26-30 May: Cameron Highlands

The idea was a few days of peaceful family holiday; the reality was that this was school holidays, when peace and Cameron Highlands are not words easily associated with one another!

A few photos from the four days away.

A couple of shots of not-so-easy-to-see Bay Woodpeckers - these were very vocal at the summit of Brinchang at dawn.

Snowy-browed Flycatchers are typical denizens of the shady mossy upper montane forest. They're completely fearless, and often the first indication of their presence is an awareness of a pair of beetling white eyebrows glowering at you from the side of the road as you walk past!

Lesser Shortwings are very common at the summit too, and come out onto the road to feed at first light.

I set up my hide at the roadside one day, and soon realized I was in the vale of the dinosaurs! First I found myself eyeball to eyeball with this juvenile Robinson's Anglehead Lizard.

 Quite a fearsome-looking beast!

 Then the Daddy dino turned up. Check out those teeth - enough to give a nasty nip!

This third one was missing the end of its tail - a subadult male I think. They all foraged a few feet in front of my hide quite amiably.

I also discovered I had parked myself near the home of a Three-striped Ground Squirrel. It provided me with regular entertainment as it darted in and out of the undergrowth collecting stuff.

 

 

Avian visitors were limited to a male Large Niltava (briefly) and a female White-tailed Robin (regularly).

Another day was spent in the hide at my favourite cuckoo-dove watering hole. Here are both species - Little on the left, a male Barred on the right.

A male Little.

And a female I think.

Male (top) and female Barred Cuckoo-doves. This is one of my favourite pigeon species - dunno why - perhaps it's because it took me so many years to see my first!

The female back-on.

Males of both species appear much larger than females, and are much bigger around the head and neck - perhaps the better to coo with!

 A female (front) and male.

The green gloss against the greys and browns of the rest of the plumage is one of the best colour combinations  I've seen in nature.

Later I moved my hide down to the stream to try to photograph the doves coming down. I wasn't successful - they were too wary I think - but I was rewarded by this juv Slaty-backed Forktail and male White-tailed Robin.

10 - 13th March 2012: Raptor Watch, Tanjung Tuan

Compared to last year, this year's pilgrimage was a decidedly low key affair. The weather conditions conspired against getting many good photos, so, for a better idea of the event and its birds, have a browse through 12-13th, 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th March 2011.



On the 10th, the entire day produced only 17 Grey-faced Buzzards, including this juvenile.



We were glad of the opportunity to watch any bird that would show itself, such as this immature Black-naped Oriole...



...and a Blue-throated Bee-eater.



After a while, even these disappeared, so we resorted to looking at pictures of raptors...






















...And people HOPING to get pictures of raptors!

Thankfully, the 11th was a lot better! We counted over 5,300 Oriental Honey-buzzards, though wind and lighting conditions were still not in favour of the photographers!









The best of a bad bunch - a male, two females and a juv. I got much better pics last year!

The star of the day was a dark morph Booted Eagle.





The pictures would have been a lot better if I hadn't had the camera on the wrong settings! Still - it happens, and there will be others...



This Barn Swallow seemed to think it was hilarious!

The 12th was a new low - just one OHB all day, but fortunately, we had made the decision not to sit at the lighthouse. Instead we had a lazy day in the garden and by the beach, when I trained my camera on some of the common birds I usually overlook.









Asian Glossy Starling, Brown Shrike, Spotted Dove and Yellow-vented Bulbul, all taken with coffee in John and Ting Howes' front garden!





A pair of Oriental Magpie-robins coming to take scraps as we lunched at the Yacht Club!



At dusk we went to check out a green-pigeon roost hoping for Orange-breasted. No luck, but we did observe this male Pink-necked apparently eating mud from the foreshore - can anyone explain it? Perhaps taking mineral supplements?





A female Pink-necked Green-pigeon preparing to roost in Rhizophora.

So that was it for Raptor Watch this year. We were fortunate to have one 'big day', and it made us realize what exceptional fortune we'd had last year!

