My trip to Malaysia, both Sabah and Peninsular was a huge disappointment in terms of both wildlife and travel experience so I have decided not to write a report. I have seen 24 species, of which 16 were new for me.
What a contrast with Malaysia! This trip turned out to be an absolute blast!
The reason I chose Thailand over let’s say Cambodia or Laos is not necessarily that it has more bats, but it’s because of BatThai. This group is studying bats all over the country, including Kerivoula picta, a species that’s very widespread and fairly common but extremely hard to find for the uninitiated.
Before meeting the people from BatThai to go look for Kerivoula picta, the Painted Bat, and Craseonycteris thonglongyai, the Bumblebee bat, I spent a few days in Kaeng Krachan, a national park well known for its exceptional birding.
The rules of the park forbid leaving the camping grounds after sunset. The elephants roaming around seem like a reasonable explanation for it, despite it being quite frustrating!
This meant all I could do to find bats there was to walk around the grounds with my recorder. I still managed to get Rhinolophus malayanus and R.lepidus, two common species in SE Asia as well as Tylonycteris robustula, also quite common but not easy to record.