Sakaerat

We spent one and a half days at the Sakaerat Biosphere Reserve, 4 hours NE of Ayuttayah. Here we worked with Faii, who studies bird ecology.  She took on walks to see birds, we mist-netted to try to capture birds, and she showed us how birds are banded for identification.  We also worked with snake experts that are studying king cobras, and did a night walk to try to find snakes.  How do you spell heebie-jeebies?

Faii gave us a presentation on the research they are doing with nest predation.

We went to a site where we cold see the national bird of Thailand, the Siamese Fireback.

Believe it or not, this is a wild species related to the domestic rooster.  It's called jungle fowl.

Hiking through SE Asia calls for the use of leech socks.  Terrestrial leeches are somewhat unpleasant.

Jacob thinks he looks good with shorts and leech socks.  You be the judge.

On a walk through the forest, we came to the observation tower.

It was rather tall and extended above the jungle canopy.  We think it's around 100 feet tall.

Faii is explaining how to band birds.

If you look carefully, you can see the mist net extending from the guy in the foreground on the right, to the people in the back.  Lots of us almost ran into it because it is nearly invisible, which is exactly the idea so birds will fly into it.  Unfortunately, we didn't get any birds, probably because our group was so noisy.

Here Fai is explaining what the colored tags on the trees mean.  This is a huge research plot marked out on a 50x50 meter grid.

Later, we had a presentation by the King Team (king cobra researchers).  Mike Mills (from St Louis!) is showing us how they use the radio tracking device.  He was blown away that we were visiting from Mizzou.

They had two Burmese pythons in hand at the time.  They have a vet surgically implant transmitters in the snakes and they will then track their movements after they are released into the environment.

This snake had a bad attitude.

Mike and Harry (from the UK) talking about snake ecology.

That night, they took us on a walk through the tropical forest and some grasslands looking for snakes.

Thank God we didn't find any.