14 December Departed Singapore at 16.45 on Silk Air flight (using frequent flyer points), travelled directly to Krabi arriving at 16.45. The flight takes about 1.5 hours. Was met at the airport by a driver from Chan Phen Travel, an agency in Krabi with close ties to Yothin at KNC and Mr. Dai, the famous boatman. Drove into town to settle my account with Mr. Dong. After some initial confusion re the status of my booking at the Morokat Resport, we drove to KNC which is about 40 kilometres to the north of Krabi. The drive took about one hour initially on very good roads and then a dirt road for about 5 kilometres. Arrived after dark at 19.30.

Yothin came to meet me and we talked over dinner about arrangements for the following day.

15 December Yothin came to meet me at 06.00 and we arrived at the forest (about 2 kilometres from the report) at first light. Went straight to the famous U Trail where we spent a full morning mostly sitting quietly in his mobile hide waiting for the pitta to appear. The hide is not surprisingly very hot and humid inside and I found it very hard work to keep still in one position for such a long time. Eventually had superb looks at a wonderful female Gurney's Pitta.

Had lunch at the park entrance then walked the Thung Tieo trail, which was exceptionally quiet. Went to look at the old honeyguide site (in vain), there was quite a bit of activity in fruiting trees here. In the evening we successfully tracked down a lovely male Javan Frogmouth.

16 December Walked from the resort to the forest on my own at 06.00; again went straight to the U Trail as I decided to spend the morning concentrating on finding a male Gurney's. This was made difficult by the presence of Yothin's group of 8 Swedish birders who were seemingly unable to stop talking. A number of Large Wren-Babblers were calling amongst others. Heard the pitta.

Returned to the Morokat for lunch, then back to Krabi.

17 December Met Mr. Dai and his son for a boat trip at 06.30. We cruised the mangroves until about 10.00 then went out at low tide to the estuary sand banks. No sign of Mangrove Pitta but Brown-winged Kingfisher almost abundant. We were unable to get close to the waders in the morning but later in the afternoon on a second trip we connected with both Nordmann's Greenshank and Chinese Egret.

18 December Departed Krabi on a Silk Air flight back to Singapore at 09.10 (I arrived two hours prior to the flight to find the airport closed! This despite Mr. Dong ringing the airline to check what time I should be there. The counter opened an hour before departure.) Arrived in Singapore at 11.50.

Summary I found the density of birds at KNC to be low and the birding quite slow even for tropical lowland rainforest. This had more to do with my timing than anything else, I feel. December is possibly the worst time of year to find Gurney's Pitta so I was very happy to connect with the female bird. That said, I wish I had seen the male! I saw no evidence of any recent incursions into the forests at KNC nor any of poaching. I thought that Yothin's use of the hide to show visitors the pitta was very responsible and pretty smart, really. There is no doubt that this decreases disturbance of the birds. The female I watched behaved quite naturally.

I was also keen to see Mangrove Pitta but again my timing was lousy! Even so I was very impressed with the Krabi mangroves - they are obviously very rich in biodiversity and biomass. The general tourist doesn't seem to be interested in the mangrove forests, most head out from Krabi to the nearby islands. Is this a good thing or a bad thing in terms of long term protection of this ecosystem?