Santiburi Nature Trail

Coppersmith Barbet (Psilopogon haemacephalus)

Coppersmith Barbet can be found often in the community area. It is a colorful bird that has earned the nickname “the Queen of City Birds”. It has a green body that contrasts with bright red forehead and yellow around the eyes. It is one of Megalaimidae that has a chubby body, a big round head, and a short tail.

Coppersmith Barbet is a big fan of fruit-eating. They like to eat soft, bite-sized fruits such as jam tree, papaya, banana, bohhi tree, and banyan. When all the fruits are ripe, we will see dozens of Coppersmith Barbet coming down to gather and enjoy eating the fruit. Furthermore, the sound of the Coppersmith Barbet is unique. They make a loud "kuk-kuk-kuk" sound. It sounds like a craftsman hammering gold into a masterpiece that is where the name comes from.

Coppersmith Barbet is a bird that relies on trees for the rest of its life. Besides, getting food from the fruit when it is time to build a nest, it will use its thick beaks to pierce dried branches into a hollow about a foot deep before spawning its eggs. Coppersmith Barbet has food, shelter, and nests from trees. We always find this species living on trees.

Pink-necked Green Pigeon (Treron vernans)

Pink-necked Green Pigeon is a bird in the pigeon group. It has a Round shape, a small head, and a big body, just like the pigeon we are familiar with but different in color. The feathers on the body are bright green, wings have yellow stripes with the 22 tip black, and gray upper tail with the tip black as well. The male has a head and neck that are light purple, and the chest has orange patches that look beautiful. The female has a green all along the body, not as colorful as males.

Pink-necked Green Pigeon is a bird that eats fruit. They like to eat juicy fruits that are not too big for their beak to swallow in one bite. We often see them gathering in fruit trees such as banyan tree, bodhi tree, jam tree, or black plum tree. They usually find food together in large flocks. Although, their bright colors, they are excellent camouflage when they hold onto dense branches to hide their green body blending into the leaves which is difficult for us to find.

Pink-necked Green Pigeon is a colorful bird that can be found quite often in this place if we know its habits and behavior. In the morning we can find them holding in groups on the tops of trees to sunbathe. After that, it will fly out to find food and will turn around that tree most of the day before going back to sunbathe again in the evening and then going back to its nests.

Greater Racquet-tailed Drongo (Dicrurus paradiseus)

It is a bird that stands out in both appearance and sound. Its body is all black, about the size of Mynas, and above its beak has a pinch of feathers that forms a small crest. The most outstanding part is its tail, which has a hard stalk that extends from the end of the tail. There is a small black spiral feathers, that look like a stick dulcimer. When a bird flies into the air, it can be seen as a streak like an insect flying after the bird.

Greater Racquet-tailed Drongo is a talented singer. Besides, it has a beautiful voice. They can also imitate the sounds of birds and other animals for their vantage. For example, imitates the beautiful voices of other birds for mating, imitates the sounds of predatory such as hawks to repel them, or sometimes even imitate the sound of cats. We always see a pair of Greater Racquet-tailed Drongo both sexes look the same. Often hold onto tall trees, making sounds, especially in the morning and evening. They eat insects, swooping in to catch insects such as cicadas, crickets, grasshoppers, or butterflies in the bushes and tall trees. Sometimes other birds gather in large flocks to catch insects for food.

Greater Racquet-tailed Drongo is a brave bird, not afraid of other birds especially, during building a nest. Their mates will protect their squab in the nest, swooping and attacking those threats such as hawks, snakes, squirrels, or humans. Greater Racquet-tailed Drong was found only in areas where the environment is suitable with plentifully large trees for the birds to forage and build nests. It is one of the most colorful birds in nature. We can find this bird in the area of a large tree.

Garden Crested lizard (Calotes versicolor)

We had the chance to find lizards with reddish-orange heads along the bushes, the edge of the walls, and along the resort's fence. It nodded its head up and down as if wanted all eyes to look at it. It is Garden Crested lizard.

It is a small lizard. The whole body is covered with scales. It has long slender arms and legs, and the fingertips have long nails. The body size from the mouth to the bottom is about 10 centimeters, and from the mouth to the tip of the tail is about 37 centimeters. Overall, it can be seen that the head is large compared to the body, small circles of ears are next to the eyeballs, and above the ears are 2 groups of small spines. There are small spines orderly from the occiput along the spine and shrink when it is close to the tail. It can change the color of its body to lighten or darken quickly. Usually brown or greenish brown. Around the eyes, there is a radius of black lines. There is a white stripe parallel to the body, dark stripe across the body blends with the color of the tree trunk or the color of the grass. The interesting of this type of lizard is in mating season. The color of the male will change, some parts of head and body. It turns orange or reddish-orange, dotted with black spots in the inner of the legs. Besides, the color change this beautiful male climbs up a tree trunk, wall, or pillar nodding its head or body up and down so that females can see. It is clear that ready to mate. The female will dig the soil to lay about 10-20 eggs, taking 6-7 weeks to hatch into a little lizard.

