The forest, wildlife and the weather all have a mind of their own. This is one of the delights and one of the curses of any trip. I had a day off mid week and wanted to get out of the city so I headed off to Kaeng Krachan National Park with a days rooting about in the forest for arthropods in mind.
I was in place, in one of favourite spots, by 7 a.m and tucking into a hearty forest breakfast after leaving Bangkok just after 4 a.m. Breakfast finished I was off into the wilds around Baan Krang, working the animal tracks and paralleling the streams looking for the signs of assassins, hoppers and mantids amongst others. Two hours passed and I had seen..... nothing. This is actually more common than one would think for the budding "arthropoder". Some days the planets are not aligned and try as hard as you want, you get that sinking feeling its all in vain. A few of the usual suspects were about in the margins by the road - butterflies, common spider species, grasshoppers. But I was in search of fare a little more exotic. I headed back to the car to refresh myself and pick up some additional gear and then was off again. Two more hours later