More waders from the land of the smiles

Reality hit today. I was back at work. However, the Thai trip memories are still pretty vivid and during the last few days of the trip, I managed to add a couple of quality waders to the already impressive list at a small bridge over a sandy river to the east of Takua Pa, Phang Nga province. These two were freshwater wader species, the first one aptly named due to where it lives, on rivers.

River Lapwing, 1st January 2013

The River Lapwing is listed as near threatened by Birdlife International on the basis that it's predicted to decline quite rapidly over the next 100 years or so due to human pressures on river ecosystems and dam construction. It has a relatively limited distribution in SE Asia too, and was actually a new wader species for me so a nice bird to see.

Grey-headed Lapwing, 1st January 2013

On the same stretch of the river as the 3 River Lapwings were 5 Grey-headed Lapwings - pretty impressive, large, thick-billed and long-legged beasts. Forgotten how decent looking this species is since I last saw them a decade or so ago.

Lapwing habitat near Takua Pa, Phang Nga province