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 Introduction
Whale Watching season in Thailand and september/ October is the best months. My second whale watching this year and as we didn't spot any whales last time I hope to get some whale experience this time. Guide
I have used Wild Encounter Thailand before so I knew what I was in for. I liked their service previous times when I have gone whale watching with them so this should be a winner. They leave with a van from Bangkok early morning and we are back in Bangkok early evening. They use 2 different boats, if there are many passengers they depart from the pier at Moo Baan Pramong in Samut Sakhon, this pier is closer to Bangkok. They also use a small boat departing from Bang Tabun in Phetchaburi. Check out Wild Encounter Thailand´s web page: www.wildencounterthailand.com 
Bangkok Meeting Point 7-11 SHOP, SUKHUMVIT 105 Price: 2300 Baht - Returning passengers 2100 Baht Land transportation
1) TAXI, my choice of transportation. Early morning and it took me about 15 minutes to get there and it will cost about 100 Baht, about 3 US Dollars from the Asoke intersection. Say Sukhumvit Soi 105 or Baering BTS Station. Thai script for the taxi driver: Sukhumvit Soi 105: สุขุมวิท ซอย ๑๐๕ Baering: สถานีรถไฟฟ้าแบริ่ง 2) SKY TRAIN Sukhumvit line (Green line) will take you to Baering #E14 station and from there it is a 3 minutes walk. I will go by taxi. But the meeting point at Sukhumvit Soi 105 is just next to the sky train station Baering. Get off the train and look for EXIT #1. Leave at EXIT #1 and just walk for 2 minutes towards north and you have the 7 Eleven on your right hand side.    Click HERE for full size map
Accommodations
I stay at my home sleeping in my own bed so no need for any hotel. Equipment
Canon 5D Mk. III + Canon 5D Mk. IV Canon EF 28-300/3,5-5,6 L IS USM Canon EF 70-200/2,8L IS II USM Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens Canon Speedlite 600EXII-RT flash Canon PowerShot G7X Mark II Panasonic HC-W585 video camera Sound recorder ZOOM H5 Handy Recorder Weather / climate
Weather, I don´t know if Bangkok is the hottest capital in the world. But this is what they say and I have no reason to doubt this information because it is darn hot. Whale watching season and it is the rainy season so we can expect strong winds and heavy rain anytime.  Bangkok, Thailand - Climate & Temperature
Pictures from www.climatemps.com
 Bangkok, Thailand - Climate & Temperature - Click picture for full size
Pictures from www.climatemps.com
References/Resources
Thai National Parks - About the National Parks in Thailand A very good web page - Do you know that there are still wild tigers, elephants, leopards, tapirs, gaurs, bears and many monkey species in many tropical rainforests across Thailand? Do you also know that around 10% of all marine species in the world can be found in Thailand? And the fact that Thailand is the best bird-watching destination in mainland Asia? National parks are protected areas of land because they have unspoilt landscapes and a diverse number of native plants and animals. There are 127 national parks in Thailand, of them 22 marine national parks. These parks offers a diverse range of flora and fauna, home to important population of endangered species. So now it will be easy to find out if there are any National Park close to you. Bird Conservation Society of Thailand (BCST) - The Bird Conservation Society of Thailand (BCST) is one of the oldest  organisations conserving birds and nature in Thailand and is the country partner of BirdLife International. BCST's role to the local community is to spread awareness about urban birds and reconnect people back to nature.
