Summer in Bangkok

July 2023

An evening's balcony birding

Setting slowly beneath the cityscape, the sun left a bright pink sky in its wake. I rushed to the balcony, hurriedly taking my binoculars out of their bag and placing them around my neck. The lenses steamed up in the high humidity, but I succeeded in cleaning them before the first sizeable flocks arrived. Before long, some twenty House Crows flew north over my apartment block. They floated gracefully from the Chao Praya River towards the gleaming forest of skyscrapers ahead, their jet black wings like oars rowing through the muggy air. With harsh, guttural cries echoing above the inner city, the corvids declared their return to their roosting site, located somewhere deep in the city centre.

Following the raucous murder of crows came the Asian Openbills. Small storks the size of Grey Herons, they navigated the seemingly infinite number of gaps and wind tunnels with ease between residential condominiums, futuristic towers, and swivelling cranes. Distant relatives, a handful of Little and Cattle Egrets, chose a more direct path and instead plummeted to their roosts deep below the steel emergents. A more elusive bird materialised on the horizon and then disappeared within moments. A Nigh Heron quickly carving through the twilight; it was disinterested in its urban cousins and headed east towards the sprawling suburbs.

Rhythmic purring diverted my attention to the lawn, twenty metres below the balcony. Peaceful Doves hopped around on the mowed grass, their numbers growing every few minutes as more flew in. They mixed and mingled with Tree Sparrows, so much smaller that only the chocolate-brown mosaics on their backs were visible to me. Some doves quickly tired of this gathering and flew to an aerial high up on a neighbouring roof, purring to a wide congregation of koels, mynas, and orioles seated around them. Very soon, the pleasant consistency the doves brought to the ears was challenged. Green Pigeons stole the show, crash-landing into the trees above the lawn and gurgling noisily. Their rather strange noises continued for the next half hour. However, what they lacked in their call repertoire was made up for in their glorious rainbow-coloured plumage. Hues of indigo surrounded a patch of brown on the tail, reaching upwards to the wingtips. Green covered the back and wings, a shade not dissimilar to that of the leaves around them. Fine yellow brushstrokes lined the wings, meeting deep orange at the chest and a gentle lilac extending to the head. I could only imagine these birds escaping from an artist's studio; enough to convince me they were not as bad as they sounded.

The balcony I stood on overlooked the inner-city district of Sathorn, so the sounds of traffic, at times, almost overpowered the evening conversations of the birds. The distant whooshing of cars on a motorway hung in the air as thousands of commuters headed home from work. Tuk-tuks charged behind the trees where the pigeons sat, the quick dugga-dugga-dugga-dugga of their engines reverberating in the narrow road below. Each syllable of the sound bounced like a ping-pong ball from one house's wall to the next, until it seamlessly merged with the chorus of engines and sirens on a main road not too far away. Excitable chatter emanated from a street corner, as at least forty local residents waited for two popular Thai restaurants to open their doors for the evening. Someone sneezed very loudly. Some frightened doves took to the air.

Glancing towards the monolithic towers once more, I noticed a large, horizontal light atop one beginning to light up. A daily ritual that took place just before the sky turned pitch black, it was the brightest light in Sathorn once completely lit. A blinding yellow that reminded me that the evening's balcony birding had come to an end.

Glimpses of green gems in a concrete jungle

I have been fortunate to visit Bangkok several times, and my appetite for urban birding had usually been satiated by the balcony. On this trip, I was also keen to explore what lay beyond my usual view of the city, and discover what sights and sounds the inner city's wildlife sites had to offer.

Two urban city parks were located a stone's throw away from where I was staying, green gems nestled in the densely-woven quilt of asphalt, concrete, glass and exposed telephone cables. The first was Suan Phlu, manicured parkland with some 'wild' corners and a snaking waterbody to its south. More accurately, the natural habitats flanked a sizeable concrete amphitheatre. I stood on the concrete, bathed in the afternoon sun, perspiration gradually crawling its way down the hairs on my arms. My eyes were glued to the water ahead. Two Indian Pond Herons were stooped motionless on embankments on either side of the water, hoping to seize a small fish or two with their bills. Flapping their wings in a clumsy yet hypnotic fashion, they were rendered agitated after playing a ten-minute waiting game, their prey apparently absent. As if having faced the same situation in the recent past, they promptly floated over to the precisely trimmed hedgerows behind the water, skulking low as they continued their search for lunch.

In a little grove of trees directly behind me, a White-throated Fantail whistled cheerily as it hopped between the thin upper branches. A spectre, moving with the leaves as they were gently tossed by a very warm breeze. A white spot on the tail here, a brown wing feather there. I darted around and tried to point my camera towards it, feeling rather impatient like the herons. In the end, the bird and its song melted away into the dry rustle of the canopy.

