Hello everybody! I’m back again, it’s been a while, hasn’t it!? I feel like I should explain the distinct lack of posts on my site for the past couple of months. A while back whilst visiting Khao Chamao National Park, my camera suffered a short dip in a waterfall after I slipped on a particularly algae covered rock and ended up taking a face first dip in the water.
After almost a month the camera is now back in action despite being a little worse for wear. I really missed having a camera with me and decided the best way to properly test the camera would be to head out to a new national park and see what wildlife we could spot.
The national park we decided on was Namtok Phlio National Park which seemed to be a nice mix of both history and wildlife.
The park was a favourite of King Rama V who visited there many times. Near the large waterfall at the end of the main trail is a bell shaped Chedi built by the king to mark the spot where he and the queen courted. When we visited it was blanketed in dried mosses, but in the rainy season the Chedi is reclaimed by mosses and small plants and transformed into a living green monument.
Also within the park is a pyramid containing some of the queens ashes which was built in her memory after she died in a boating accident.
The pyramid itself is not much to look at but on closer inspection I began to notice that the tiny stingless bees had used the cracks of the pyramid to make their tubular nests. On one side of the pyramid the lighT was shining through their nests making them glow brightly against the predominantly green and grey background.
The park itself was a little dry and it wasn’t as easy as we’d though to spot wildlife but after a little while of getting our eyes adjusted to the surroundings the wildlife began to appear.
We spotted a few of these cool moths (Cyclosia panthona) that had a metallic blue sheen to their wings:
On our walks we saw, and stopped by a sign post which had some information about Indo-Chinese Water Dragons (Physignathus cocincinus) and decided to have a quick look to see if we could see any by the river but sadly we couldn’t see any. (apart from this beast in the picture below!)
I was taking a picture of a butterfly that had flown behind the sign and down towards the river when I could here a park ranger calling me saying ‘here here’. I thought that I had wandered too close to the edge of the river bank when I noticed the ranger was waving me over to him.
He ushered us closer and then pointed towards a rock overhanging the river, and there, sunning itself on the rock, was a beautiful Indo-Chinese water dragon.
The Chinese Water Dragons weren’t the only lizards out that day. We also saw a flying lizard and a few different species of skinks. (including a heavily pregnant skink).
My blog post would be incomplete, of course, without sharing with you some of the beautiful butterflies that I spotted on my visit……
We’re planning to visit another new national park soon so watch this space for another post full of wildlife pictures.
This time I promise their won’t be such a long gap between posts.
Nick's Wild Life 