16th July 2010: Sungai Sedim and Penanti, Kedah

I made an early start to get to Sungai Sedim by dawn. I haven't been back for a while, and the road to the car park has been fully upgraded. Still, they've done a good job of it and the forest is still largely as it was.

A fruiting tree near my parked car was attractive to several bulbuls at dawn. Red-eyed and Black-headed were regular visitors. Finsch's were calling but never put in an appearance sadly.



A Red-eyed Bulbul drops in for breakfast!



A young male Scarlet-rumped Trogon arrived in the clearing unannounced. Unfortunately I had accidentally knocked the dial on my camera to Auto, so this was taken at ISO3200 - so not as good as it might have been, but not bad for that ISO speed!



This Red-eyed Bulbul was taken at ISO1250.



Several Agile Gibbons were calling, and I spotted this lone male feeding in the tree tops. He looked really huge - big beefy arms and very woolly fur.

DS650560.mp3

Agile Gibbon's call is quite different from the more fluid, sustained calls of White-handed Gibbons. Agile Gibbon has a very small range in South-east Asia, being confined to northern Peninsular Malaysia and Southern Thailand.

After Sungai Sedim I visited the Small Buttonquail site near Kulim. The area is still undeveloped, though a lot more overgrown than before. An extensive walk over the area produced no buttonquails at all.

On the way home I paid a short visit to Penanti, which is a favourite site of bird photographers in the State, due to the fact that there are usually bee-eaters and pratincoles breeding. Not today however. The only Oriental Pratincole I could find was one with a damaged wing.



Common Ioras are extremely common at this site.



I came across a juvenile Paddyfield Pipit still partially dependent on the parent bird. It was a good opportunity to study the juvenile plumage of this species.



This was the adult, looking decidedly bedraggled!



Interestingly, it appeared to have some freshly replaced crown feathers.



Here's the juv, looking pristine by contrast!



It was interesting to compare this with the Blyth's Pipit I saw earlier in the year. Compared to that bird, this one shows a quite different median and greater covert pattern, a heavier malar and more strongly marked head pattern, predominantly dark-centred mantle and crown feathers, and boldly-streaked rear flanks.





The dark loral line is quite obvious in these views.



A very bold and contrasting head pattern!