9 and 17 April 2012: Teluk Air Tawar, mainland Penang

I made a couple of trips to the mainland this past week to try to catch up with the Brown-headed Gull flock before they leave. The first visit was in the afternoon - forgot that the sun would be in my eyes, and the tide was too high to boot, so only saw half a dozen birds distantly.

The next trip, the light and tide were perfect, but the birds forgot to show up - perhaps they're already on their way north. Below are some bits and pieces from the two visits.

There were around a hundred Common Redshanks at the mouth of the river - this was one of the few in any semblance of breeding plumage. Most of the breeders are gone by now.

Most birds look like this - very washed out colours. These are immature birds that won't be breeding this year. Check out the leg colour!

Great Egret at full stretch!

I'm taking more of an interest in these since Chris Kehoe pointed out a possible 'alba' Great Egret in Wong Tsu Shi's blog here (the gigantic one!). This is potentially a new taxon for Malaysia. In Birds of East Asia, Mark Brazil notes that alba is perhaps specifically distinct from modesta (which is the one we get here in large numbers) and is an increasingly observed winterer in Japan and Korea, while modesta winters further south. Alba is larger than modesta and, in the non-breeding season, has pale or bright yellow tarsi and toes, as opposed to the all black legs and feet of modesta. So a bigger-than-usual Great Egret in these parts should be scrutinised, and if possible, photographed alongside others.

A Little Egret sporting groovy pink lores! This is a breeding condition feature, interesting, given that the bird lacked head plumes.

And an Intermediate Egret with breeding-coloured black bill. This species is Malaysia's most recently discovered breeding species. Take a look at Amar's fantastic series of photos documenting this extraordinary find on OBI (here and following).

This is the best time of year to tick off the pond-herons, and the Teluk Air Tawar area is one of the best places to do so in Malaysia. Top to bottom - Chinese, Javan and Indian Pond-herons.

The latter was only recorded for the first time in the country in 1999, but now it's a regular, and has appeared in west coast states as far south as Selangor. Something is definitely afoot with these herons!

This lone Red-wattled Lapwing is probably a sick bird, as they rarely occur singly, and it's largely lacking the  vibrant colours, including the beautiful purple and green iridescence on the scapulars and coverts, of a healthy bird.

I think this is a male 'confusus' Brown Shrike. 'Confusus'  is apparently an intergrade between cristatus and lucionensis. Anyway, it's a good description of my state of mind after reading Tim Worfolk's 2006 paper! I recently came across this extraordinary record of Brown and Tiger Shrike hybridizing in Korea (scroll about half way down). No wonder they confuse us!

Talking of confusing polytypic taxa, here's a stunning male Eastern Yellow Wagtail - tschutschensis. It positively glowed in the low evening sunlight, and made my otherwise abortive afternoon visit worthwhile.

 

It's interesting to see that there are old unmoulted marginal coverts on the leading edge of the wing, and that only the inner 'half' of the greater coverts are fresh feathers. However, I'm not sure what this means, and am hoping that someone can enlighten me!

Where the wagtail was - sunlight under thunder clouds over paddyfields - a visual treat!

31 March - 1 April: Gunung Telapa Buruk, Negeri Sembilan

I took a 'slight' detour on my trip back from KL to Penang to visit Rafi at his dream-home near Gunung Telapa Buruk. Though I didn't really need an excuse to pay him a visit, the offer was 'sweetened' by the frequent presence of a Grey-and-Buff Woodpecker in his garden, which is my No 1 'Bogey Bird' in Malaysia, as well as regular sightings of Eyebrowed Wren-babblers at nearby Telapa Buruk.

To cut a long story short, I didn't see either of them, but we did enjoy some very pleasant 'armchair birding' from his verandah!

Not close, but then how many of us can boast any kind of views of Wreathed Hornbill from our back garden?!

Brown Shrike - a commoner garden visitor, but not to be sniffed at, especially when acquiring really smart breeding plumage.



















While staking out the top of his woodpecker tree, I was amazed to see this flowerpecker land at eye-level. I'd only ever seen one Thick-billed Flowerpecker before, and that certainly wasn't at eye-level, so I was initially a bit puzzled by this bird.





















For one thing, the bill didn't seem that thick, certainly not compared to the illustration in Robson. It also seemed deformed, as if the upper mandible had overgrown the lower. Later digging around revealed that the race 'remotum' that occurs in Peninsular Malaysia has a bill "no thicker than Yellow-vented, Yellow-throated [sic] and Crimson-breasted Flowerpeckers" (Wells 2007). Furthermore, by looking at photos in OBI, I realized that the bill is always this rather unique shape, with the lower mandible fitting inside the upper. This must be an adaptation to facilitate piercing of fruits. Con Foley's recent amazing photos of Brown-backed Flowerpecker show that Brown-backed shares this bill characteristic.




















