Welcome Swallow - a longer-tailed, browner-winged version of our Pacific Swallow.
Fairy Martins - adults (perched bird) and juvs.
White-throated Needletails are scarce migrants in Malaysia and the commonest swift in winter in Australia.
The commonest needletail in Malaysia is Brown-backed, which is larger than White-throated and lacks a white throat. Structurally, White-throated is a much more compact bird than Brown-backed, with less head and tail projection,as this composite shows (Brown-backed on the left).
The Sabah Tourism Board booked me in to Sepilok Nature Resort for the duration of my stay as an invited speaker at the Borneo Bird Festival. I checked into this excellent resort at around lunchtime and was immediately impressed, not only by the resort and the way it is laid out, but by the numbers of birds on show!
The centre of attraction was a fruiting fig, just outside the chalet which was allocated to the main speaker, Prof Dr PilaiPoonswad, world-renowned expert on hornbills. This was an inspired piece of room allocation, as the tree was full of hornbills from dawn to dusk!
A male Black Hornbill - one of about 7 birds which regularly visited the tree.
This juv Rhinoceros Hornbill was obviously too full of fruit to do anything!
Check out those eyelashes!
I love watching hornbills eating. Despite the enormous size of their bills, they select and pick fruit with the greatest of delicacy and gentleness. The bird seems to be testing to see if the fruit is ripe enough to pluck. If it isn't,the fruit remains on the tree, undamaged, to carry on ripening.
The male (told by the red eye) parent bird flying in for a feed.
At dusk both adults engaged in a pre-roosting duet.
Besides the hornbills (which also included Oriental Pied and Bushy-crested), there were plenty other birds visiting the tree. This one was a new bird for me - a Thick-billed Flowerpecker.
This is apparently a rare bird in East Malaysia. The species is supposed to have a distinctive habit of wagging its tail from side to side, but this one did not wag its tail at all the whole time I was watching it. The pale spots on the underside of the tail were indiscernible in the field, and are apparently very faint in the 'modestum' race.
A short walk in the forest behind the resort produced a few extra species:
A Blue-eared Barbet.
A (Bornean) Rufous-backed Kingfisher, which differs from the migratory Black-backed Kingfisher in having a rufous mantle, and from the resident West Malaysian form by having a variable amount of dark blue on the scapulars and wings (compare with this one from Sarawak).
Another endemic form - the 'microrhinus' race of Chestnut-breasted Malkoha. That might be an endemic species of praying mantis it's eating as well!
A few swifts were coming into drink at the lake behind the resort in the afternoon.
Glossy Swiftlet
Mossy-nest? (judging by the darkness of the rump).
And my favourites, Silver-rumped Spinetail/Needletail.
I never knew that they have a pink mouth!
I guess they have to judge their approach just right or they'll end up literally 'in the drink'!
This Rufous-bellied Eagle decided to roost just opposite my chalet - a nice end to a promising first day!
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.
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