24 January 2011: Sarawak Waterbird Survey - Jemukan fishponds

Today we went to check out a couple of roosts we'd found on the first day of heli surveys. The was this one on the bund of a fish-pond near Jemukan. This site is remote and not visible from any road, and really demonstrated the value of doing aerial surveys to locate roost sites.



We had just set up our makeshift hide when the birds arrived pretty much en masse.



Lots of birds (1,900) but not many species (just 5)!



Four of the five species can be seen here: Curlew Sandpiper, Lesser Sand Plover (both numerous in the picture), Greater Sand Plover (two bird in the centre, one above the other), and Broad-billed Sandpiper (the alert bird on the extreme right, just below centre). The fifth species (missing from this photo) was Pacific Golden Plover.



The birds packed together on top of the bund made counting a challenge!







And I took lots of flight pictures in case we had missed anything unusual in the packed roost.



Which indeed we had! Minute scrutiny of photos of the flying birds after we got home revealed this...



A leg-flagged Curlew Sandpiper. All along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, shorebird researchers from different countries attach uniquely coded plastic bands to the legs of birds they catch. As these birds are sighted by other researchers up and down the Flyway, gradually our understanding of different populations, routes and important sites builds up.



This bird had a pale blue flag above an orange flag on its right tibia. By checking the EAAF leg-flagging protocol, available here, we discovered that the bird had been flagged on Kyushu, the southernmost major island in Japan [Edit: Sharper eyes than mine have determined that the colour of the lower flag is yellow, not orange, which means that the bird was flagged in the Bay of Bohai, China. Good job we got photos!] All sightings of leg-flagged birds can (and should!) be reported to the Australasian Wader Studies Group using a simple online report form.



Another piece of the puzzle!



Another check of my photos revealed that it was there in right front of us! A case of not seeing the wood for the trees!

Just before dusk we went to check out the second roost, some fishponds in mangroves. No photos - the light beat me, but a notable roost of 150 Chinese Egrets, and a calling Nordmann's Greenshank among the 100 Common Greenshanks rossting at the ponds.

For details of how you can volunteer to take part in the Sarawak Waterbird Survey, see here.

31st January 2010: Kapar ashponds, Selangor

I got up at 3.30am in order to be in my hide before the birds arrived. My eldest daughter says I am certifiable!

My hope was that the Nordmann's Greenshanks would roost in the same spot as yesterday, so I positioned my hide accordingly, at an angle that would mean the sun rising behind me. I was all set up and in my hide by 4.45am, and then had a 2 and a half hour wait for daylight. Since there was a full moon, I could still see birds well enough to identify, even if not to photograph. At one point there were several hundred Black-tailed Godwits within 30 feet of me, and Common Greenshanks feeding almost within touching distance!

No sight nor sound of Nordmann's though, and as it gradually got light, so the birds became more and more suspicious of this strange green box, and gradually moved away.




































































Some of the Blackwits in front of my hide at dawn. I counted 570, which is by far the largest number I've ever seen at Kapar.



No Nordmann's, but plenty of the other two 'green-shanked' Tringas. Common Greenshank is the larger central bird, and Marsh Sandpipers flank it left and right.



Common Kingfishers are common enough non-breeding visitors, but I still haven't succeeded in getting a good shot of one. This one, taken before sunrise at about half a second's exposure, looks a bit dull in the grey light.



By the time the sun rose, all the birds had moved off to quite a distance away. Frustrating!

I moved round to the coastal side of the ashpond to watch the birds leave the roost.



Curlew Sandpipers and a Lesser Sand Plover.



A couple of Curlew Sandpipers showing top and bottom!



Some Grey Plovers.Whenever I give my wader workshops, I am sure that if participants remember only one species it is this one - the 'dirty armpit bird'!



By contrast, Eurasian Curlews must practice impeccable hygiene - their underwings are glistening white.



A quick comparison of Eurasian Curlew...



...And Far Eastern Curlew. This bird is different from yesterday's bird, as the outer two primaries are old and unmoulted.



Neither curlew should be confused with the much smaller, darker and shorter-billed Whimbrel. The underwing varies from barred (as on this bird - a 'variegatus' race type) to almost white on others ('phaeopus' race types).