The streaks on this bird were rather less-well demarcated than those apparent on photos of nominate and 'modestum' races, and that olive wing patch really does stand out! Unfortunately, this was a fleeting view, as the bird was chased out of the tree by a Yellow-vented Flowerpecker! Still, it was a new 'garden tick' for Rafi!
























This pic of an obliging Silver-breasted Broadbill was my only fruit from our early morning trip up Gunung Telapa Buruk. The place seems pretty 'birdy', but both Eyebrowed and Marbled Wren-babblers remained resolutely silent and invisible!

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!

24 January: Perlis

This morning we started at Kampung Tasoh to the sound of calling Great-eared and Large-tailed Nightjars and a Brown Hawk-owl. We spent the first hour of the day scanning the water's edge for jacanas - to no avail. No minivets either, but we did get a nice flock of 7 Racket-tailed Treepies grunting and wheezing softly to each other - a lifer for Hakim.

But our hearts were elsewhere, and it wasn't long before we headed back to Chuping, and that hallowed patch of earth!



This morning there were about 8 Asian Pied Starlings busily foraging - but it was hard to get them to stand still to have their photos taken in the early light.



A small clump of Mimosa in the middle was a magnet for the Plain-backed Sparrow flock, so we drove the car up and waited to see what else would show up.



I focused on the females today as I had got good pics of the males yesterday.



A male Eastern Marsh-harrier appeared distantly - perhaps the same bird as yesterday - and perched up on a ridge for some sun.





Our attention was drawn back to the bushes by the arrival of an Oriental Reed Warbler.



The white tips to the tail feathers , diagnostic of this species, are practically worn away on this bird.





A couple more pics showing the strong head pattern and faintly streaked breast.



Determined not to be upstaged, the Thick-billed Warbler popped into the same bush and performed outrageously! The distinctive feature of this species is the plain-faced expression, caused by the lack of eyestripe and pale lores. It is also markedly shorter-winged than Oriental Reed.









Shameless behaviour! Get back in the bush and start behaving like a proper Thick-billed!



That's better!



A smart Brown Shrike decided to forage on the ground.



A lone Eastern Yellow Wagtail - a male 'tschutschensis' type.

This prompted us to go back to the Citrine stake-out...



This is the track where it was yesterday, but where was it today? After a desultory walk round, we realized that the clouds of wagtails which had been here yesterday were absent, so we gave up and decided to search elsewhere.

It wasn't long before we noticed two tractors ploughing a strip of harvested sugar cane, and we realized we had hit the motherlode as far as wagtails were concerned!

The problem was, it was a case of 2 Fast 2 Furious, as hundreds of wagtails and other birds constantly moved around, chasing the freshly upturned earth. There was no time for leisurely study - we just had to get what we could before the birds moved off. Hakim spotted the White Wagtail in amongst this lot, but I didn't. Here's a selection of the birds I did get on to.





A couple of 'macronyx' types. Some of these had more of a supercilium than others, with the brighter ones being difficult to separate from 'tschutschensis'.







A couple which are closer to 'tschutschensis' in terms of the extent of the supercilium. The flying bird was the only wagtail we saw in two days which had anything like fresh wing feathers.



The 'taivana' birds, distinguished by having a yellow supercilium, were the ones we were especially interested in. Some of these 'yellow-headed' birds looked quite Citrine-like. This, and several other birds, had a rather pallid appearance.



This was presumably a male - with a much more marked head pattern (darker, olive coloured ear coverts and lores).



The pale bird again. It has several features suggestive of Citrine - an almost complete pale border to the ear coverts, a paler area in the ear coverts, rather grey upperparts. However, the green crown and forehead, reaching the bill, distinctly olive-washed rump and pale yellow vent all rule in favour of it being Eastern Yellow.





Another 'taivana'.







And another. On the left side, this bird appeared to have very yellow ear coverts. However, the combination of dark forehead and lores and very green crown distinguish these birds from yesterday's Citrine. Some pictures of Citrine on OBI appear to have dark lores. However, in all, as far as I can see, the pale superilium extends over the bill, creating the effect of a pale forehead.



This presumed male seems to be half way between 'taivana' and 'tschutschensis'.



As yesterday, pipits were scrutinized carefully, and this one caused a momentary stir, with its bright contrasty coverts.



However, the back and crown streaks were muted, rather than sharply defined (as in Blyth's) and we concluded that it was just a very fresh Paddyfield Pipit. Smart bird though!



The same Black-eared Kite as yesterday, and the same female Eurasian Kestrel were in attendance, creating further havoc for wagtail-watchers.

In the end, no Citrine today, but it was an instructional morning for all that!