If you go down to the woods in Thailand…..
By Birding-Aus, on October 16th, 2013
Quite a few Australian birders head off to Thailand for a spot of birding. Here is a story from near Chiang Mai that serves as a reminder that not all the wildlife one can encounter in the area is cute and cuddly. http://www.chiangmaicitynews.com/news.php?id=2492 Cheers, Carl Clifford =============================== To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) to: birding-aus-request@vicnet.net.au http://birding-aus.org ===============================
Hi all, The bear story reminded me of an encounter I had with an Asiatic Black bear a few years ago in 1995 while birding in Khao Yai NP in Thailand. I had been birding the trails all day and I was walking along a roadway en-route to my camping area when I saw a young Black Bear up ahead on the edge of the road. He was feeding on some fruit which had clearly been passed to him from a car. So, what to do? I came up with a most cunning plan. I would walk towards the bear I had little choice if I wanted to get back to my camp before nightfall. And when and if he approached me I would throw some food to the ground away from me and slip past him and then down the road. As I said cunning. So I got some food out of my bag; a small plastic bag of banana chips dried banana. The bear sniffed loudly and waddled slowly in my direction, a handful of banana chips were flung over his head, he quickly turned a devoured the chips. Too easy, I thought as one does when outwitting a bear.. However [you knew that there would be a however ] the bear was surprisingly quick to eat the banana and grunted loudly, stood upright on his two hind legs and walked directly towards me. I meekly held out the bag and said, Youll be wanting these. The bear swung a lazy paw that connected largely with the bag and, to a lesser extent with my hand. The bag was ripped apart and the chips devoured. My hand had a tiny drop of blood where his claw had removed a pen prick of skin. After that I calmly walked on to the campground where I eagerly accepted a small glass of Song Thip Whisky provided by some generous Thais. For the record, the bear was cute however I would not claim him to be cuddly. I have also seen bears while i was on foot in Nepal, India and North America. In every instance except the one above bears have been very quick to give me right of way and do a runner. Ken Cross —————————————— Quite a few Australian birders head off to Thailand for a spot of birding. Here is a story from near Chiang Mai that serves as a reminder that not all the wildlife one can encounter in the area is cute and cuddly. http://www.chiangmaicitynews.com/news.php?id=2492 Cheers, Carl Clifford =============================== To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) http://birding-aus.org =============================== =============================== To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) http://birding-aus.org ===============================
Good afternoon, Having lived north of Chiang Mai for close to 7 years and birded many a time in the Chiang Dao area alone and with Thai friends, I would suspect from numerous conversations about large mammal populations in the northern forests that this is close to THE last bear in this forested region …. I wouldn’t put off your glorious trip to northern Thailand including hiking atop Doi Chiang Dao to see some of the best avifauna in SE Asia based on this report … Happy birding Paul =============================== To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) http://birding-aus.org ===============================
And I was there in ’11. I was told by a local that there were no bears in Chiang Dao, the Leopards had eaten them all. Fortunately, the only big cats I came across were on the labels of Leo beer. Carl On 16/10/2013, at 12:40, Tom Tarrant < aviceda@gmail.com > wrote: =============================== To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) http://birding-aus.org ===============================
Yikes! I was birding in Chiang Dao in March this year…… Tom On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 10:44 AM, Carl Clifford < carlsclifford@gmail.com>wrote: — ******************************** Tom Tarrant Kobble Creek, Qld http://www.aviceda.org ******************************** =============================== To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) http://birding-aus.org ===============================