Panoenthung

As some of you know, I am extremely fortunate in that I was allowed access to some of Kaeng Krachan during the closed season. Panoenthung is, as everyone knows, one of Kaeng Krachan National Park's highlights. However as a highlight it also has a lot of visitors which makes it very noisy especially during weekends and not somewhere one would expect to see mammals. But visitors regularly see at least a couple of wild but habituated species, especially the porcupines.

This year, with the park, we installed cameras for a month to see what we could find - we were most interested in getting a picture of the clouded leopard that is known to the area. A full body clouded leopard picture has so far evaded us (and still does!) and we desperately wanted to get one on record. We had a couple of cameras spare and as the park was closed we decided to just concentrate on a tourist hotspot - the orchid trail. We did not expect a lot - it being a tourist trail and even being concreted in some areas, but we had a few pleasant surprises both on this well visited short trail and in the campsite as well.

Lets start with a dreamy view of the forest from our camping area on Panoenthung to set the scene ..............

Love the teaser... can't wait to see what you managed to capture.

The photo was taken from the first Sala, where we camped. On that evening I was sat dosing in my favorite chair in the inky darkness and amazing quietness of a deserted panoenthung when I saw some thing move just a few feet away - one of panoenthung's Malayan Porcupines had come to visit us.......

and as we sat clicking away, taking photographs, we noticed something else .................

A masked plan civet who is another regular of Panoenthung. He/she kept trying to come closer but the each time he/she tries to come out of the undergrowth the porcupine verbally huffed and chuffed and then chased him/her off. It was quite comical.


We did however get a full body shot of him/her on one of the cameras placed on the lotus trail a few nights later..........

From the orchid trail itself, nothing spectacular but interesting to see the wildlife using the trail ......

The Stump-tailed Macaque, is that a night shot, or just late afternoon - early morning?

Nice pics. I like the ferns in the shot.

Its a morning shot, but the photo is a dark because we are using an extremely wide angle set up and the flash cannot cover the full field of view where its placed.

The main reason we were up there was to try and get a shot of the clouded leopard thats known in that area. We did a get a shot of him/her but not full body. He or she should be quite old now and from the the look of her/him not having a great time of it - there a severe tick issue, a large scar of the from paw, and he/she is blind or partially blind in one eye. Obviously we have had to take out the camera because the area is open again to camping but we do have one cam hidden away up there to see if we can get a full body shot.

....and lastly (for now) the endangered Yorkshire White Bear made a rare appearance to give the camera a hug and give the port a clean