The Logo Dated back to 1986 when BCST was then a loosely-formed “Bangkok Birdwatching Club”, the Oriental Magpie Robin (Copsychus saularis), or “Nok Gang Ken Baan” in Thai, has been chosen to represent the organisation. There are two sites covering Thailand and I have used them many times. These two web pages are actually everything you need for your birding adventures in Thailand. All the information you need about all the birding spots. Click on the map and then select your spot and you will have maps and everything you need to know about the areas. They have put a lot of jobs in to their web pages, North Thailand Birding and thaibirding.com A must to visit before you go bird watching in Thailand. www.norththailandbirding.com - A one stop only for all your birding in Thailand thaibirding.com - Nick Upton's one stop only for all your birding in Thailand. Use both www.thaibirding.com and www.norththailandbirding.com and you have a winner. Some of the maps on www.norththailandbirding.com are way better than Nick Upton´s, while some of Nick's maps are much more detailed. So I have found that if I use both the web pages for information, well, nothing else needed. PBase/Peter Ericson - Peter Ericson, a guy I thought was from USA because of his family name. I met him at Lat Krabang Paddies in May 2020 and turned out that he was Swedish. Anyway, I have used his excellent page PBase since 2016 as help to ID birds by the help from his beautiful bird pictures. Here you can also find information about birding tours. He is also having a Blog - Thaibirds and more with interesting information. Bangkok City Birding - A lot of interesting birding stories and information on this bird watching blog by David Gandy. Bangkok-based patch-worker in Suan Rot Fai, a large park close to the city's famous weekend market. He have recorded 150 species on his patch since 2008. As one of the only big green spaces in the city, “SRF” acts as a real magnet for migrants during spring and autumn, and holds a healthy selection of "sibes" during the winter months. ebird - Find birding hotspots with bird checklists from all over the world Avibase - is an extensive database information system about all birds of the world, containing over 25 million records about 10,000 species and 22,000 subspecies of birds, including distribution information for 12,000 regions, taxonomy, synonyms in several languages  www.oiseaux.net This web page is also excellent for identifying birds. There is information and range maps for many many birds from all over the world. This page is almost guaranteed to give you any answer you have about any bird in the world. Cloudbirders - Read birding trip reports from all over the world Fatbirder - Linking birders worldwide... Wildlife Travellers see their sister site: WAND  Fatbirder is a fantastic web page with information from, I think every country in the world. My first stop when I plan for my bird watching trips. There is information about locations and guides, well, pretty much everything you need to know. Sometimes this is the only place I need to visit to plan my trip. BirdingPal - find a birding Guide around the world   And the web page you cannot live without. I have been around the world looking for birds. I usually have a Guide, but sometimes it is not possible to find a Guide. So, well, I have lost count on how many times I have had help to ID birds at BirdForum. Joining this forum have been very very good for my bird watching experience. www.birdforum.net ClimaTemps.com is the place to learn about the worlds climates with more than 4000 locations documented. Each aspect of the climate is represented using colour enhanced tables and professional graphs so that data can easily be compared by switching between locations in different tabs in your browser. “A Field Guide to the Birds of Thailand and South East Asia by Craig Robson”
 A Field Guide to the Birds of Thailand and South East Asia by Craig Robson. New edition updated with 76 species since previous edition “A Field Guide to the Birds of Thailand and South East Asia by Craig” Nick Upton at www.thaibirding.com wrote “This quite excellent book is packed full of quality illustrations and written information on 1251 species recorded in Southeast Asia” I bought this book for bird watching in Thailand, but it goes for all over SE Asia Places to visit
Whale watching on the Upper Gulf of Thailand. So I expect to see both birds and whales. Bird checklist
Full Thai list updated to the taxonomy, nomenclature and sequence of the IOU/IOC World Bird List. The complete checklist, including Thai names and synonyms, can be downloaded in Excel format - Thailand Bird Checklist. - Version 8.2 (2018) - found at www.norththailandbirding.com Check lists can come in handy to find out the local name of the bird etc. And Avibase have a list with pictures and sounds, excellent! So I will post bird checklists here and if my Guides provide me with checklists I will also post them here.   Samut Sakhon bird checklist from Avibase, click HERE - eBird version 2019 taxonomy - When going with the big boat Phetchaburi bird checklist from Avibase, click HERE - eBird version 2019 taxonomy - When going with the small boat Avibase is providing you with bird checklists from all over the world. And I´m impressed by their web page. Select country and area and you get the bird checklist. Like the PDF files I got from Avibase on the links above. You also get the checklist with pictures and sounds. The best part is that you get the local names of the birds and the online checklist gives the names in English plus the language you have selected. But it seems like the PDF cannot handle some alphabet. For example the Japanese language so it is blank in the PDF checklist. But it worked excellent with Swedish. But you get them in the local language on the online version. Bird list
I only list birds I have got on picture on my list of OBSERVED BIRDS. But since I started using eBird I have changed a bit. I list all the birds on the eBird checklist. See the DAY TO DAY report in the itinerary below. And you can visit my list of “Birds I have seen in Thailand” ONLY BIRDS I HAVE ON PICTURE.