This looks like yesterday's Far Eastern, with the outer two primaries still growing.





Some long-legged Marsh Sandpipers.



Three Nordmann's Greenshanks - the most I'd seen all morning!



Rather Terek-shaped in flight, with a deep chest, thick bill, short legs and bright white underwing coverts.



Three Common Greenshanks for comparison, taken late the previous evening.



A crude Photoshop composite, not done to scale. Common Greenshank (left), Nordmann's (centre) and Marsh Sandpiper (right). The latter two species have unbarred underwing coverts, while Common Greenshank's are barred. Notice also the difference in foot projection beyond the tail tip.
























Continuing the greenshank theme, these two photos illustrate quite well how differences in light and posture can change the apparent appearance of a bird. Both photos show the same species - Common Greenshank. The top one was taken in morning light, and was in a relaxed posture. The lower one was taken in afternoon sun under a thundercloud, and the bird is alert and poised for flight.

I spent the afternoon high tide at the small ashpond roost, but was again unlucky with getting close birds.



Distant, but this photo shows the differences between Bar-tailed (right) and Black-tailed Godwit quite well. In East Asia, Bar-tailed is a lot bigger than Black-tailed. Black-tailed is plain grey-brown above, and has a relatively straighter bill than Bar-tailed. Black-tailed's supercilium tails off behind the eye, whereas on Bar-tailed it tends to be quite strong behind the eye.



When viewed head-on, Black-tailed (on the right) has a distinctive vertical smudge down the breast in non-breeding plumage which is absent on Bar-tailed. This mark appears to be consistent in all races I have seen, although I've not seen it referred to in field guides.

Since the birds were generally too distant for photography, I concentrated on looking for leg-flags, and succeeded in finding four leg-flagged birds.



This Bar-tailed Godwit was flagged on Chongming Dao, an island near Shanghai. White over black is an old combination no longer in use.



The Great Knot towards the right is flagged black over white, which is the new Chongming Dao combination. I also saw two flagged Terek Sandpipers, but they wouldn't consent to having their photos taken! One was from Chongming Dao, and the other had a black over yellow combination, which doesn't 'fit' any known country code. Strange!





My scanning also produced this west coast rarity - a Grey-tailed Tattler. My first at Kapar. The very black lores are a good feature to look for when scanning Tereks and Redshanks for this species.



Another Chinese Egret.



Some flight shots. This one shows a Bar-tailed Godwit, some Great Knots and a lone Red Knot (bottom left).



A couple of Bar-tailed Godwits.



There's a 'phaeopus' race type Whimbrel at the bottom of this flock, with largely white, unbarred underwing coverts.



Common Redshanks, Tereks and Blackwits. As the last few photos show, the skies became increasingly black, and eventually a heavy thunderstorm brought my observations to an abrupt halt, as I was forced to make a dash for shelter!

Highest counts for the two days were as follows:

Centennial Park and Port Botany, Sunday 22nd October

Today I was taken out for a real treat by Tun Pin Ong, a keen Malaysian birder temporarily residing in Sydney. It was so good to be able to go out with someone who knew the ropes, and I really benefitted from his local knowledge.

First stop was Centennial Park where Tawny Frogmouths are resident. Tawny Frogmouths are not uncommon in Sydney, but their cryptic camouflage makes them easy to overlook, as I had done on all my previous trips. On arrival at the lake I saw my first new bird of the trip - Hardhead, a diving duck which is common enough in the right habitat - I just hadn't visited any right habitat until now! They are reminiscent of Ferruginous Duck, which we see in the UK as an occasional visitor.



A male Hardhead.



Among the melee of Hardheads, Coots, Black Swans and pelicans that were coming to be fed we also spotted a lone female Musk Duck, which looks like a cross between a scoter and a Ruddy Duck! We were intrigued to count how many tail feathers she had. Most bird species have 12, but she seemed to have about 20!

Tun Pin told me that the best chance we had of finding the frogmouths was to hope a local would point them out. This is exactly what transpired. A friendly man, of Mediterranean origin I would guess, made his way over to us and went out of his way to point out not only the frogmouths - the female sitting on her nest with one large fledgling and a male roosting in a tree nearby - but also a possum hiding in its daytime bed. The man had no binoculars but was obviously equipped with hawk-like eyes!



