13-14th June: Pedu Lake, Kedah

I stole a couple of days off work to accompany Choo Eng, Angie and James to the access road to Pedu Lake up on the Malaysia/Thailand border. Warning: there follow some of the worst photos you are ever likely to find on a bird blog!

 

A male Crimson-breasted Flowerpecker.

 

A typical view of a Raffles's Malkoha!

 

These two Red Junglefowl looked like a couple of old dears out for a morning stroll!

 

At last!! A flock of noisy, broad-winged and apparently tailless birds chasing each other around the treetops turned out to be...

 

GREY-AND-BUFF WOODPECKERS! Not the greatest views, but my #1 "Bogey Bird" laid to rest at last!  

  

If you have one of the older versions of Robson, you'll see that Whiskered Treeswift is illustrated with all dark wings. The 2008 edition corrected this oversight, but the rather obvious broad white trailing edge to the wing is still absent in other field guides. Odd how something so obvious can go unnoticed - but then - how many people really look at flying swifts/swiftlets/treeswifts?!

 

The sun setting beyond Pedu Lake.

Early morning Blyth's (Javan) Frogmouths were very active. Above is the female - plainer and more rufous; below is the male.

Hooded Pittas were rather numerous, easy to hear but difficult to see!

We watched a displaying Great Iora briefly. It's many, many years since I last saw one. When it was doing its fluttering parachute display, the bird showed a very obvious white rump (see lower picture). The photo shows that the 'rump' appears domed, as if fluffed out. When I got home and checked the books I was rather puzzled to find that Great Iora doesn't have a white rump! Further reading solved the mystery. The nominate race which we get here has "long, silky, white upper flank feathers" (Wells 2008), and it seems that it puffs these up when displaying, giving the impression of a white rump. Well - you learn something new everyday!

6th - 11th April 2011: Lahad Datu, Sabah

Actually about an hour and a half north of Lahad Datu, not in Danum Valley I'm afraid, but doing some surveys in oil palm plantations.



It was wet! We were cut off for 24 hrs at one point, with water rising to shoulder height!



Not much yellow on the bellies of Yellow-bellied Prinias in East Malaysia! This is the endemic subspecies 'latrunculus'.






















Bird diversity in oil palm is pretty poor, but around the edges it can get interesting if there is forest remaining, even where it is severely degraded. This menggaris (tualang) tree was home to a pair of nesting Changeable Hawk-eagles, and the same area had Storm's Stork, Black-and-Crimson Pitta, Chestnut-necklaced Partridge, 4 hornbills including Wrinkled, Thick-billed Flowerpecker and Blue-and-White Flycatcher.



Crimson Sunbirds occur wherever there are nectar-producing plants.



A couple of recent arrivals...Red Junglefowl has been introduced to many plantations as a pest control measure...



Little Grebes have arrived under their own steam. We found them in two estates where suitable ponds existed.



Another relatively recent immigrant - this one from the Philippines - Striated Grassbirds frequent open grassy areas and love telegraph wires to belt out their song!



Wandering Whistling-ducks, on the other hand, have wandered up from Kalimantan, and are now the commonest duck in many areas. Compared to Lesser Whistling-duck, Wandering has a blacker, more substantial bill (shoe-shaped rather than triangular), has richer, more orange tones below, and a more pronounced dark line up the back of the neck and over the crown, which 'spills ' onto the face down to about eye level, especially in the loral area.



The flank plumes are much more prominent on Wandering than on Lesser. Compare with some Lessers here.






















In flight, viewed from above, they have obvious whitish uppertail coverts, unlike Lesser.



From below they're a little trickier, but with a decent view, the different bill structure and flank plumes distinguish them.

The wetland areas were the most interesting. Being cut off for a day gave us chance to wander round some effluent ponds, which, despite being well inland, proved a haven for a good variety of migrant and resident waterbirds.





White-browed Crakes were everywhere!



We found just one Moorhen, which proved to be Common rather than Dusky, to our disappointment!