5th-7th May 2010: Whistling Thrush Project, Cameron Highlands

Having covered the traditional higher elevation localities at Cameron Highlands on our previous trips, Kim Chye and I wanted to check out suitable habitat lower down in the hopes of finding Malayan Whistling Thrush.

Literature states that the altitudinal range of Malayan is 750 - 1,750m asl, so we drove up the old road from Tapah to Ringlet, stopping along the way at likely-looking spots once we'd reached the 750m threshold.























This was the first place we spent time. A group of Semai tribesmen recognized the picture of a whistling thrush straight away, and said that 2-3 birds use this stream. They call it "Cep talak", which apparently means 'the bird that lives behind the waterfall' - an accurate description of favoured Blue (but not, as far as we know, Malayan) Whistling Thrush nest sites. Despite waiting for a few hours in the evening (when they told us one regularly flies down the stream), we were not successful in either hearing or seeing one. Best birds here were Pygmy and Streaked Wren-babblers, Silver-breasted and Long-tailed Broadbills.

The following morning we followed a jeep track down from the MNS Boh Field Centre above Ringlet to where it entered good forest at about 950m.



Amazing purple seed pods! Anyone know which tree they belong to? [Quentin Phillipps and Ooi Chin Hock kindly supplied the answer - the tree is Saraca sp. Thanks guys!]

We had a brief view of a Whistling-Thrush along the stream that ran beside the track; disappointingly it was a Blue, as the habitat looked good for Malayan. There was a mix of submontane and montane species here such as Scarlet Minivets, Bushy-crested Hornbills, Buff-breasted Babblers and Bar-winged Flycatcher-shrikes.



We met a group of young Semai boys out hunting with catapults. They had three Blue Nuthatches in their bag. As can be seen, they had already plucked one of them, and all were destined for the pot. I find it hard to condemn hunting by local 'orang asli'. They hunt for food (in the main), and this place is their home. Their use of natural resources around them is not nearly as damaging as the destruction of habitat and use of resources by the more 'civilized' among us.



A few raptors we saw whilst driving - a Black Eagle...



...followed by a Blyth's Hawk-Eagle



This juv Yellow-breasted Warbler was being fed by its parent on Gunung Brinchang.



A juv male White-tailed Robin at the summit (2031m asl). It was interesting to see Oriental Magpie Robin and Common Tailorbird up there as well!






































I never tire of watching Pygmy Wren-babblers - half bird, half mouse!



Almost inevitably, one responds whenever we play the call of a whistling-thrush!



Not sure what this butterfly is. I spotted it resting on foliage at about 1,900m asl. The species it most nearly resembles in Corbet and Pendlebury's "Butterflies of the Malay Peninsula" is Taenaris horsfieldii, but this seems unlikely, given that the species is only known from one location in Johore. Can anyone help identify it?






















I think this is a Low's Squirrel.

Our last day was a repeat of the first, except that this time we travelled the new road, from Cameron Highlands to Pos Slim. We found a Blue Whistling Thrush singing at dawn at the pump house at Kampung Kuala Terla.

We found an interesting looking forest stream at about 1275m, and a whistling-thrush responded to a recording of Malayan Whistling-Thrush. We only got the briefest of flight views, and the only time it called, it sounded like Blue, so we left it undecided, and worth another look in future.











































Several other stops at likely-looking streams and waterfalls yielded no whistling-thrushes but some stunning scenery.



But for how much longer???



A fine adult Blyth's Hawk-Eagle catching the early morning sun.



Joined by a pair of thrill-seeking Red-eyed Bulbuls!



Further down the road we came across this logging camp.



We discovered that the operations had been suspended after the Perak Forestry Department had impounded the camp two months ago pending an investigation into its legality. It's good to see that some action is being taken, though sad to see so many trees now lying in rotting piles. We couldn't help wishing that action had been taken much much earlier.



We spotted this feline loping along the trail.



On closer inspection it proved to be 'only' a Leopard Cat, which is the commonest wild cat in Malaysia. I've seen them quite often at night in oil palm plantations; this is the first time I've seen one in its natural habitat and in the daytime.

A couple of dragons to finish...



Orthetrum pruinosum...



...and O. triangulare.