Bukit Jemalang is apparently gazetted as Permanent Forest Reserve, yet within our short visit we saw areas cleared for orchards, oil palm and a landfill site! It has some nice peat swamp habitat left in it, which is still apparently home to some large mammals, but surely its days are numbered. Apart from this sign we saw no signs of enforcement and plenty of signs of encroachment.
Nannophya pygmaea is a peat-swamp loving species and the smallest dragonfly to be found in Malaysia.
The distinctive four-toed front footprint of a Tapir.
A Banded Broadbill sat on an uncharacteristically exposed perch - too bad I didn't have my digiscoping gear with me!
It was joined by a Puff-backed Bulbul. There were good numbers of this swamp forest-loving species here.
I still wasn't able to get a good photo though!
The other forest reserve, Sungai Cherul, has forest rangers permanently stationed on site, and is protected as water catchment forest. In consequence, it appeared to be in excellent condition and full of birds, among them, Banded and Garnet Pittas and Malaysian Peacock-pheasant.
Some of the many fresh tracks seen on the road, tentatively identified as: monitor lizard, otter sp?, small ungulate - possibly Barking Deer, even smaller ungulate - mouse deer sp, small felid - possibly Leopard Cat, Sun Bear.
There was certainly a healthy population of Wild Pigs.
They were very active in daylight - some unaware of our presence...
... others definitely knew we were there!
Some of the forest occupants were feeding opportunistically in the adjacent plantations - this is porcupine damage.
The monitor and the mosquito! We spotted this Clouded Monitor resting high up a tree, but he still couldn't escape the mozzies!
This is one of the rarer dragonflies - Ryothemis obsolescens - which was seen in swarms at canopy height.
We again recorded 87 species of birds, but only a few consented to be photographed!
A Sooty-capped Babbler - the commonest babbler in the forest.
A pair of Spotted Fantails were attending a nest.
This female Raffles' Malkoha was foraging for spiders.
Our night surveys were a bit disappointing bearing in mind all the mammals we'd seen evidence of by day. This was a roadside Large-tailed Nightjar.
I think this is Limnonectes blythii, otherwise known as Blyth's Giant Frog. Please correct me if I'm wrong!
This male Leopard Cat was rather obliging!
Fur looks so much better on a cat than on a catwalk!
3 comments:
Yay ! Leopard Cat !
Back in the 70s the anti-fur campaigners used the slogan "Remember, - the previous owner of your fur coat died in it !"
Very effective, I think.
Hey Dave, I've follwed your blog for a couple of years now and always enjoy it, especially your shorebird IDs. Now I see you're photographing a few odes. I've been birding for 34 yers and have just caught the ode disease. Now I'm seeing so much more stuff that I've missed before.
Nice...u r always lucky with the leopard cat. Yes, your id for the frog is correct, Limnonectes blythii. It is a resident of good clean rivers. Might be confuse with Fejevarya limnocharis,but the latter usually reside disturbed habitat.
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