Friday, August 27, 2010

18 August 2010: Sungai Sedim, Kedah

Playing catch-up on my blog postings!

I took a visiting birder, Frank Smith, from New York, out today. His primary target was night birds, so we started pre-dawn at Sungai Sedim, where we had frustratingly brief views if a Gould's Frogmouth and heard Malaysian Eared-nightjar, and finished off the day at Air Itam Dalam, where Great eared-nightjar, Large-tailed Nightjar, Spotted Wood-owl and Barn Owl all performed well.

There were other birds of course, but not many pictures, as I was mainly focusing on finding the birds for Frank.



The much-photographed White-crowned Hornbill family stole the show! Here's the female, with her all-white tail.






















And this is the juvenile, with vestigial dark markings on some tail feathers.





No mistaking Dad, with his glistening yellowish-white head and front half of the body.



This is what they were after, now if I can just...reach... a bit further..!



Nope - too far! What are YOU looking at?



This is how it's done, son... forget you're a hornbill and think hummingbird thoughts!






















There was also a troop opf Dusky Langurs enjoying the fruit. I call this picture "Contentment", because that's what it is - a picture of contentment!






















And this one has to be "Happiness is...!"

2 comments:

Erwin said...

Awesome! I always love the hornbill shots ;)
Looking forward to your message about Kubah National Park.. can you add some landscape shots too if you them?

Oh, I started a blog as well on

http://erwinluesink.blogspot.com/

Not yet as good as yours, but I will do my best..

Hor Kee said...

Dave,

Lovely pics of the White-Crowned Hornbills. Although I missed them, I photographed the juvenile rather fresh out of the nest last November from the canopy walk. It is great to see it doing so well.

I've always noticed that the Dusky Langurs at Sedim are rather different from the Dusky Langurs found elsewhere e.g Taman Negara, Bukit Larut and Fraser's Hill. Their fur is a very dark brown colour rather than the usual mid-grey. Their eye-rings are smaller and less conspicuous. Do you know any primatologists who knows why such differences exist?

Cheers,

Hor Kee