Yellow-vented Bulbul (Pycnonotus goiavier)

The body is about the size of a tennis ball with its head and tail jointed together, its beak is small and thin, its tail is symmetric, and its body is brown, the abdomen is almost white with light brown stripes. The feathers cover under the tail, have bright yellow, shining black eyes with a pinch of black hair across the front. The area of the face is white, like put on powder.

ellow-vented Bulbul can be found often in gardens, parks, or even homes surrounded by good environments. They eat fruit supplemented with insects. We often find them living in pairs or small flocks in fruit trees such as bodhi tree, banyan tree, jam tree, mulberry tree, banana tree, rose apple tree, or papaya tree. Otherwise, fly around chasing insects to eat in trees and bushes.

When the rainy season, which is the time for mating and nesting. Yellow-vented Bulbul will make a bright resonant sound from early morning that we can hear often. After that, they will build a nest of small twigs, or leaves often found in low shrubs in gardens or found near the corridor, as if they are not afraid of humans. Yellow-vented Bulbul can be found almost anywhere, but it is more common in gardens with low shrubs to forage and builds nests.

Common Treeshrew (Tupaia glis)

Sometimes we may see some animals, run quickly along the ground, sometimes climb on trees, but most often hide and run between the yard, among the bushes, or garden. If it stops let us take a look for a few moments. We will see that animal has a long body, its size is about a rat, but it has a long tail and a bushy fur. If you look closely, you can see that animal has a sharper face. The tail is not as bushy and the fangs look sharp like other carnivores.

That is Common Treeshrew. It is an animal in Rodents that was found very often in this area. Common Treeshrew is an animal that eats a variety of foods. They eat small animals such as insects, lizards, chameleons, and also fruits as they can find. Unlike squirrel which is Glires and prefer to eat seeds and fruits.

We often find Common Treeshrew on the ground while finding food, burrowing, or digging up piles of leaves or tree trunks to look for insects. Sometimes climbs up on trees, but not often when it feels something unusual or suspicious. It will stand up on its hind legs and look around aware of danger. It resembles the meerkats of Africa.

Water monitor (Varanus salvator)

Along the canal or water, we have a chance to find "Water monitor." It is a big animal that has four short legs but strong, fingertips have sharp claws. The skin is covered with small scales. The upper body is black. The parts under the belly, arms, and legs are white or yellowish-white. There are golden yellow circle stripes across the body. They are unable to change skin color according to the environment. The long tail is large, length from the tip of the mouth to the tip of the tail. Adult weight can reach about 300 centimeters in length. It has a bifurcated tongue tip. It will stick out its tongue to get temperature and smell. It helps to precisely recognize the direction of the prey.

Water monitor lives near water both freshwater and saltwater, excellent swimmers, diving, and finding aquatic animals or carcasses. Using strong claws to climb trees to find small animals such as bird eggs and squabs. In nature, Water monitor lives alone unlike human. The male will mate with the female during the mating season. The female will lay eggs during the rainy season. It will find a sunny, dig a hole to lay eggs, and let the young hatch without taking care of them.

Water monitor is not harm animal, if meet them by chance, they will flee, lie still, or pretend to be dead. Water monitor will fight only when it is at bay by bending their neck, extending their neck and body, making a threatening sound, and thwacking the tail. It has no venom, but its mouth was full of diseases.

Little Cormorant (Microcarbo niger)

The pitch-black bird looked like a crow but if look carefully, will find that this bird has a longer neck, a long round body, and short black legs that have webbed foot connected, look like duck’s feet. The beak is long and sharp, hooked down at the end, designed for hunting fish.

Little Cormorant is good at swimming and diving. It uses its webbed foot to quickly dive like a fish, not a bird. The feathers on its body are coated with oil, like wearing a raincoat, making it rarely get wet. When it finds a fish, it will use its sharp hooked beak like a hook's eye to catch slippery fish and eat it easily. After hunting, it often flies up on branches or pier near water to spread the wings, let the wet feathers dry, and use its beak to rub the oil from gland above upper-tail-covert all over the body. So that the feathers will always be shiny and waterproof.','santiburi

Little Cormorant hunts, and eats fish and small aquatic animals. Therefore, we often find them living near water. Especially around the natural canal that flows through this resort.','santiburi

Dragonfly Nymph

This phase of Dragonfly Nymph lives in water mostly when breathing, water will be sucked into the stomach. Then spray it out the same way to pull out the dissolved oxygen in the water to be breathed. It can be found in still water or overflowing water with overgrown grass or a lot of moss. Adult lives on land and both larvae and adult live as predators, catching small animals for food. It uses dissolved oxygen in water so it can be an indicator to indicate the quality of water.

