Khao Yai - birds & gibbons

On the mornings of our second and third days in Khao Yai, we split the class into two teams to minimize noise while we birdwatched and observed the gibbons.  My friends who have masters degrees in bird ecology came out to Khao Yai to lead us on sunrise birdwatching walks through the forest and grassland, as they do every year.  Also, my friends who are Ph.D. scientists at Thai universities come out to help us with the gibbons, who they have been studying for over 20 years.  We also took a hike to another waterfall on one of the afternoons.

The gibbons are a family that teams of researchers have been following for nearly 40 years.  We walked about 1.5 km through the forest to get to them.

One of our favorite places for group pictures is this medium sized sompong tree.

The gibbons can be black or buff colored.  This one obviously is a buff individual.  Gibbons are apes... not monkeys.  They are famous for their spectacular singing in the morning, but unfortunately, they chose not to sing today.

One of the birds we (only me) were looking for was the elusive zitting cisticola, but unfortunately we saw crested serpeant eagles instead.

Dtoon (holding the book) and Phet (right) showing students characteristics of birds that we saw in a new bird book.

We continued down the trail to the observation tower.

In the tower, you have good views in every direction.

I have few skills not possessed by others.  One of them is juggling elephant evidence.

Naturally, this was enjoyed by all.

Later in the afternoon, we visited Haew Narok Waterfall.  Here is Grace taking Lyndi's picture at the waterfall.

And Mackenzie taking Nat's picture.