Creatures of Thailand

Seeing so many wild animals in Thailand really moved me, and I want to mention the ones I didn't get photos of or fully identify. For the ones I did get to ID, I'll link photos found via Google so you can see what they look like.

Great Hornbill - We got to watch a flock of these eating fruit in a tree. They are such huge, beautiful birds, with a wingspan of 5ft. They can weigh up to 8lbs, making them the heaviest hornbill in all of Asia.

Black Giant Squirrel - I was stunned when we saw these... I had no clue giant squirrels existed! These furry giants look just like normal squirrels, but grow 4ft long!! It's easy to spot them in the trees; their long tails usually hang down from branches.

Finlayson's Squirrel - My first time seeing a white squirrel! It was so cool. They can come in solid white, or white with black backs. Mind you, these are not albino - they have black eyes.

Cattle Egret - These egrets are common in the states as well as pretty much the rest of the world.

Asian Openbill - These large storks are everywhere and have a gap in their bills which helps them eat snails, their main food.

Red Junglefowl - I was hoping to see these! These birds were domesticated over 5000 years ago and became what we know today as chickens. The wild junglefowl of Asia are very common, but don't approach them thinking they'll be a friendly chicken - these are still wild animals that won't hesitate to bite or scratch! As their name suggests, they live deep in the jungle and are related to pheasants, peafowl, partridges, and quail.

Other animals that I wasn't able to get a positive ID on include several other small birds, leeches, several insects, eagles, scorpions, frogs, and large fruit bats. I'm incredibly thankful for the opportunity to encounter all of them!
The photos in this post are NOT mine, and were found online.

Ball Game!

Baseball is a huge deal here in Japan! Games in America are a lot more quiet and laid back, while here they get wild! If you attend a Japanese baseball game, you may feel like you're at an American Super Bowl football game! The crowds go totally nuts for their team, and they constantly scream, chant, and sing for hours! Community bands come out (usually consisting of just trumpets) and sit in the stands to play and get rowdy! It's definitely an amazing and hilarious experience. The concession stands sell a lot of noise makers and items to help you cheer on your favorite players. Mini ball bats, mini umbrellas, whistles, and flags are just a few items you'll see. The game we saw was in Yokohama, where the BayStars play. Below I've linked a couple of videos I took of the different crowd cheers.

Game Chant

Umbrella Dance!

Girl with a keg on her back, serving beer!

Cat Stamp

We got our car insurance bill in the mail yesterday, and I fell in love with the Japanese stamp on it! So cute!! Of course it's a cat!

Jungle Wildlife

Sambar deer buck, vulnerable species

Hiking through the jungles of Thailand was so amazing! We hiked and explored from 8am until 8pm, searching for animals well after dark. We saw so many animals that we would never see anywhere else, and that 99% of people only ever get to see in zoos. It was incredible to see them in their natural habitat, especially the endangered ones. Some pics may be blurry because my camera isn't the best and animals are always on the move! I wasn't able to get pictures of every animal we saw, so there is so much more that we experienced that isn't shown here. I may make a separate post about the other creatures we saw.

Sambar deer, doe and fawn, vulnerable species

Turtle

Zebra dove

Oriental magpie robin, female

Water monitor (this guy was over 6ft long!!)

Water monitor (world's 2nd largest lizard, after the Komodo dragon)

Water monitor

Giant golden orb weaver, female (She was 8 inches in diameter!)

Lar gibbon, endangered species

Lizard

Northern pig-tailed macaque, male, vulnerable species

Northern pig-tailed macaque, male, vulnerable species

Paris peacock butterfly

Northern pig-tailed macaque, female and baby, vulnerable species

Northern pig-tailed macaque, female and baby, vulnerable species

Northern pig-tailed macaque, babies, vulnerable species

Northern pig-tailed macaque, baby, vulnerable species

Millipede

Millipede

Praying mantis

Indian muntjak, female

Indian muntjak, female

Sambar deer buck, vulnerable species

Sambar deer, doe and fawn, vulnerable species

Malayan porcupine

City Wildlife

Animals seen around Bangkok. There are geckos everywhere! Even in restaurants!

Water monitor. This one was small at just over 2ft long. 

Zebra dove

Scarlet-backed flowerpecker, female

Common house gecko

Common myna

Black-collared starling

Red turtle dove, male

Khao Yai National Park

We had so much fun in the rainforest! It was such an adventure and we needed a change of pace very badly. We hired a guide so we didn't get lost, and he helped ID plants and animals along the hike. He had binoculars and a telescope with him, so we got a better look at creatures way up in the trees. We saw so many different animals, insects, and plants. Our guide taught us how the parasitic fig tree slowly kills its host tree by choking it out with its giant roots. He also taught us how to differentiate between male and female gibbons by the sound of their call. We saw tiny baby monkeys and gibbons, and got to watch a baby monkey nurse its mother. We saw waterfalls, giant turtles and lizards, and a flock of hornbills eating fruit from a tree. I could ramble on forever about how absolutely amazing it was!! The experience was everything we hoped it would be. This post will be about the forest, and I'll put the animals in a different post because there's a lot! Another really cool thing we found was bear claw marks on a tree! There are two bear species in Thailand: the sun bear and the Asiatic black bear. We would go back in a heart beat!

Putting on our leech-protection socks

Don't approach the wildlife!

Fig tree

Our guide following the sound of gibbons

Bear claw marks on a tree