Beach Morning-glory (Ipomoea pescaprae)

It is a herbaceous plant that can live for many years. There is a tangled vine growing on the ground. The stem has a smooth skin rounded vine and has reddish- green or reddish-purple. In each segment, there will be fibrous roots, hollow inside. It has white rubber. The flowers are trumpet-shaped with 5 petals. There are about 2-6 flowers in the inflorescence and will bloom one by one.

Beach Morning-glory is well-adapted to drought. It usually grows on the beach or coastal area. It is a shelter for small organisms such as insects, and crabs. Besides, it has an antidote for jellyfish fire and cures chronic skin diseases.

Horned Ghost Crab (Ocypode ceratophthalmus)

It is a smalled-saltwater crab. The distinctive feature is the long eye stalks that can be folded down horizontally, shaking forward and back. It can see objects such as humans at least 45 meters away so that nothing can come near it. Crab's claws are not the same length. The big one might be on either left or right. It is a very fast runner.

It has 4 pairs of legs that can walk sideways at high speed. It will only use the first pair of legs and the fourth pair of legs to run. It is a keeper that always cleans fish, shellfish, and weeds that float on the beach. So, it helps balance nature and ecosystems around the beach.

Chicoreus ramosus

It is a common mollus found on beaches, often buried under the sand. The mollus is a predator, its favorite food is the bivalve. It has a special organ to stab shells to eat the flesh. Sometimes we often see some dead shells with small holes in the shell.

Banyantree (Ficus benjamina)

Banyantree is a perennial plant with both medium and large sizes. The trunk is straight, and branches into a dense bush. Some species are sparse bushes. There are aerial roots hanging down along the branches and trunk. The leaves are simple leaves that branch from the branches. The top of the stems are compound leaves. It looks like ovate and lanceolate. The color of the leaves is mostly green which size and color of each species are different.

Banyantree is a type of tree that has highly relationship with others. It can be both a saint and a killer at the same time. Why is that? Because being a saint is giving a habitat, shelter, and food source. At the same time, it is also a killer because when the seed falls on any tree when it grows, it grows as quickly as possible. So, its roots descend to the ground to steal food and minerals. Then its trunk expands rapidly, it will cling to other trees until it cannot move and eventually dies.

Cockchafer

It is a type of beetle that has a chubby egg-shaped body, the head is shining, and it has tentacles like a leaf. The mouth is for biting. The eyes are large and clearly visible. The first thorax, it is more noticeable than the others. There are 2 pairs of wings. The first pair is hard, and smooth, as a shell. The second pair are thin, clear, and used for flying. The abdomen is below with a hard wing covering the head.

Cockchafer has a caterpillar life cycle that lives underground for many years. Before it turns into the pupa stage and becomes an adult at the beginning of the rainy season every year. It will be found a lot at this time. It usually digs holes along the roots and does not cover the hold. During the day, it will hide from the sun and at night seeks food by flying up to cling to young leaves of trees. It likes to eat young tamarind leaves.

Lichen

Lichen is an ancient plant that originated before multi-cellular plants or Magnoliophyta occurred by the combining of "Fungi" and "Algae" coexist in a beneficial way (Mutualism).

The lichen is a flaky (crustose), the other side is attached to the bark or the object. Lichen is food for invertebrates such as fleas, snails, butterflies, and other insects. Besides being food for animals, lichens can also be used as a tool to indicate air quality. Lichen is unable to grow in polluted areas. It does not have a skin layer to protect itself from pollution. Pollution can directly destroy the algae. Therefore, we can only find lichen in the fresh air.

Two-tailed Spider (Hersilla sp.)

This species has an upper pair of spinnerets that is longer than normal, all 6 legs extended in the shape of a starburst. The pattern on the body depends on the surface to which it is attached. It camouflages itself from predator and prey. It hunts small insects on the wood such as ants, etc. It can be found most often in cracked bark.

Finlayson's Squirrel (Callosciurus finlaysonii)

They climb along large trees, eaves, roofs, and wires. Squirrels are rodents that have protruding front teeth all over their lives. It must always find something hard to gnaw. For example, a coconut with a hard texture, a sweet thin-skinned mango, or ripe bananas, including cashews with juicy flesh and sweet seeds.

