Ready to Go!

Ready to Go!

Thom drove me to Logan, went through check in and security and hooked up with Bob. Rick and Nok arrived after us and after a little SNAFU with passports, came through security. We've boarded the plane, settled in, and awaiting take off.  Next stop Hong Kong!

Preparing for the trip - Part 2:

Preparing for the trip - Part 2:

I've been living off a shoe string for the better part of 6 years - divorce in Massachusetts is financially crippling - so I had to reassess my non optical/digital travel gear.  Cha-ching again...

I had spent a grand total of 9 months on the Arabian Peninsula a few years ago so I had some idea of what I needed to do to be in a hot climate.  At that time, I bought some light weight long sleeve shirts and pants from LLBean.  Those are still kicking around and those will be on the trip.  But what about other things like boots, sandals, hats, underwear, luggage bag (remember the hernia), and all that stuff?  My primary focus was to get good boots and sandals.  My boots were about 11 years old and I wore them without laces.  They were good but couldn't imagine running around tropical areas in those bad boys.  My sandals?  Tevas bought in the 90's.  Socks?  WalMart specials. 

I started with boots.  I went to REI and spent a long time trying on different boots.  The problem was, I was so sore from my hernia operation I couldn't even bend to tie my laces.  The good folks at REI understood and were most gracious.  I ended up with a pair of light weight North Face (I think) boots.  I'll update this post when I get home.  They have good support and dry really quickly.

I ordered a pair sandals on line from Amazon.  Keen Men's Clearwater CNX Hybrid Shoe, Burnt Olive/Black, 9 M US.  These things did not fit.  I think they sent me a pair of woman's shoes.  These bad boys went back with the RODE microphone...  Buying shoes on line sucks.  I have to try them on so I made a visit to Bass Pro Shops in Foxboro, Mass - home of the 5 time super bowl champions New England Patriots!  They were a great help.  I was able to get a pair of Keen Newport H2 that fit the bill.

I picked up some real nice, tropic weight, padded socks - both in ankle and crew length.  These are RedHead Ultra Silver Light Weight socks.  4 pairs of each.

I'm using my LLBean large Rolling Adventure gear bag.  It fits my tripod, all my clothes, and everything else I need.  I used this when I travel to SW Louisiana for the Yellow Rails and Rice Festival.  Great bag, bright orange, LLBean.  Boom!

So I'm going with:

• 8 pairs of socks (4 crew, 4 ankle)
• 8 pairs of underware (all UnderArmor, boxer briefs, tight fit)
• 4 long sleeve tropic weigh shirts (2 from Bean, 2 from EMS)
• 6 ultra cool t-shirts (Reebok, UnderArmor, Columbia)
• 2 ultra cool polo shirts
• 1 pair boots (North Face)
• 1 pair sandals (Keen Newport H2)
• 1 Outdoor Research Sun Runner Hat
• 1 Eidlvais mesh fishing vest - lot of pockets, cheap (yup, I'm going to try one.  Worse case, 29 bucks down the drain

A few other odds and ends I picked include:

• 1 spare battery for my Canon SX60
• 1 Insten Universal World Wide Travel Charger Adapter Plug
• 1 PowerBear Travel Adapter & Surge Protection Power Converter Strip | Charging Station with USB Ports | Global Power Adapter with 3 International Power Adapters
• 1 Black Rapid Hybrid Camera Strap - can have my PowerShot on the left and my DSLR on my right
• 1 Black Diamond 200 lumens head lamp
• 1 FlexaMed Hernia belt
• 3 books - "Culture Shock! Thailand", Berlitz "Thai Phrase Book & Dictionary", and "A Naturalist's Guide to the Butterflies of Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore & Thailand" as well as the aforementioned "Birds of Thailand"
• IsaGenix shake mix
• Manfrotto MT190XPRO4 4 Section Aluminum Tripod Legs with Q90 Column
• Manfrotto 128RC Micro Fluid Head with Two Replacement Quick Release Plates for the RC2 Rapid Connect Adapter

My tripod and head were in pretty bad shape due to all the salt spray at Race Point.  Figured I had to do it at some point, why not now.

