7 - 10th Jan, Kanchanaburi, West Thailand

Kanchanaburi is famous for the 'Bridge over the River Kwai' built by prisoners of war for the Japanese army. We didn't get to see the bridge, but we did stay by the river for a few days. Here's a selection of the birdlife of the area.






Having seen White-breasted Woodswallows just a few days earlier in Malaysia, it was good to catch up with their northern cousin, Ashy Woodswallow.





Bombs away! Asian Palm Swifts were common aerial feeders.



I was pleased to see and hear Two-barred Greenish Warblers - their loud 'pschooweet' call is very obvious and distinctive. The plain lower ear coverts and unmarked lower mandible were also good features. Strangely, they were only really widespread on the first day.



Yellow-browed Warblers, were, by contrast, everywhere.



Thick-billed Warblers were quite common, often in hedgerows and underbrush well away from water, but were typically skulking and difficult to photograph!




Black-browed Reed Warblers were found in the vegetated margins of ponds.

The only other warbler I saw was a lone Radde's Warbler, which resisted my attempts to take its picture!



Of the two common bulbuls, Sooty-headed was more colourful, had a sweeter call, and was much more approachable. I liked them!



Streak-eared, on the other hand, was rather drab, sounds perpetually angry, and was much more difficult to get close to.


Black-headed Bulbul, more familiar from Malaysia, put in an occasional appearance.




This Blue-throated Flycatcher may have been the best bird I saw



While the abundant Little Green Bee-eaters were definitely the most colourful!





And this Hoopoe was probably the most bizarre!



Although the reptilian Green-billed Malkoha is quite strange too!

2nd - 5th January, 2008: Perak, Part 2

I am getting so far behind with this blog that this will just be a photographic summary of the rest of my time in the Perak estates.








Black Bazas were the commonest raptor we saw, and they already seemed to be on the move northwards.







Crested Goshawks were also in evidence in a couple of places. This is the male of a pair breeding in a large garden.



Long-tailed Parakeets were nesting in the same garden!



Estates are encouraged to allow large trees to grow along rivers to provide habitat for birds that naturally predate pest species. When we think of predators, we don't usually think of birds like Ashy Minivets, but, as this photo shows, they play a useful part in helping to control the numbers of caterpillars.




Estates encompass a wide variety of habitats, including freshwater swamps. This one held many egrets, Lesser Whistling Ducks, and a number of waders.




Grey-headed Lapwings seem to be wintering further and further south these days.



A Pintail or Swinhoe's Snipe



Wood Sandpiper is the commonest of the waders on the estates.























A Purple Heron stands statuesque beside a canal.



It was interesting to note Jungle Mynas mixing with Javan Mynas. Javan are the more recent immigrant, and have tended to replace Jungle wherever they move in. Perhaps here the Javan are recent arrivals? (The lower middle bird in this picture is probably a Javan).



Oriental Pied Hornbills were a conspicuous feature of the settlement areas.



I spotted this young cobra hunting frogs on the football field!



The dark-breasted Barn Swallow on the top right appears to be the 'tytleri' race.



A cool dragonfly to finish off with. This is Hydrobasileus croceus, found on the edge of a relict forest patch.

2nd - 5th January, 2008: Perak, Part 1

I spent these few days doing some biodiversity surveys of several oil palm estates, looking at relic forest, some riverine swamp forest and other bits and pieces. Here are a few photos.



A blue bee isn't something you see every day!



Leaving a buffer zone either side of a stream and allowing natural vegetation to grow up like this has the effect of increasing biodiversity in an otherwise monocultural environment.



Long-tailed Macaques are a common and obvious inhabitant of the more forested areas.



This is a Tawny Coster, a recent colonizer of Peninsular Malaysia from the north. Originating in southern India, it first appeared in Thailand in the early 90s, before spreading south as far as Kuala Lumpur by about 1996.



