers visiting Thailand is the relative abundance of new discoveries waiting to be made. Every year new species are added to the Thai list and there is much to learn about the behaviour and habits of many species, particularly those that live in forests.

Amongst the ornithological papers I have been given permission to reproduceon on my website is one concerning some amazing behaviour of the Great Hornbill (pictured). The paper describes aerial casque-butting in this species. The casque of a Hornbill is the large growth on the top its bill, and to see this huge species crashing these into each other in the air must be a memorable sight.

aerial casque-butting

After a year of people e-mailing me through thaibirding.com asking for recommendations for birdwatching guides, I decided to provide this guiding service myself. I am available to arrange custon made birdwatching tours in any part of Thailand and can operate day trips from Bangkok to some of the best coastal sites in the country.

Take a look at the suggested itineraries and please feel free to contact me: Bird Guiding in Thailand.

Whilst creating thaibirding.com I have been very lucky to receive many beautiful photographs of birds from around Thailand from a number of photographers. I really would not have been able to create the website without the help of these people; birdwatching is a visual hobby and a birdwatching website without lots of photos of birds would be rather redundant.

Although many people have donated photos I am most grateful to Peter Ericsson, Suppalak Klabdee, Alister Benn and Johan Svensson for their support from a very early stage. Here are links to their photo galleries:

Peter Ericsson

Suppalak Klabdee

Alister Benn

Johan Svensson

I think that one of the things that sets thaibirding.com apart from many other birdwatching websites is that I actively encourage birdwatchers to submit their observations and articles for inclusion and that every e-mail request I receive is personally answered to the best of my ability.

This is also extended to this lens and if anyone has any questions about birdwatching in Thailand, feel free to contact me. Of course, please take a look at thaibirding.com to see if your question is answered there first.