Plants – Tonji and Sylvia's Wildlife Refuge

Fruits! Flowers! New Bird! May 2026

The Big Pond has yielded another new bird for the farm refuge!

Bird #122 is White-browed Crake Porzana cinerea. It was walking on top of the lotus leaves, just like the illustration in the Kennedy field guide!

During our visit we also saw:

One Little Grebe. It’s probably a resident now!

8 Black-winged Stilts.

Egrets.

Buff-throated Kingfisher.

Barred Rails. There were two!

Swallows. I think this is a Pacific Swallow.

A lot of Philippine Ducks.

And Wandering Whistling Ducks! When I visited the Big Pond in the afternoon, at first all the ducks flew away. Then they came back and started grooming and settling in for the night. The Wandering Whistling Ducks and Philippine Ducks were mixed togther. It seems that they are now a mixed flock. Later in the evening, I saw the Wandering Whistling Ducks flying around in a V formation while calling out.

I got a nice photo of a Tawny Grassbird. I tend to have a hard time photographing them. This time I didn’t give up and after many shots of leaves and branches and bird bits, I got a good photo!

The Water Lily pond is ready for the upcoming rainy season! Tonji finished widening and deepening the pond.

Tubby climbing out of the Water Lily Pond. He’s a 4×4 puppy!

He also widened the channel that connects the left and right sides of the Water Lily pond.

We are enjoying the fruits and flowers of summer. The grass is all dried up and and looks like straw. But when you look at the trees, they are green and bursting with flowers!

Narra trees in flower beside the paddock

Balai Lamok with Narra in the background

The guava trees that grow wild all over the farm have small and delicious fruit. I am always on the lookout for ripe fruit. Oftentimes the birds beat me to the fruit. This time there were a lot of hantik (big red ants) making nests in the guava trees and crawling all over the fruit. I was able to get a few though!

I also ate a few aratiles. So sweet!

And here’s a cute video of Tubby bounding down to the grass like a little rabbit.

Cold and Windy March

March at the farm refuge is still cool enough to put on a camo cloak to check out the birds in the Big Pond.

We counted 92 Philippine Ducks and 1 female Northern Shoveler at the big pond. The unfinished pond had 2 Philippine Ducks and around 10 Painted Snipes.

We also spotted interesting birds near the cottage.

A Brahminy Kite.

Bee Eaters. So brightly colored and pretty and such a grouchy expression!

Collared Kingfisher.

Red Junglefowl looking like a flock of domestic chickens .. until you try to take their photo and they immediately disappear from sight!

Here’s one photo that’s not blurry!

The Pink Necked Green Pigeons are very good at giving us great poses for photos!

Look at these nice holes! According to Google, Pygmy Woodpeckers make perfectly round holes. I’m not so sure if Coppersmith Barbets also make perfectly round holes.

Is this also a nest? We suspect that this is a duck nest. This is near the Water Lily Pond.

The Salingogogn trees are flowering again! This is the kind of tree whose flowers are best appreciated up close.

August 2025 – A Magical Month!

Our visit started of not so great — I was upset because Ollie rolled in horse poop two times and Tonji was upset because of farm tasks that hadn’t been accomplished.

Then

Then things got better

Going outside for a walk with a camera, binoculars, and (now clean) dogs is a sure way to make things better. The grass rustling underfoot and the birds singing in the trees is instantly uplifting!

I also saw the Orioles, Pygmy Woodpeckers, Coppersmith Barbet, and more!

Then things got even better

I always expect something good from the Big Pond. This time, it exceeded my expectations! To get to the pond from the cottage, you cross a bridge then walk up a short but steep incline, then end up on top of the bank of the Big Pond. This is my usual viewing area. I am at one end of the pond and the ducks are at the other end.

This time I had to stop before I reached the top of the bank because there were so many ducks in the pond! There were ducks swimming right below the area where I would usually stand! This was the closest I had even been to the ducks in the refuge.

I didn’t want to scare the ducks away, so I stayed just halfway up the incline and waited for the ducks to swim into view, and took pictures from there. I was so happy with the pictures!

The following morning Tonji took drone footage of the Big Pond and counted the ducks. The number we had in July was 47 ducks. Our guess before going through the drone footage was at least 80 ducks. And the count from the drone footage was .. 136 ducks!

And it was all magic!

We were feeling elated and and high from seeing all the ducks and even a bayawak in the Big Pond. It had all worked so well that day — the pond, the ducks, the drone! And then, there was one more surprise for us. When night fell, the fireflies came out and put on a magical show at our Firefly tree!

July 2025

July was an interesting month. We visited the farm while there was a typhoon or tropical depression far away in the north. Of course there was a lot of rain! Even with all the rain, there was still so much to see and enjoy.

Philippine Ducks

The ducks were flying back and forth and all around. We guessed they were going from the Big Pond to the Water Lily Pond, and possibly other areas in the refuge. All the rain has filled up the smaller ponds. There are now many spots for the ducks to swim in! Tonji counted 47 ducks in the Big Pond.

Weird Hybrid Duck

Our strange visitor is still around. I wonder how long he plans to stay?

Water Lily Pond

The Water Lily Pond is still going strong! All the plants make this an enchanting place to visit.

Other Pond Denizens

The pond’s cast of characters continues to grow! In the past, we would usually see Black Crowned Night Herons flying overhead. This time we saw one perched!

We are wondering if this is the same Purple Heron that we would see in the Picnic Area back in the early days. It’s nice to see it by the water!

This Month’s Exciting Moment for Us as Birdwatchers

We have a picture of an Asian Koel! If you have an Asian Koel in your area, you probably know about it from its call. Their calls are very loud, even scandalously loud. Their call starts off normally, then gets louder and higher in pitch and intensity and sounds like someone in the throes of unrestrained passionate ecstasy. They manage to do all this while remaining mostly hidden and difficult to spot.

We were surprised to see one out in the open. I assumed it was a crow, but Tonji told me to take pics because it was hopping around like a Koel, not a crow!

On a side note, I saw Koels in a golf course outside Bangkok and they were easy to see. Or maybe I was just lucky or my caddie was a good birdwatcher.