Lumphini Park - The Usual Suspects

It's January so we find ourselves back in Bangkok visiting friends before heading off to explore more of the region. Despite very little sleep over the past few days, thanks to some wonderful New Year celebrations with friends in the UK and a couple of relatively comfortable but ultimately sleepless flights via Muscat, I decided to check out my favourite little slice of green Bangkok.

The park was quite busy with a holiday atmosphere lingering. There has clearly been another cull of the Water Monitors here as numbers were right down on last year. As a result fish and terrapin numbers appeared to be higher. Some work restoring grassy areas meant a lot of disturbed wet ground, proving very popular with the starlings, mynas and other birds.

The usual birds showed well. Notable differences from previous visits at this time of year were larger numbers of Ashy Drongos and more Black-naped Orioles (in both cases I usually only see one or two but the former into double figures and maybe 6 or so of the latter). Other good birds included an Intermediate Egret and a smart adult Black-crowned Night-heron. I'm tentatively identifying the Pond Heron pictured below as Javan based on the colour showing in the neck feathering. Early acquisition of breeding plumage or retained from previous season?

A very cool, cloudy day and light rather poor which made photography challenging with my trusty Canon SX50HS bridge camera but a few passable shots.

Edit: Updated the list below to include extra species seen following morning, which included White-breasted Kingfisher which is unusual for the park and my first White-breasted Waterhen here.

Ashy Drongo Dicrurus leucophaeus

Asian Pied Starling Gracupica contra

Intermediate Egret Ardea intermedia

Javan Pond-heron Ardeola speciosa

Oriental Magpie-robin Copsychus saularis

Malaysian Pied Fantail Rhipidura javanica

Water Monitor Varanus salvator

Complete list for this brief first visit:

Feral Pigeon

Spotted Dove

Zebra Dove

Asian Koel

Germain's Swiftlet

Asian Palm-Swift

White-breasted Waterhen
Asian Openbill

Intermediate Egret

Little Egret

Javan Pond Heron
Chinese Pond Heron

Striated Heron
Black-crowned Night-Heron

White-throated Kingfisher
Coppersmith Barbet
Brown Shrike

Black-naped Oriole

Ashy Drongo (pale leucogenis type)

Malaysian Pied-Fantail

Large-billed Crow

Streak-eared Bulbul

Yellow-browed Warbler

Asian Brown Flycatcher

Oriental Magpie-Robin

Taiga Flycatcher
Black-collared Starling

Asian Pied Starling

Common Myna

Great Myna

Scarlet-backed Flowerpecker

Olive-backed Sunbird

Eurasian Tree Sparrow