Finlayson's Squirrel is an animal that lives on trees for the rest of its life. They eat food that find on the trees which is fruit, seed, added by small insects, and sometimes bird's eggs, and drink the water trapped in the hollows of the tree. When it comes to mating season, it will build a large nest on the top of the tree. The nest is a large circular shape filled with leaves and other materials. It has an entrance on the side, lined with soft material to lay the newborns.

Finlayson's Squirrel was found on Koh Samui, there are a variety of colors such as brown with white round around eyes, all-white, and dark brown. Humans imported them and released them to nature until they adapted to survive and give birth as native animals. We can see them all over the trees, coconut trees, roofs, or along wires.

Trichophila antipodiana

The Batik Golden Web Spider, also known as the Giant Wood Spider or Nephila, is a large and striking spider found in many parts of the world, including Asia, Africa, and Australia. It has a distinct pattern on its abdomen that resembles batik cloth, hence its name. These spiders spin large, intricate webs that can reach up to a meter in diameter, and use them to catch flying insects such as flies, bees, and butterflies. The female is much larger than the male and can often be seen sitting in the center of her web, waiting for prey. Despite their size and intimidating appearance, these spiders are not dangerous to humans and are considered beneficial for controlling insect populations. During your nature walk, keep an eye out for these beautiful and fascinating spiders as they spin their intricate webs.

Stingless bee

Stingless Bee is an insect in the same group as bees but there is no sting. It can be found in all regions of Thailand which are 34 species. In Thai called “Chan-na-rong” Chan means dammer in English. It is a resin that flows out from the bark of the tree. Nowadays, we find flavonoids (that are found in plants, fruits, and vegetables) as antioxidants, anti-bacterial, immunization, and mold inhibition which causes skin diseases in the mouth and throat. Therefore, it is used as a treatment for inflammatory ulcers in the mouth, soap, toothpaste, oral spray, candy and extract mixed with drinking water.

The size is smaller than a bee. It is the size of a fruit fly with 3 pairs of legs, the third pair is the longest on the back to carry pollen into the nest. It usually lives in hollow trees, some live underground.

Red Dwarf-Honey Bee (Apis florea)

It is smaller than Giant Honey Bee and Indian Honey Bee also its hive. It has a slightly larger body than a fly. The first abdomen is yellow, and the rest is black-and- white. Some people like to call it "Bee flies" and can be found everywhere. They like to swarm on sweets. It builds hives in trees and in the alcove that is not too high. There is a single-level hive that is larger than an adult's palm (approximately 20 – 30 centimeters in size). It usually covers its hive with leaves and branches to camouflage and protect from enemies. From February to April when Red Dwarf-Honey Bee gives the most honey.

Red Dwarf-Honey Bee helps pollinate especially mango, rose apple, and sesame, making the plants more productive. It is common in South Asia, West Asia, East Asia, and Northeast Asia.

Giant Honey Bee (Apis dorsata)

It is the largest bee and also has the largest hive. The abdomen has black and yellow. Giant Honey Bee is a wild bee found everywhere in Thailand. They live together as a society and have castes and classes. It usually builds hive in high places such as on trees or on rocky cliffs even in tall buildings. The hive looks like a single-storey hanging down, maybe has 2 meters in diameter. Often found aggregation that usually builds several hives near each other. It can fly for many kilometers and can pollinate various flowers. Therefore, it is difficult to raise in the industry. Because of absconding after raising them. Most of the products are derived from hitting hives in nature. It can be found in Thailand, widely spread in Southeast Asia, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and China in the south.

Red-breasted Parakeet (Psittacula alexandri)

It is one of the well-known Psittaculidae. It has a bright green body, the chest is pale pink, the head is greyish blue. The beak is bright red in males and black in females. Under the beak, there is a black stripe down to the chin that looks like a man with a beard. The beak and tongue are designed for eating fruits and seeds. The thick hooked beak gives it the power to bite hard-shelled fruit. The tongue is thick and moves flexibly, allowing the bird to easily pick out the insides of the seeds to eat. The developed tongue allows Red-breasted Parakeet and other groups of parrots to imitate various sounds, including human voices. Even though, in nature, Red-breasted Parakeet has only a few types of sounds. Most of them are loud and resonant sounds used to communicate in groups or mating. We usually hear the bird's voice more than see it because of its habit. It prefers holding onto tall trees and blending in with the green leaves.

It is the only Psittaculidae found in this area. It is a rare bird with a small number and is endangered due to a large number of captives and the loss of large trees that the bird uses to live and build nests. Fortunately, there are many large trees in this area for birds to live in and to allow us to find this extremely rare bird.