This juv Yellow Bittern, with its browner streaked body and lesser coverts, could be mistaken for a Schrenk's (and had me going for a moment!).



There was quite a good variety of waders in small numbers. There were about 20 Long-toed Stints...



Some Pacific Golden Plovers, including this smart bird...

There were Wood Sandpipers, Common Sandpipers, Common Greenshank, Marsh Sandpipers, Black-winged Stilts, Pintail/Swinhoe's Snipes...



A Black-tailed Godwit, looking very out of place!



And, best of all, a Red-necked Phalarope! This was a Malaysian lifer for me, and was probably there as a result of all the rough weather we'd been having.







It was typically full of energy, chasing after waterborne invertebrates.







Quite flighty too, it would make little sorties round the pond, usually returning to its original spot.













Amazingly, the commonest hirundines were these Riparia martins. There were at least 10 birds. "Sand Martin" is a rare visitor to Borneo. However, these looked just like the birds I've been seeing in the Penang area over the last few years, very little tail fork, clean white belly below a narrow breastband, tiny bill; all of which hint at the possibility that these birds may be Pale Martins. We'll work it out eventually!






















Common Sandpiper footprints. It's the only wader that will routinely feed inside the plantation.






















Leopard Cat seems to be the only feline which thrives in oil palm. This young animal was one of 27 we observed in four night surveys!

HCV Assessment 6th - 8th June 2010: Pahang 1

Last week I spent 6 days taking part in a rapid assessment of High Conservation Value Forest areas in Pahang and Terengganu. This is a bit like doing a bird race, in that you are trying to record the presence of as many birds, mammals, reptiles, etc, as possible in a short time, so it's not ideal for taking good photographs! Still, I appreciated the opportunity to get into some areas rarely, if ever visited by birders.



One of the first areas we visited was the south-east corner of Bukit Ibam Forest Reserve. It's home for several orang asli communities of the Jakun tribe, and an important source of timber products for them. These are strips of bertam palm, which are being dried before being used, mainly for roofing material.

























Harvesting bertam in the forest is a family activity!



Silver-rumped Needletails were numerous, and I could have happily spent an hour or so photographing them, but time to move on!



The forest was pretty 'birdy' - we recorded 87 species, which isn't bad considering there were no migrants. A family party of Red Junglefowl taken through the front windscreen!

Highlights were Large Green Pigeons, Olive-backed Woodpecker and Rail-babbler, and a number of swamp forest associates, such as Wrinkled Hornbill, Puff-backed Bulbul and Red-crowned Barbet.



Not the best picture of a Rail-babbler, but possibly the first one ever of one in flight! I just caught this as it flew across the logging trail.



Ryothemis phyllis is common and widespread, but still nice to see!



Mammals were not so easily seen, but this is a footprint of a small felid - probably a Leopard Cat.



Our night survey produced Oriental Bay Owl, Javan Frogmouth and this female Sunda Slow Loris.



She seemed equally comfortable moving around on two legs or four, a reminder that lorises are primates!





We found out that the local name for these is 'monyet duku' (lit: duku (a kind of fruit) monkey), due to their predilection for ripe fruits.



Bukit Musoh is a forested ridge that runs south-east from Bukit Ibam. Sadly about 30% of it has recently been very heavily logged, completely undermining its value for soil protection on steep slopes. Although it is now a fragment separated from the main forest area, it was still surprisingly bird-rich, with Gould's Frogmouth, Reddish Scops and Barred Eagle-owl being recorded there on our night survey.



A desperately sad sight was watching three Rhinoceros and two Great Hornbills hopping from sapling to sapling in search of food. One of the Rhinos can be seen just above the centre of this picture, with the pair of Greats bottom right.



Long-tailed Shrikes are scarce open country residents in the peninsula, so it was good to see a couple.





One of the highlights of our night surveys was coming across Blue-breasted Quails - a bird I've not see for years. This is a female.





And this is the resplendent multi-coloured male.