That's all, I think!

The Flight to Hong Kong:

The Flight to Hong Kong:

Rick had sent a text message with a map showing the flight path of our plane.  I have included it below courtesy of Cathay Pacific.

Note:  At about the midway point, we will be passing over another of my bucket list destinations - Point Barrow, Alaska...

The field guide...

The field guide...

Preparing for the Trip - Part 1:

Preparing for the Trip - Part 1:

Preparing for a birding trip to Thailand was an adventure, to say the least.  Rick, Bob, and I solidified our plans in late December 2016 and then, well, then things got tricky.

I had to have unexpected surgery on an umbilical hernia on January 5th - just six weeks away from this amazing trip.  There were several times I almost backed out.  Why?  First, I don't want to blow my guts out.  Right now, I have a Kevlar doily holding my abs in place.  It was unpleasant to say the least.  Second, I did not want to bog down my two friends.  That would really stink for them.  I was prepared to pay my way and not go if I had to.  

To say that I have taken it easy since the surgery is an understatement.  I have not birded since New Year's Day with my friends Mary, Keelin, and Ashley.  For a while there, I couldn't do some pretty basic functions like turn my body, sneeze, cough, etc...  Forget about lifting stuff.  But...  the doctor was confident that I would be able to go with a little help from friends lifting and carrying the heavier stuff for me.  With less than two days to go, my gut feels better yet I am going to have to rely on folks to lift a few things for me.

Why do I bring this up?   Well, it altered how I prepared for the trip.  I just couldn't throw my stuff together and go, I had to buy some stuff to hopefully not re-injure my hernia.  Additionally, hernia or not, I had to figure out a way to download all the photos I take so they are backed up.  I will share with folks how I addressed these two issues.  These could be useful to folks who take one of these trips for the first time.

Optics, photos, and storage.  First the scope.  I use a Vortex Razor HD.  It broke on January 1st.  Thankfully the good folks at Vortex were able to get it repaired and back to me for the trip.  Kudos to them for their lifetime guarantee.  So I didn't need to by a new scope which is good.  I use Zeiss rubber armored 10x40s that were made in West Germany - yup, before the merger.  Old but one of the best pairs of field glasses out there.  They are heavy and rest on my upper abs (hernia spot).  I bought a new strap that allowed me to have them hang lower and so I didn't need to buy new binos.  

Photo equipment...   I have two D750 full frame bodies and a Nikon 80-400mm zoom and a Sigma 150-600mm zoom.  Those puppies are coming with me.  Having traveled by plane to bird SW Louisiana, you carry all your optics.  So here I have two bodies, two long zoom lenses, a spotting scope, a pair of binoculars, and my Canon SX60 (I gave my SX50 away to a budding 15 year old photographer).  How the hell am I going to carry all that?  Well, the answer was an Osprey Porter 46 back pack that I picked up at REI.  Not cheap but roomy, carry on approved, excellent support, and roomy enough to carry on my personal items and my storage system.  What storage system?  This is where I went all in...

The Nikon D750 is an amazing camera.  With it, I have been able to take some amazing photos especially in low light conditions.  Back in the fall, my D750 started to show signs of wear.  I have taken over 75000 photos on that body and eventually the shutter system will give out.  I traded in everything not mentioned above to Adorama and got a Nikon D500.  Their crop sensor top of the line DSLR.  It was not even close to the performance of the D750.  Low light, color, saturation, Bokeh, etc.  The D750 is supreme.  So I sent it back and up traded for a second D750.   I shoot Nikon RAW and each file is a little over 24 MB.  On a good day at Race Point, I shoot about 2000 photos of alcids/jaegers/shearwaters.  That's a lot of digits.  Going to Thailand, I figure I will shoot 2000-3000 photos a day.  Where am I going to put these images???

