Prek Toal: Storks Galore

 

Asian Openbill, one of the commonest residents of Prek Toal

After Tmatboey, my final stop in Cambodia before returning to the Philippines was the Prek Toal Bird Sanctuary, part of the vast complex of wetlands on the western side of the Tonle Sap lake. Tonle Sap itself has been a crucial source of water for Cambodia since the advent of agriculture in the country, and as the biggest wetland in Southeast Asia it's also the breeding site for thousands- probably millions- of breeding waterbirds, including endangered species such as Greater Adjutant and Spot-billed Pelican. I had just enough time to spend one morning there before I had to head back to Phnom Penh, and from there back to the Philippines. 

Nara and Johnny met me at my hotel in Siem Reap at 4:30 in the morning, and from there we headed toward Tonle Sap, all of us a little hungover from the night before. It's necessary to take a boat in order to get to Prek Toal, and it was a long, bumpy ride over bad dirt roads to get to an area where water was deep enough for boats to dock. Tonle Sap is a hydrological oddity- in the dry season it's only a meter or two deep, and receives water from the Mekong River via the Tonle Sap River. In the monsoon season it rises precipitously- by up to 45 feet!- and the Tonle Sap reverses flow, emptying into the Mekong like a normal river. This was the dry season, so we had to drive almost 10 kilometers along a canal (more of an empty ditch at this point) until we reached the port area.

The "port" was really just a small collection of bamboo buildings next to a temple, the lower parts of which I assume get flooded during the monsoon season. There was a Dusky Warbler flitting around the low vegetation by the canal, and the usual waterbirds flying around us, mostly Whiskered Terns with the odd White-winged Tern as well. As we started along the canal we flushed several Watercocks as well, always nice to see up close. 

Dusky Warbler

Whiskered Tern in breeding plumage

Female Watercock

The boatman took us through a winding maze of canals and waterways, interspersed with fish cages and huts by the side of the water. We had a preview of what we would see within the bird sanctuary proper- egrets of various kinds, Asian Openbills, and a few of my lifer Black-headed Ibis. After many twists and turns we suddenly arrived, incongruously, at a town in the middle of the swamp- the Prek Toal Village. Prek Toal is a village like no other- in order to adapt to the massive changes in the water level of the Tonle Sap, practically the entire village floats on top of the water, moving up and down with the water level. People get around on boats instead of wheeled vehicles, and even government offices and schools are in floating buildings. It was one of the coolest and most unique communities I've ever seen, and I regret not having spent more time there just to see what life was like. 

The usual mode of family transportation in Prek Toal 

A floating convenience store! I can only imagine everyone living there has phenomenal core strength

Large-billed Crows were common in Prek Toal

At the village we had some delicious noodles at one of the floating convenience stores, then paid our entrance fee to the Prek Toal bird preserve and picked up a ranger. Beyond the village the vegetation got thicker and the birds got more numerous- there's no hunting allowed within the reserve, which appears to be quite well protected. Cambodia really does have phenomenal numbers of waterbirds- we saw Great Egrets, Intermediate Egrets, Chinese Pond Herons, Oriental Darters, Painted Storks, Little Cormorants, Great Cormorants, Indian Cormorants, Black-headed Ibises, Purple Herons, and Grey Herons, all in huge numbers, along with some other birds like Blue-tailed Bee-eaters, Brahminy Kites, Racket-tailed Treepies, and Black-capped Kingfishers. 

Great Egret

Sadly, my only picture of a Racket-tailed Treepie

Oriental Darter- amazing how similar all the anhingidae are to each other, despite being geographically quite distant

Black-headed Ibis

Brahminy Kite

Great Cormorant

Little Cormorant

Grey Heron- nice to see them in flashy breeding plumage

Asian Openbill

Indian Cormorants

Asian Openbill

Blue-tailed Bee-eater

Asian Openbill again

Intermediate Egret

Chinese Pond Heron

Oriental Darter

Chinese Pond Heron- looking very different in non-breeding plumage

Painted Stork

Some kind of damselfly

Eventually we reached our ultimate destination- a rickety watchtower rising above the marshland that gave us a view of the massive stork breeding colony that is the main birder's draw to Prek Toal. Stupidly I forgot to take any landscape pictures of the view from the top- wetlands as far as the eye could see, with tens of thousands of breeding storks and other birds. Most of the breeding colony was a mix of Painted Storks and Asian Openbills, although Black-headed Ibises and my lifer Spot-billed Pelican were also present in smaller colonies. There were a few dozen Lesser Adjutants sprinkled in among the smaller storks, and Nara somehow managed to pick out a few extremely distant Greater Adjutants. We'd forgotten to bring a scope but I was just barely able to pick out the distinguishing features through my camera. It was just about the least satisfying view possible for me to still call it a lifer, but given that there are only a few thousand Greater Adjutants left, concentrated in Cambodia and a few sites in India, any sighting was a good one. We also heard a Laced Woodpecker calling, which was a frustrating heard-only lifer, and had a single, lonely Glossy Ibis.

The stairs up to the viewing platform- definitely not up to OSHA standards

A small portion of the breeding colony- spot the Lesser Adjutant!

The storks in the very, very back along the horizon are Greater Adjutants. You're uh, just going to have to take my word for it

Asian Openbill

Juvenile Painted Stork

Spot-billed Pelican

Black-headed Ibis

Glossy Ibis

Spotted Jay

Dull Oak-blue

We stayed on the viewing platform for almost an hour, scanning the breeding colony and hoping fruitlessly for a better look at a Greater Adjutant. It wasn't the most pleasant experience ever- tens of thousands of storks all jammed together don't exactly smell amazing, and combining that with hot mid-morning sun and the Asian Weaver Ants that kept crawling up my leg and biting me meant that I was more than ready to head back down.

On the way back to the village, we had mostly more of the same, especially lots of Grey Herons and Purple Herons, plus good looks at a Spot-billed Pelican. Halfway back I spotted a large raptor flying up out of the swamp- Grey-headed Fish Eagle! That was another one of most-wanted lifers, so it was good to catch up to it at the last minute. We ended having good views of 4 or five fish eagles, presumably part of the breeding family that lives in the area. 

Spot-billed Pelican

Grey-headed Fish Eagle

Grey Heron in snazzy breeding plumage

Purple Heron

Back on dry land, Johnny reported that he'd seen a migratory Eurasian Wryneck while waiting with the truck, which would have been a lifer for me. I looked around the temple for a while and didn't see any wrynecks, although there was a Rufous Woodpecker and a Freckle-breasted Woodpecker, as well as a random Blue Rock Thrush. 

Rufous Woodpecker with a photobombing Blue Rock Thrush

Oriental Garden Lizard

Tawny Coster- always nice to see another acraea

From there, we got back in the truck and headed back to Siem Reap, where I said my goodbyes to Nara and Johnny and got in the van to Phnom Penh. It was a long, uncomfortable van ride back to my hotel near the airport, where I had just enough time to get a little sleep before boarding my plane out of the country. 

Overall Cambodia was a huge success- a total of 277 species in a total of about a week of birding, including over 100 lifers. I really can't recommend Cambodia enough as a birding destination- it's the only place where a number of extremely endangered birds can be found, but even besides the flagship species the diversity of habitats and density of birds made it great fun to bird in. Add to that delicious food, friendly people, and a surprisingly large array of successful community-based ecotourism ventures and it's one of my new favorite spots to bird in- I already can't wait to return. I also highly, highly recommend the Cambodian Bird Guide Association, and Nara Duong specifically as a guide. I'll hopefully put up a trip report with more details soon, but you can't go wrong going with the CBGA.