Birds & gibbons 2

Today, the two teams switched so that each had the chance to see gibbons and birds.  We finished by 11:00 a.m. and then drove to the airport for a flight to Phuket.

Ajarn Mink is explaining various concepts of tropical forest ecology as well as gibbon ecology.

This is Ajarn CC providing explanations to our students.

Woody climbers...

Here is an enormously large cinnamon tree that had fallen years ago.  We stopped here for an interpretive session.

The gibbons were quite high in the canopy.

This tree is being killed by strangler figs, which grow over the host tree, eventually killing it.

Ajarn CC, Mink and Uey gave us each a card with a tropical forest concept on it.  As we came to various points in the forest, we stopped and discussed it.  Here Sabrina is explaining about decomposition.

We found the gibbons and Charlie got some great photos.  Here's a buff colored gibbon hanging from a branch.

Here's the mother and baby black colored gibbon (look closely), with the buff colored gibbon above them.

Here is our group at the Sapong Tree.

Charlie looking up a the Sapong Tree, with strangler figs slowly killing it.

Ajarn Wayne's group went birding today.

Blue rock thrush female.

Asian open-bill storks.

I think this is a brown shrike.

After a 3.5 hour van ride back to the Bangkok airport, we boarded a 747 Thai Airways flight to Phuket.

We were met at the airport by a van service to take us to a hotel near the pier where we will meet the ferry in the morning.