Wildlife Art of Khao Takrao Temple, Thailand

Throughout Thailand Buddhist temples are a focal point for both locals and tourists. The basic format may stay fairly constant but there is also a lot of variety in what particular interest different temples offer.

Wat Khao Takrao (Takrao hill temple) near Ban Laem in Petchaburi province is a famous site containing a very important Buddha image. It's built around a small hill in the otherwise flat floodplain of the Petchaburi river. It has a big troop of monkeys and several large imposing buildings including one with an unusual white roof.

However, what grabbed my attention on a recent visit was this small Chinese-style shrine at the foot of the hill. The proximity of the two countries and their closely connected history has led to Chinese culture becoming firmly rooted in Thailand in a way where it still remains very distinct. This tiny one-room building had a very different architectural style to the others and it's front was beautifully decorated with fascinating paintings of wildlife.

A lot of artistic licence has been taken with the colours used but many of the animals have at least some features that make them easily identifiable but with others it's just a guess.

There are, of course, some of the typical Chinese-style dragons, serpent-like with a lion's head.

Plus this strange variation that has a horse's legs.

Then there is the more realistic wildlife. Mammals are well represented with these two fighting lions and some more affectionate elephants.

But there is also this oddity of a mixture between the two with a lion-like animal that has an elephant's trunk. It doesn't quite work for me but I like the way it's standing on a banana leaf.

This pair of deer relaxing in a lovely landscape are most likely sika deer which are a species from Japan and parts of China. Thailand doesn't really have any deer that are consistently spotted like this.

Most of the wildlife depicted on these walls are birds. And where I could tell what the species were, the theme of them being more Chinese than Thai continued. For example, the following mandarin ducks and common cranes are both much easier to find in China. Of course, there's nothing wrong with this, I just find it interesting how wildlife from the old country seems to have persisted. They may well be part of old tales that I am unaware of.

These birds that I think are russet sparrows also seem to fit this pattern, although I am not confident about that. There is actually no reason why I should assume they are depicting a particular bird... except that many of them clearly are.

This similar pair of sparrow-like birds might be the same type...but probably not.

Perhaps it would be better to just enjoy these pictures as lovely generic nature artworks but the naturalist in me likes trying to pin them down. These green peafowl are easy and are actually for once more of a bird from south-east asia than China but I really struggle with the second one. Red-billed blue magpie is the closest I can find but parts of it are way off. I suspect the artist mixed a few favourite birds together. And why not!

Interestingly, the top section of the building seems to have newer artwork that is less stylised and therefore a bit less appealing. The birds in this section are Thai more than Chinese: here a collared kingfisher and a great myna. The kingfisher is mainly a coastal bird common in the area around the temple. Does this indicate a shift towards more local wildlife?

This newer section also has about the only human as a main character, relaxing with a tiger, plus some fish that are probably koi carp.

Fish are the other main wildlife presence in these pictures. They are mostly koi carp, I think, but there were also one or two others swimming around.

I love both wildlife and art so I was very happy to discover this combination of the two and spent a long time looking at it. The dramatic, colourful landscapes with lots of water, trees and flowers really helped to make it a very pleasant experience.