About this time last year I was watching Malaysia's first Rosy Minivet. No such luck this time, though there were plenty of Ashy Minivets about.



Cratilla lineata was one of the commonest dragonflies, especially around the forest edges.



Another relatively recent arrival in the peninsula is White-breasted Woodswallow. First recorded in the south, they've now been seen as far north as Penang.



Four of a group of six Smooth Otters that were feeding on fish and molluscs in a small lake.



A nice comparison of Common and Wood Sandpipers ... on the deck ...



...and in flight.

End of December 2007, Melaka

Lots to catch up with here after a crazy few weeks since returning from the UK.

First we took a family trip down to Melaka for a grand family reunion of the Chi family (my wife's side of the family). Over a hundred family members turned up from 4 different continents. Lots of food, fun and games and good times reconnecting over four generations!



The riverside is in the process of being restored, and is surprisingly picturesque in places.






















A traditional Peranakan house, narrow but loooooong, and very cool!

I managed to take an afternoon and a day out birding, courtesy of Ang Teck Win, who took me around some of his favourite birding haunts. Most of the photos below are his, produced with his permission.



First off was a look at a reclamation project at Limbongan, just north of where we were staying. Several Red-throated Pipits were busily feeding on insects out on the sand, crouching against a strong wind.

Kentish Plover and a Sand/Pale Martin were other good birds here.




Early the following morning we visited Merlimau, on the border between Melaka and Johor, where some nice freshwater swamp held Baillon's and White-browed Crakes and a typically elusive Pallas' Grasshopper Warbler.




On the paddyfields we found two Ruff feeding together, as well as good numbers of Long-toed Stints.



Also interesting was a brown-plumaged, pale-throated hirundine among the many hundreds of Barn and Red-rumped Swallows gathering on electricity wires. Pale underwing coverts and white tail spots, as well as the overall structure, revealed that this bird was a juv Barn Swallow in an odd plumage, rather than anything rarer.

Next we went to the coast near Parit Jawa, where we arrived at the high tide roost a little late, as most birds had already arrived. The profusive growth of mangrove saplings made seeing the birds a challenge, let alone picking out anything unusual.
Eventually a Grey-tailed Tattler gave itself up to our scrutiny, and then at least 2 Nordmann's Greenshanks.




One of two Nordmann's Greenshanks - the first I've seen this season.



We finished off at Parit Jawa itself, where several Lesser Adjutants fed among the waders on the retreating tide.



The big guns were there to record the occasion!

Dec 19th, Suffolk, UK

Here's the finished painting of the Greenfinch I mentioned yesterday, and in addition, a sketch of a Goldcrest seen this afternoon in the local churchyard.

December 17th, England

Time to blow the dust off this blog and see if it still starts!

I haven't done a great deal of proper birding over the last month or so, since this has mainly been a time to catch up on old friends and spend time with the family.

I have enjoyed getting reacquainted with the common English birdlife, and it's been especially good to see ducks, gulls, thrushes and the like, as those families are poorly represented in Malaysia.

Quite a bit of my birding has been from the kitchen window - watching stuff coming into the bird table.
























Here are a couple of sketches of a male Greenfinch that found a sunny spot in the hedge and was soaking up a bit of December sun. I'm in the process of turning one of these into a painting.






















This is one of a small flock of House Sparrows that regularly hangs around the feeder.

Another short project was redoing the house sign.



I took part in the BTO Atlas project, and did a 2 hour 'Timed Tetrad Visit' for the square around our house. We've managed to record 49 species in our square, which isn't bad for an 'agricultural desert' miles from any decent waterbody.

In the past month Peter Kennerley and I have published an article detailing our observations of some interesting plovers which once appeared on this blog as 'Malaysian Plovers'. The full article is here, with an link to a forum that gives opportunity to comment on or discuss the article. If you want a potted summary of the article, you could try looking at this link.

And if you haven't got time to even look at that, here's what all the fuss is about!