About Dave: Dave Williams is a noted naturalist in SE Asia, as well as our resident expert, working with Audubon and Nature conservation orgs. He is also a 30 yr veteran whitewater & kayak expert, holding the sport’s highest certifications, and an important part of our team providing educational travel for IB (International Baccalaureate) High Schools and Universities.

I'm constantly amazed at the abundance of hornbills at Khao Sok National Park in southern Thailand. I just got back from another trip there, and the Hornbill sightings were better than ever! 

One late afternoon as we paddled slowly back toward the floating bungalows where my guests will often spend evenings, we saw seven Bushy-crested Hornbills fly into a nearby tree.  One of the nice things about most species of hornbill here is that they make a lot of noise just before taking flight, and therefore you get an auditory warning you are about to see something special.

Bushy-crested Hornbills are about the most gregarious species here. It's rare to see a solitary bird. On this afternoon, in the glassy calm stillness of the setting sun, this gang made their position known brashly.  We turned away from our gazing at monkeys to see where they were. They ended up flying very close to us. What a treat, but that was nothing compared to what happened next.

Great Hornbills, easily discernable by their bulky yellow bill and a yellow slash in the middle of their wings, also tend to travel in small groups in this area. On this evening, we witnessed fifteen hornbills in flight at the same time!  It looked like something out of a Jurassic Park movie.  The air was full of their 'whooshing' wing beats and their singular 'gok' calls or their repeated 'ger-ok, ger-ok, ger-ok' bark.


Seeing so many Great Hornbills on this trip we naturally lamented that both of us had forgotten our cameras.   I theorize that the chances one will forget one’s camera is inversely proportional to how badly one wants to see wildlife close up (I got one for eating spaghetti too: “chances it gets all over my shirt is directly proportional to how white that shirt is”)!   Anyway, we were so close on a couple occasions I could even see the color of the eyes of each bird, and therefore their individual sex (male has red eyes and the female white eyes). 

One couple of Great Hornbills sat high in a palm tree eating the berries. We sat there for a long time just watching them eat. They would pick a berry with the end of their bills, then throw their head back to get it into their throats. Occasionally, a berry would fall out and bounce through the brush to the ground… a snack missed.

The weather was so perfect that my guests opted to paddle all the way back to the dam on our last day.  It was a 15 nautical mile journey we planned to paddle over many hours.   We were blessed with a stiff tailwind. About half way, on a small island covered with bamboo and a few nice emergent trees, we spotted some more hornbills. I quickly grabbed my binoculars which I keep in a dry bag under some bungy cords on my foredeck. "Oh wow!", I hoarsely yelled to my guests, as loud as I dared.   On the island was a bunch of Southern Pied Hornbills.  I'd never sent them here before; only in saltwater environments on some of the more remote islands in Phang Nga Bay and further south….so this was a real treat. One particular bird didn't seem to mind us being there at all, and he stayed pecking at some bamboo in plain view.


I love my job, and many folks have commented on how well I spot wildlife.  I tell them that it's not difficult; but rather it is a matter of practice, knowing how to look and what to look for.  For example, to find Dusky Langurs, big black monkeys with long white tails, you need to look for something about a meter long, white, and vertical.  There aren't many things in the jungle here that fit that description besides Langur tails.   But our team rarely let me get too proud of my abilities…….: whenever I do, one of my Thai colleagues will usually show me up.   On this trip, I had passed right under a sleeping Reticulate Python coiled up in a tree.  Our Thai guide asked me later if I had seen it, and I couldn't believe I’d missed it.   So I doubled back for a look, and there it was sleeping, just as plain as day. So I was once again humbled, with my head shrunk back to its normal size.…  I am eagerly anticipating our next trips, when I hope my team will show me up again.

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