13th April: Malim Nawar, Perak, Malaysia

My second port of call en route home was an area of mining pools which have now been largely converted to either fish-ponds or duck-rearing ponds (think Beijing duck).

It's a sad place, because virtually every pool is covered with netting to stop herons and egrets getting even a sniff of a fish, and virtually every net has at least one dessicated corpse in it, and often several. It's a perfect illustration of the greed and selfishness of human beings.

The reason I went there is that a couple of years ago I found one area of marsh that wasn't netted, and it had Temminck's Stints in it. Temminck's are pretty rare in Malaysia, and that pond was the only place I'd seen one. So I went back in the hope that there might be another.

The little marsh, which seems to act as an overflow for one of the duck-rearing lakes, was still there, and it was heaving with birds!



I counted around 25 snipe - mostly Common - but a few of the Pintail/Swinhoe's variety. Just to show that getting decent views of the tail feathers isn't an impossibility, here's a shot of a Common Snipe sunbathing, taken through some vegetation unfortunately.





There were at least 150 Yellow Wagtails on show, all in cracking plumage. They were, however, very quick and nimble, so getting sharp pics was a challenge. I started off trying to decide if these were Eastern or Western Yellow Wagtails (another Robson split) but in the end I gave up and put them down as just Yellow Wagtails.

Everyone knows that Greater Painted-snipes are a) usually solitary or found in pairs b)extremely shy and c)prefer to skulk in dense vegetation.




Which all goes to show that the birds at Malim Nawar must be a new and previously unknown species. There were at least 23 birds, they were tame and basically ignored my presence, and they all sat around in full view like ducks!



As I've mentioned before on this blog, painted-snipes are one of a select group of waders where the ladies wear the trousers. Females are polyandrous, which means that they mate with several males, have the brighter plumage, and, apart from egg-laying, take on very few parental duties.



Males wear more muted colours, which help them go undetected as they sit on the eggs and raise the young.









Most birds were paired off, and I got the distinct impression that the females kept a close watch over their mates, never letting them stray far from them.



The birds fed on small molluscs.





Once in a while, a rogue single female would stray too near another female's 'kept man' and much wing-flashing would ensue. Unfortunately I only caught a couple of brief blurry shots of this behaviour.







The females spent a lot of time preening and making sure they looked their best. Toward late afternoon, some started calling.



At first I wasn't aware what was making the strange hawk-owl-like call, but my suspicions were confirmed when I saw a female puffing herself up and uttering rhythmic soft 'hoo' notes. Right at the end of this video you can hear one bird making a couple of 'hoo' notes. At this point my battery ran out of juice, and just seconds later, this bird launched into a full calling routine!!















Apart from the snipes and wagtails, the 50 or so Wood Sandpipers, 20 Marsh Sandpipers, 40 Oriental Pratincoles, 15 Black-winged Stilts and flocks of White-winged Terns, this little pool was awash with stints. I counted 114 Long-toed, all looking dazzling in their rufous and orange breeding plumage.



One of my most vivid memories was one magical May morning while I was still at school watching a pair of Temminck's Stints display-flighting over my local patch at that time, Alton Water in Suffolk, UK. The birds were only migrants passing through, but the joys of spring had obviously got to them, and there they were displaying as if they were already over their Arctic breeding grounds. Today I had a wonderful reprise of that experience, only instead of the song-flights and faery trills of Temminck's Stints, it was the tail-cocking, wing-spreading and gruff trills of Long-toed Stints I was privileged to witness.



This video shows the characteristic 'hunchbacked' small-headed structure of Long-toed Stint, as well as its active feeding technique.





But there were also faery trills! I was really pleased to eventually find two Temminck's Stints grubbing about in the vegetation. It was raining and the light was awful, but I got reasonable views of the two birds; one a dull (first winter?) individual and the other coming into nice breeding plumage. Temminck's are characteristically sluggish feeders, even more so when seen alongside the twinkle-toed Long-toed Stints.



A grey Temminck's Stint on a grey afternoon.



I could hardly believe it when I set eyes on this bird - my sixth Little Stint in four days! This little pond held three of the four stint species recorded in Malaysia; only the commonest - Red-necked - was missing!



This was an interesting bird as it appeared to have yellowish legs, or at least olive. This seems to be genuine colouration rather than mud or staining.



Though the chestnut-fringing on the tertials and coverts is somewhat similar to Long-toed, structurally the two are quite different. Little looks much bigger-headed and less dainty than Long-toed.





It's also much whiter about the head.





A subadult male Watercock was a brief distraction from the waders!

13th April: FRIM. Bidor, Perak

On my way back home from Kapar I made stops en route at a couple of inland wetlands - both former mining pool areas. I got directions to these from the book Birds of Perak. My first stop was an area of mining pools near Bidor.





Because the site is frequented by fishermen and cowherds, the marshland birds are pretty habituated to people, making it a good place for photography! Yellow Bitterns seem to be everywhere.



And Purple Herons are common and approachable.



Black-backed Swamphens (a new Robson split) are the cows of the swamps - grazing bovine-like, pulling up great clumps of water hyacinth and feeding with their heads down most of the time. They're a bit more wary than other waterbirds - perhaps they taste good!



Definitely a species that looks its best in the sun!