Trip Report
Sunday 6th of October 2019 and my alarm went off at 4 o´clock. I can't say that I was jumping out of bed. But I made it to 7 Eleven at Soi 105 well in time. I could see that there were quite a few people and we will use 2 vans today. And I asked what boat we were going to use during the trip and today it will be boat I never been on before. There was AC on board so it will be nice if the sun will pound us during the day. We went in to the vans and we left 7 Eleven driving towards Rama III. Crossing the Chap Phraya River and we were soon on the small road to Moo Ban Pramong.  Leaving Bangkok early morning
 Leaving Bangkok early morning
 Leaving Bangkok early morning
 Leaving Bangkok early morning
 Leaving Bangkok early morning
 Leaving Bangkok early morning
I had expected departure from the same restaurant as when I went for the first time a few years ago. But we stopped at another restaurant across the river. Last restaurant just at the mouth of the river. It had taken us about 45 minutes to get here from Bangkok and I started my eBird app at 07:05. One boat departed from the pier when we arrived and our boat came in to the pier. We expected to leave at 7 thirty so I went for a walk to look for birds and there was quite a few birds in the area. Before stepping on board I got very close to a few Little Cormorants sitting just next to the restaurant and as they did not see me under the canvas over the restaurant I got a few pictures. At 7 thirty I boarded the boat and now I was told that we would leave around 8 o'clock. So I was sitting up front looking for birds killing the time before departure.  Eurasian Tree Sparrow
 Little Cormorant / นกกาน้ำเล็ก
 Little Cormorant / นกกาน้ำเล็ก
 Little Cormorant / นกกาน้ำเล็ก
 Little Cormorant / นกกาน้ำเล็ก
 Little Cormorant / นกกาน้ำเล็ก
 Little Cormorant / นกกาน้ำเล็ก
 Our boat arrives
 Ready to board
 AC lounge
 Weather deck
I was joined by a guy from India. He is going for whale watching with his family and I could see on his camera that he was in it for birds as well. He was from Calcutta and we started to talk about Sundarbans while keeping an eye out for birds. There were many egrets and cormorants and many Whiskered Terns flying around us and over the river. It was not easy to take the pictures of birds in flight, but there came pretty close sitting down close to the boat. So it was a joyful morning sitting on the boat looking at birds talking about Sundarbans. And of course, I had a MAX next to me that I enjoyed every now and then.  1 Great Egret and 2 Little Cormorant
 Great Egret / Great White Heron / นกยางโทนใหญ่
 Black-capped Kingfisher
I spotted a Black-capped Kingfisher coming to sit down on one of the bamboo sticks. Just a wee bit too far away for any good pictures. Great and Little egrets and pond herons in winter plumage. And the pond herons all looks the same in winter plumage, but I have been in the area before and all the herons had been Javan Pond Herons. So the pond herons were most likely Javan Pond Herons. I kept an eye on the Black-capped Kingfisher coming closer and closer jumping bamboo pole by pole. But suddenly the bird took off and flew over the river and disappeared. I had a Whiskered Tern landing on a pole next to the ship. I took a picture and I have at least a few of the bird. No luck at all to get pictures of the terns in flight. But I got some practice out of it. But birds in flight, I don't know if it helps with practice. It is darn hard.  Whiskered Tern - นกนางนวลแกลบเคราขาว
 Whiskered Tern - นกนางนวลแกลบเคราขาว
 Pond Heron in winter plumage
 Great Egret and Pond Heron in front of the boat
 Little Egret in front of the boat
 Great Egret / Great White Heron / นกยางโทนใหญ่
 Great Egret and Little Egrets
 Leaving Moo Ban Pramong
 Leaving Moo Ban Pramong
