Bird Watching Report by Sam Veasna Center

Day 2: June 3
Hiking with Wildlife Alliance Ranger Team

We slept very well and in the morning we got up early and enjoyed a lovely breakfast of fried rice and yoghurt with fruit. At about 8:15 a.m. we took the boat back to the CTC pier in Trapeang Roung village. We then drove from there along the NR48 for almost half an hour, before stopping to meet up with the Wildlife Alliance ranger team. They escorted us to a place where Dr.  Tom Gray, who is the science director for Wildlife Alliance in Cambodia, had put up several camera traps that had captured some unique photos of a white-eared night heron.

We did not see any heron in this area, so we then drove for about another hour through the concession managed by Wildlife Alliance and arrived at a large stream where Dr. Gray had also installed some camera traps.  We began hiking along the stream and found ourselves surrounded by dense jungle, without any paths or tracks.  We hiked along the stream for about two hours, but failed to find any evidence of the while-eared night heron. Due to it being Rainy Season in Cambodia, the weather was quite bad and it was not possible to camp near the camera traps to see if we could get a sighting of the herons.  In the end we all decided to head back to CTC.  That evening, we were all so exhausted we did nothing except have dinner and go straight to bed.

Day 3: June 4
Kayaking with Cardamom Tented Camp Guides

The next day we had a great opportunity to explore the area with two guides from CTC – Mr. Synam and Mr. Tina.  At about 8:30 a.m., we headed down to the jetty on the river where we climbed into the kayaks waiting for us.  I was in one of the single kayaks while the other two members of our group were in a two-seater kayak. We paddled up river for about 4.5 km until we reached the ranger station which is very close to the river. Inside we were shown many snares and traps, as well as homemade guns, which the rangers had confiscated from poachers.

Along the river’s edge, where there was some beautiful forest, we saw a whole variety of birds including white-rumped shama, black-and-red broadbill, and green-eared barbet.  After taking a short break at the ranger station, we crossed the river and began to hike back to CTC. The kayaks were picked up by the boat that had followed us up the river to the ranger station and taken back to CTC.

This short walk back to CTC was really fun and enjoyable, even though we came across many leeches and lots of mosquitoes.  We also spotted a lot of birds and heard many others calling in the trees around us.  Our guide also explained to us the plants and fruits that we passed, and talked about some of his experiences working in Chi Pat, a village deep in the Cardamom Mountains that is the site of a community-based eco-tourism project. The five-kilometer hike back to CTC took only an hour and 20 minutes.

In the afternoon after lunch, we headed out again to do some more bird watching and wildlife spotting at a place called Prek Khmao, but because it was raining so hard we returned to CTC after only a few hours with little success.  However, not long after arriving back at the camp, we enjoyed the most delicious food ever! Later that night we also had a lot of fun with ‘Hit’, one of the CTC staff, who took us to do some prawn fishing and we caught some too!

Day 4: June 5
Allan Michaud, Lodge Manager

This was our last morning at CTC, but it was our plan to head out early with Allan, the lodge manager, at 4 a.m. to first try and catch a glimpse of green peafowl roosting in the trees.  It turned out to be impossible because of the rain, so we ended up waiting another two hours.  Unfortunately, because we left late, we didn’t see any of the green peafowl, so we continued on by boat to the CTC departure lodge in Trapeang Roung village.  From there we drove to Phnom Penh and then on to Siem Reap, arriving at about 5:30 p.m.