I managed a glimpse of a slightly prehistoric-looking juvenile.



A smart breeding plumaged Common Sandpiper.



I was alerted to the presence of this group of displaying Cotton Pygmy-Geese by their noisy calls. They were shy though, and soon took off once they realized they'd been spotted.



I caught sight of this snake steaming across a small lake at great speed, and by driving round to its intended destination, managed to get a few pics. This is the reptilian equivalent of the LBJ (Little Brown Job) for me, so please, you herp experts, help me out here! [Thanks to Muin for identifying this as Ptyas korros - Indo-Chinese Rat Snake]





A nearby field held a small breeding colony of Oriental Pratincoles. Most seemed to have small chicks.



This one seemed to have its own security blanket, and would often run to stand by this piece of discarded clothing.



It was interesting to note how little time the parent birds spent with the juvenile. Presumably the chicks are more easily camouflaged when not accompanied by an adult, so contact seems to be kept to a minimum.

12th April 2009: Kapar Power Station, Selangor, Malaysia

Our final afternoon at Kapar and we were really hoping to see a break in the cycle of afternoon thunderstorms, but it was not to be!






















Our first bird of the day was a pond heron that flew up off the grass verge as we drove toward the ash pond. It didn't stick around for long enough for me to take more than one picture, but the clearly maroon back and creamy buff head and neck seem to indicate that this one should be an Indian Pond Heron, after the false alarm two weeks ago.



As there were only three of us today, we set up a makeshift three-man hide under the pipes. We hoped it would be waterproof!



Here's the view from inside. We reckoned that the mud immediately in front of the hide would be too close to us for the waders, but we were very happy to be proven wrong later when the birds arrived.



I snapped this Grey Heron as we were setting up. The sky was already turning lead grey!



This little group of Marsh Sandpipers were the first waders to settle in front of us. They lost no time in getting down to some serious bathing!



Common Redshanks and Terek Sandpipers were the next to arrive; the adult redshanks looked stunning with their postbox red legs and bill bases. Notice the first year bird (behind) has much yellower legs.



This also seems to be a first summer, as the lesser coverts are worn and unmoulted.



All the Common Redshanks we could assign to race today were 'craggi' with very fine tertial barring.





Two Little Stints dropped in early in the afternoon. At least one was a different bird from the four seen two days ago as it was sporting a ring. We saw none at the site yesterday, and at this time of year it is possible that both of these were fresh birds.



We wondered how many waders are banded without being leg-flagged on the flyway these days. The answer I got from AWSG is that many countries don't flag all the waders they catch, only some species. Others flag opportunistically. Our local Wildlife Department bands but doesn't flag birds I believe, so we can't know where this bird was caught unfortunately.



Another shot of the unbanded bird.



Roosting with sand plovers and a Curlew Sandpiper.



Both sand plovers can now be seen in breeding plumage. This Greater is in very fresh plumage, with white tips to the orange breastband feathers still unworn.






















As these feathers abrade, the white wears away, making the plumage become brighter.



Here's a Lesser for comparison. Note how long the bill of this 'schaeferi' race is. It is, however, much slighter than that of Greater Sand Plover.



Side by side, it's easy to see that the breastband of the Greater is more orange, narrower and more clearly defined than that of Lesser. The orange colouration of the Greater is more apt to spread onto the crown, mantle and scapulars, while these areas usually remain brown on Lesser. Greater's legs are not only longer and yellower; they also seem to be thicker than Lesser's.



As more waders arrived, so did the rain! This Bar-tailed Godwit is a late straggler.



When it turned round we saw the probable reason - the left eye and side of its head was injured and looked badly infected. Handicapped birds like this are more likely to fall prey to predation and the extreme conditions that they face while on migration.



The rain didn't stop the temporarily resident Peregrine from flipping over the seawall and taking a Common Redshank right in front of us. I only managed this blurry shot of it flying away with the unfortunate redshank in its talons.





Some Curlew Sandpipers photographed at different times during the afternoon - these while it was still relatively bright...



...this one made the most of a light shower to take a bath.










































This one started off dry...






















...but got wetter and wetter! Click on the pic and you can see the rain bouncing off its head!



In heavy rain, all the waders turn to face the wind.






















A Marsh Sandpiper making itself tall and thin but not avoiding the raindrops!



We got wet too! Our hide proved not to be waterproof, so we had to take extra emergency measures!



A first summer (left) and an adult Great Knot.



Unfortunately it didn't want to turn side on and reveal its fiery orange scapulars.







A Broad-billed Sandpiper looking decidedly wet!





A sleepy Terek.



Ten Nordmann's Greenshanks decided not to roost right in front of us, but nevertheless not too far away. This one is a first year bird.



An adult with some breeding plumage feathers coming through.



A more strongly marked adult.



The ghostly-pale Nordmann's were easily visible to the naked eye in the gloom.





The rain gives the birds a welcome opportunity for a drink.



Four Nordmann's Greenshanks together.



This video of a preening bird shows the pure white underwing coverts.



A very soft threat-call can be heard (on my original video at least!) being given by the roosting adult when approached by the first winter bird.



The darkest of the NGs at the darkest period of the rain! A fitting conclusion to a wet but wonderful afternoon!