The female frogmouth on her nest.



The male succeeding in looking inconspicuous in a nearby tree.

Leaving Centennial Park behind, we headed for Tun Pin's 'local patch' - a sandspit at the mouth of the Penrhyn River. Having seen some of his pictures from here online, I was really looking forward to visiting the place 'in the flesh'.

One of the brilliant things about birding is that you get to visit some really unlikely places! So it was that we veered past the airport, down a dirt track near a container port, and ended up at a dead-end where, on a launch-ramp into the river, the local fire crew were testing out their fire-hoses! I wondered how many other tourists had ever set foot on this particular spot. Just beyond the fire engine was a small sandspit with a small roost of gulls, terns and waders, with the blue waters of the bay beyond them. We hadn't brought a telescope with us, and I was wondering how we were going to get anywhere near close enough to identify them, but I needn't have worried - Tun Pin had a cunning plan - just walk right up to them!

Huh! To get a decent picture of a wader in Malaysia I have to spend 3 hours in a cramped hide in 100% humidity and 34 degrees sweltering heat; here, in nice cool wind and bright yet not hot sunshine, you can just walk up to the birds, and take as many pics as you like in perfect light. Something's not right somewhere!



Here's a nice illustration of the difference in size and bill length between male (front) and female (behind) Bar-tailed Godwits. I think the male bird is a juvenile, with the bright notched and edged scapulars and coverts, while the female is an adult, as can be seen from her plainer grey-brown non-breeding feathers, with the odd old black and white breeding plumage scapular still hanging on.

One of the fascinating things for me about seeing these Bar-tails is that they are a different race from the ones I have been seeing in Malaysia. These are the race baueri, and they have the distinction of making the longest known non-stop migratory flight of any bird - around 11,000km - from Alaska to the east coast of Australia and New Zealand. Before making the trip, the birds feed up, adding up to 50% of their body weight in fat. Once they take off, it may be a week or more before they touch land again! To read more about this incredible feat, click here

Baueri race Bar-tails are distinct from the race that passes through Malaysia in that they have a brown rather than white back, and more heavily barred uppertail, rump, underwing and axillaries. They are also bigger.



After a non-stop flight of up to 11,000km, I reckon these birds deserve a rest!



I tried to get a shot of the rump and back, but this was the nearest I got!

In addition to the above differences, I thought that the juveniles looked buffier, almost tawny, compared to the menzbieri race which we see in Malaysia, on their way to the wintering grounds in North-west Austrlia. In addition, the juveniles seemed to have a distinctive orangey-buff colouration to the supercilium in front of the eye.






















A couple of juvenile Bar-tails.

Apart from the Bar-tailed Godwits the only other waders visible on the spit were a few Red-necked Stints and a couple of Curlew Sandpipers. One of the stints was wearing leg-flags - orange above green on the right tibia, which indicates that the bird was probably ringed at that very spot, since my leg flag chart, kindly supplied by the Australasian Wader Studies Group, says 'Orange/Green - NSW, Australia, Stockton, Penrhyn Inlet'.



The leg-flagged stint to the right of an uncharacteristically large individual with an odd white half-collar.

The gull and tern roost was predominantly Silver Gulls and Crested Terns.



Crested Terns are offshore visitors to Malaysia, so it's really great to be able to view them up close and personal!

However, there was one gull and one tern that were different - a Kelp Gull - which looks halfway between a Lesser and Greater Black-backed Gull that I'm familiar with from UK, and a White-fronted Tern. The latter was my third 'lifer' of the day, and one that I was particularly pleased to see. They are uncommon winter visitors from New Zealand and are usually gone by early October, so I guess I was a little fortunate!



Kelp Gull - clearly a subadult. I'm not sure where this species has a 3 or 4 year maturity period. At any rate, I reckon it's one full moult away from adult-type plumage - so either 2nd or 3rd winter.



This White-fronted Tern looks like a 1st winter bird, with fresh scapulars and median coverts but very worn lesser and greater coverts. This bird had a distinctive rectangular headshape. It can also be identified by the white trailing edge to the inner primaries.