Piddling around Pattaya

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When: July 2025 Weather: Hot 25 to 30C

Nikon P900

In Pattaya for 24 hours doing a recce for our meeting here next year, I found Chaloem Phra Kiat Park as my next ‘little patch of green’ birding locations near my hotel. We stayed at the Royal Cliff Grand Hotel next to the Pattaya Exhibition and Convention Centre(PEACH). It was but a 15minute walk to the Big Buddha Statue with a viewpoint of the sea…It’s labelled Wat Phra Yai on the map. It’s interesting that this park has the same name as another small park by the river in Bangkok which I have written about in a previous post….

Chaloem Phra Kiat Park in Pattaya

First bird of the morningat about 7am as the downpour eased was this bedraggled Oriental magpie robin, seen just outside the Hotel Gates…
A red wattled lapwing next to the road….we also flushed out a Coucal who rapidly flew off..
at the end of the hotel road, you can turn sharp left to go the viewpoint or cross the roundabout and enter the Chaloem Phra Kiat Park itself…leading to the Big Buddha Statue
First bird in the park was the Pied Malayan Fantail
then a rather smarter looking male Oriental Magpie Robin posed in the sunlight
Female Oriental Magpie Robin
Common mynah
Great or white vented mynah
This little thing zipped across and perched a long way away…common tailorbird
yellow vented bulbul
streak eared bulbul
the Big Buddha at the end of this stairway
view from the Big Buddha of Pattaya and the sea
on the way back for our first meeting of the day, a flock of scaly breasted munias were active
scaly breasted munia
Before heading back to Suvarnabhumi airport in the afternoon, we went to visit what can only be described as a most bizzare and unusual theme park…the Nong Nooch Botanical Gardens about half an hour from our hotel…it’s an enormous botanical garden with hundreds of model animals and dinosaurs, a car museum, conference facilities and of course huge and healthy palms and many other botanical species….a wonderland for plant lovers. We took a little buggy around…
A white throated kingfisher with a little egret below from a distance
white throated KF
A female Koel
red vented bulbul with his gecko lunch
so just 24 hours in Pattaya…beautiful sunsets, sea and forest..a good day

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