The other wildlife site was the well-known Lumpini Park. I visited during the evening rush hour, with thousands of commuters hurriedly making their way out of the city centre's Pathum Wan district. Lumpini is chiefly used for recreational purposes, and as such has sports pavilions, sprawling lawns and dozens of criss-crossing footpaths. Pockets of woodland and grassland exist in between, but few birds seemed unperturbed by both the thronging crowds and the July heat. There was one memorable exception. 

Under a cluster of trees, two Black-collared Starlings courted. Belting a regular series of mechanical whirrs, whistles and warbles like wind-up musical boxes, they bounced around enthusiastically. Dappled sunlight illuminated the black 'scarves' around their necks; choral singers dressed to impress. They stared at each other in intense concentration, while softly parting the grass beneath them as they delicately stepped toward and away from each other. Their elaborate show lasted for five minutes, and then they abruptly parted ways like actors after bowing at the end of a performance, their duet complete and forgotten.

Benjakitti: a triumph for urban nature

Birding in the city parks allowed me to appreciate the species that I would usually take for granted in the past. However, curiosity got the better of me and I wondered if there were any larger nature reserves nearby. I asked Dave Gandy, a birder who knew Bangkok very well, and he replied with the suggestion of Benjakitti Forest Park. A park I was not familiar with, and yet it was only a stone's throw away from Lumpini. 180 acres of expansive parkland and mangrove. I had only ever heard of mangroves situated by the coast or in a tidal creek or delta. But one in urban Bangkok? I couldn't miss the opportunity.

At around 9am the next morning, my cab parked on a road between a line of pylons and imposing, grey municipal park gates. The entrance to Benjakitti seemed unassuming, with tidy pavements and yellow-green amenity grassland, peppered with a few young trees. I gingerly walked ahead and up a low hill. A streak of electric blue moved quickly above me, and elegantly planted itself on a stake of one of the young trees. An Indochinese Roller, with a harsh chiak-chiak-chiak scolding a flock of sparrow-like Munias that were squabbling amongst themselves in the grass below.

On the brow of the hill I was met by a steel ramp, which ascended at least seven metres into the air and met a viewpoint. A viewpoint, quite frankly, I will never forget. 

A lush mangrove forest sprawling in every direction. Every tree rooted in a wetland alongside lilies and reeds. Every tree bubbling and overspilling with the voices of crows, orioles, bulbuls, munias, koels, coucals and flowerpeckers. Boardwalks below threading their way through the wetlands, invariably leading to hides festooned with yellow flowers and hanging vines. Wide cycle lanes bisecting these habitats, greeted by rows of reeds and undulating tree branches on either side. Soft mounds of vegetation appeared to rise from the wetlands, as though they were the humps of a slumbering sauropod. Indeed, between them swum formidable Asian Monitor Lizards, rippling the brackish water with their scaly, dinosaur-like bodies. One glanced up at me and hissed silently, in an almost disingenuously friendly way.

A belt of skyscrapers encircled the Park. Like the differing morphologies of each tree, every tower in the skyline beyond was of a unique height, shape and size. Two canopies existing side by side, one healing the city, the other housing it, both perpetually growing and developing. 

Most remarkably, the Forest Park was at the very beginning of its life. Designed by landscape architects Turenscape for the Thai Treasury, it opened to the public in 2022 after just eighteen months of construction. The park was previously Treasury brownfield land - the site of a former tobacco factory - and now served as an extension of the more manicured Benjakitti Park to the east. The new Forest Park had over 7000 trees and consisted of four main habitats: mangrove, lowland evergreens, freshwater swamp and agroforestry gardens. Collectively, these ecosystems had the potential to retain up to 200,000 cubic metres of stormwater during the monsoon period. Not only would this reduce flood risk by relieving pressure from the city's drains; the mangroves also had the ability to filter the water of pollutants, enabling wildlife to thrive. A 180-acre sponge, ameliorating quality of life and access to nature for Bangkok's 10.2 million inhabitants.

I was so enraptured by the beauty of Benjakitti, I returned to the site twice more on my trip. Walking along the skywalks was a surreal experience. While I was never far from a view of the urban sprawl, I often found myself standing mere metres away from the otherworldly oop-oop-oop of a coucal or a flock of Asian Openbills gliding to roost. Few places have made the impression on me that Benjakitti has. A place that has become an immense source of hope to me - an urban landscape that embraces the untidiness of nature, while having huge potential to connect more city-dwellers with wildlife and tackling urban challenges like flooding. And though green pockets like those in Suan Phlu and Lumpini may not be of the same scale, there I have learned to find joy, and surprise, in appreciating the everyday starling, sparrow, or pigeon.

Greater Coucal

Asian Openbill