20th -22nd September 2010: Miri, Sarawak

I recently spent a week in Sarawak doing a biodiversity workshop in Miri and later visiting the Upper Baram area.

The flight over gave me an opportunity to glimpse some of the islands of the Anambas archipelago. These islands sit midway between Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo, and belong to Indonesia.



Pulau Matak







These are all near Pulau Matak, not sure what they're called.



A dull day on Pulau Jemaja!



On reaching the coast south of Miri, we flew over Lambir Hills National Park.



The ever-rising tide of oil palm plantation development now laps right on its doorstep.

There was minimal time for birding during the workshop, but I did manage to walk down to the beach one evening, with pleasing results!







A juvenile Greater Sand Plover.



Food fight! An adult Greater Sand Plover chases a juvenile in an attempt to kleptoparasitize it. It's quite easy to age the birds in this photo - just look at the wingtips! Adults undergo a full moult (including the wing and tail feathers) at this time of year, while juveniles only go through a body moult and won't change their flight feathers till late next year. You can see that the front (right hand) bird has a complete set of evenly aged, fresh flight feathers, while the left hand bird is clearly in wing moult (the outermost visible primary is pale and worn, and we can see the new feather half grown growing out underneath it), so it must be an adult.



A subadult male Malaysian Plover. Even though it lacks the bright orange toned crown of an adult male, it can be identified by its variegated upperparts and the black lower border to the white collar (which also shows that it's a male).



Here's an adult male.



There were about 75 Pacific Golden Plovers, all adults in moult from breeding to non-breeding plumage.



Missing upperpart feathers reveal the pale bases of feathers underneath, causing irregular whitish patches, which can be confusing. Some of these birds even appear to have a wingbar, formed by a combination of whitish bases to the secondaries (which are usually concealed beneath the greater coverts) and pale tips to the fresh primary coverts. This motley appearance is quite typical of adult Pluvialis plovers, as well as some calidrid sandpipers, at this time of year.





Little Terns, an adult (above) and a juv. From the aggressive territorial behaviour of the adult toward me earlier in the day, I suspected that they might have bred locally.



A dark morph Pacific Reef Egret, which actually showed quite a range of maroon, brown, grey and blue tones in its dark grey plumage.



White-faced Heron (right) is an Australasian species for which there are a couple of claims in East Malaysia. Apart from the white face, other things to note, especially in flight, are the clear contrast between the pale wing coverts and dark flight feathers (on both upper and undersides of the wing) and the much thinner bill of White-faced Heron. This picture was taken in Australia in 2004.



White-breasted Woodswallows are common open country birds in Borneo, and there were a number of obliging birds behind the hotel. This one's an adult.



And here's a juvenile, distinguished by buffish tips to the wing and tail feathers.



Despite the name, they are not related to swallows, and are more akin to the butcherbirds of Australasia. White-breasted is the only species resident in Malaysia.

25-28th April 2010: AWC Training Workshop, Brunei

After having to postpone several times, I finally made it to Brunei to conduct this workshop for Wetlands International. My main concern was that, being the end of April, there would not be any birds left to identify or count - but I needn't have worried!



What IS he going on about? Participants trying not to laugh at my attire - a cross between commando and Englishman-with hanky-on-head-at-the-beach!



Getting good views and notes on a - no, not a green rubbish bin - an Intermediate Egret just beyond the green rubbish bin.





The bird after the egret was a nice surprise - a breeding plumaged Grey-tailed Tattler.



The lagoon near the Billionth Barrel Monument at Seria held a variety of roosting waterbirds, but also showed evidence of degradation. The vegetated fringe had recently been cleared right to the waterline.



The few roosting waders were a little difficult to view in the harsh light, but we were able to grapple with the differences between the Plover and Sandpiper family with these helpful Pacific Golden Plovers and Common Redshank.





This Yellow Bittern was entertaining to watch as it switched its tail from side to side to lure fish within striking distance.



Our second field trip was to Tutong Sewage works, where the presence of about 170 egrets of 4 species and a small number of Oriental Darters gave just about the right level of challenge for first-time counters.



We did it! Another batch of AWC volunteers trained and 'battle-ready' for AWC 2011!



After the end of the workshop and before my flight the following day, I managed to revisit Sg Seria to photograph some of its inhabitants, including two Chinese Egrets in breeding plumage.



The IUCN Red List estimates that there are no more than 3,400 of these stunning birds left in the world.



Breeding on a few islets off the coasts of North and South Korea, Russia and northern China, the majority of the population winters in the Philippines and the north Borneo coast.







Sg Seria is a traditional wintering area for small numbers of Chinese Egret. We saw one here during the Miri workshop too.



There were a few waders on the sandbars at the mouth of the river at low tide. A small group of Greater Sand Plovers included this smart breeding plumaged bird.



The very worn median coverts make it likely this bird is in its 'first summer.'



This video shows the rapid feeding runs typical of Greater Sand Plover, similar to Kentish and White-faced, but not to Lesser Sand Plover, which walks shorter distances and at a much slower rate when seeking food. Did you spot the Sanderlings in the flying flock?!






There was a lone Kentish Plover. The large bill, pale legs and complete breastband all suggest the eastern 'nihonensis' race.



The rivermouth in late afternoon.



And the river itself.





White-breasted Woodswallows were apparently nesting nearby, and mobbed anything that entered their 'space', including me!

My thanks to Pg Shamhari, Shirley, Zah and Dina for ensuring a smooth and successful workshop!