This is where thought and $$$ come in.   I didn't want to buy a bunch of SD cards.  I figured that would be silly and have no post trip use.  I have used an external hard drive for work but that would require one to have a laptop.  Which I didn't have.  Cue the research project.  Figuring out what laptop/tablet/whatever to buy these days is harder than Chinese algebra.  I needed something really light (hernia remember), that had huge storage (or could accommodate external hard drives), had great graphics (don't want to look at crappy photos after a day of birding) and didn't break the bank.  That doesn't exist.  I ended up purchasing a Microsoft Surface Pro 4 with two 2TB Seagate hard drives, a portable keyboard (with the Patriots logo on it of course - Go Pats!), and a 1:4 USB distributor.  Cha-ching.  I dropped $2k at Best Buy and now I have a means to download all my photos from my SD cards to redundant 2TB Seagate hard drives.  Works for me.  

I also looked into various microphones that can be used with iPhones.  I want to record some of the sounds we hear (rails, bitterns, etc) so I went and purchased a RODE microphone.  I tested it on my iPhones.  I used an Eastern Whip call at 35 feet with and without the microphone on my iPhone 6 and iPhone 7.  Guess what?  It stunk.  The microphones on the iPhones were better than the external RODE mic.  Back to Amazon it went...  I am not using the voice memo recorder that comes with the iPhone.  I downloaded RODE's LE app (free) and it makes a world of difference.  

One more thing I wanted to do was use broadcast vocalizations to get responses from various marsh birds.  Rick is downloading over 200 songs and calls from Xeno-Canto to bring along but we would be limited to how loud and clear we could broadcast.  (If you know the three of us, you know that we will do any broadcast vocalizations responsibly.)  A Philips SHOQBOX SB7220 seemingly fits the bill - another Amazon purchase.  This blue tooth enables remote speaker is ruggedized and water resistant.  It has a good range - about 30 feet.  I will be able to provide feedback on it as the trip progresses.  I am hoping that it works great because it sure is nifty.  

I think that covers the optic/digital part of things.  If I can think of any more, I'll add it.  Next up will be packing/clothes/footwear etc for the trip - keeping in mind my limitations due to the recent surgery.

Thailand Birding Trip 2017

Thailand Birding Trip 2017

In less than 36 hours from now, I will be boarding a plane - destination - Thailand!

I have never birded internationally before except for time spent in the Middle East where all my birding was done through a Canon SX50 PowerShot camera. This is the first trip for me outside the United States where the only purpose is to bird. So here we go...

Backstories are always needed to set up the tale. My good friend Rick Heil is a well traveled birder. He has been just about everywhere and is one of the most amazing birders I have met. He has traveled to Thailand and had the unbelievable good fortune of meeting his wife Nok there. He has been back several times to bird and be with family. This is one of the trips. We tried to do this several years ago but life got in the way. This time, well, it is really going to happen. Our mutual good friend and amazing birder Bob Stymeist is also part of this adventure. The three of us will be birding 2 solid weeks, 12+ hours a day.

 When someone in the birding community hears you are going to Thailand, their first thought is wow, you are going to try for Spoon-billed Sandpiper! The answer is absolutely! The Spoon-billed Sandpiper has been a bird I have always wanted to see. It is safe to say it is on my bucket list. This species is in peril. Various articles I have read indicate that there are probably no more than 250 pairs left in the world with their numbers declining at a staggering rate. So this is one of my only chances in my life to see a bird that has the potential to become extinct within the next 5-20 years.

So the sandpiper is what comes to mind first. I can tell you, having studied the birds of Thailand, there is a lot more to be had. Said a different way, seeing (hopefully) a Spoon-billed Sandpiper will be a life moment. This blog will be not just dedicated to a "quest" for a bird, I hope to be able to share with you my pre trip, trip, and post trip experiences. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Rick. He has graciously invited me to go to Thailand and share with me and Bob his knowledge of the region as well as birds. Without him, this once-in-a-lifetime trip would never happen. Period. Thanks Rick!