I could see the boat we used on my first whale watching trip passing us on the river. She was steaming towards the open sea and I could see the guide that have been on board on all my trips. So they have many guests and have to use two boats today. They passed us and we left the jetty and followed them out towards the open sea. We looked at birds on the way out and we spotted two Brahminy kite sitting on the roof of a temple looking building in the sea. So with the Brahminy kite I spotted at the jetty it is three of them today. Leaving the temple behind and we were on the open sea. Now we just need to find the whales.   Reaching the open sea
  We were steaming for a few hours keeping our eyes out for whales. We heard on the radio that one boat had spotted 2 Brydes Whales and we changed course to go have a look. We spotted 2 whales swimming around and we could get some pictures. The other company boat was next to us looking at the whales. 20 or 30 minutes and the whales were gone again and we left the area in search for other whales. My new friend from India had been hoping for some gulls. I had told him already before the jetty that I had been here before and I will most likely not see any gulls. - But there will be plenty terns. We never spotted any gulls but plenty Common and Whiskered terns. I kept my eyes out for Crested Terns but no Crested around, at least not any that I could see.  They have spotted 2 Brydes whales
 They have spotted 2 Brydes whales
 Floating palm tree
 Brydes Whale
 Brydes Whale
 Brydes Whale
 Brydes Whale
 Brydes Whale
 Brydes Whale
 My new friends having lunch
 My new friends having lunch
It was nice to see the whales, of course, I still want to see them sticking up their heads with open mouths with the birds eating from the mouths. Humpbacks are for sure more funny to watch with breaching and flapping and slapping. But it happens that the Brydes Whale are breaching so you never know what you will see. Lunch time and I had my energy bars. My new friends tried to get me to eat but chilli is not my favourite. We were going around looking for whales and we spotted another whale but it was soon gone. We were surrounded by Common Terns sitting on debris in the sea and I tried to get pictures.  Common Tern
 Common Tern
 Common Tern
 Common Tern
 Common Tern
 Common Tern
 Common Tern
We left the open sea starting to steam back towards the restaurant and the pier in Moo Ban Pramong, Samut Sakhon. The other boat calls on the radio, there are two whales ahead of us and we get one more whale session today. I was laying in the AC saloon when the crew come to tell me that they had spotted 2 whales. I go out on deck and I see two whales enjoying themselves swimming around and I got some more pictures before we started to steam back to the harbour.  Brydes Whale
 Brydes Whale
 Brydes Whale
 Brydes Whale
 Brydes Whale
 Brydes Whale
 Brydes Whale
 Brydes Whale
 Brydes Whale
 Whale Watchers
We left the whales behind and we had seen a total of 5 Brydes Whales during the day. I was happy and I decided to call to see if they have any seats for the next weekend. I went down to the AC lounge and I laid down on the small seat and I went back on deck when we approached the shore line. Sitting up front looking out for birds, but now it started to get dark. We were approaching Mo Baan Pramong and the restaurant and the pier is the first building on the right hand side. Now there were some guests at the restaurant and there is also dinner guests at all the other restaurants. Something I had not expected, this area to be a tourist destination.  Approaching shore
 Back at the Mo Baan Pramong
 Back at the restaurant
We got in to the van and we took off towards downtown Bangkok. I was back home at 19 thirty and I learned that the boats were full for the next weekend. But Monday 14 October is a holiday and they have seats. I booked a seat for me and I have booked our own boat for Tuesday 15 October. So there will be more chances to see whales before I fly to Ethiopia to look for birds. Click HERE to find out if I have any luck with the whales.
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