This was a quick 'twitch' to see a Little Cormorant reported over the weekend. The light was terrible first thing in the morning, but the bird obliged, despite being rather distant!
This scarce, but probably annual visitor was a new Malaysian bird for me. Thanks to Kim Chye, Yian and Terence for getting the news out promptly!
There was also a pair of Cotton Pygmy-geese at the pond. This is one of them.
Another good bird was a Lanceolated Warbler, which I flushed while trying to get around to the sunny side of the lake. It didn't stay visible long enough for a photo however.
A Lesser Coucal sunning itself provided another opportunity to try out the new digiscoping set-up.
This was a dragonfly 'lifer' for me - Neurothemis tullia. Very common in this habitat.
This Koala with a baby literally stopped traffic as she sat in a tree beside the road!
I presume it's a female.
Meanwhile, at the top of the same tree, this presumed male made some very impressive roaring noises in response to another unseen animal in the forest across the road. I'm glad I could see what was making the noise, or I would have feared something much larger!
This Common Brush-tailed Possum is a regular visitor to my sister-in-law's balcony.
Rumbled!
Damselflies mating - Olympic Park, Sydney. Can someone help me identify them?
I think this is an Eastern Water Dragon Physignathus lesuerii.
I finally managed to get a couple of hours birding in on my drive back from KL to Penang yesterday.
I had two goals. One was to try look for nests of mystery swiftlets Kim Chye, Connie and I caught while doing the whistling-thrush project field work in May 2009.
In May 2009, we caught a number of these birds in nets we had set up to catch whistling-thrushes in caves. They are very dark - the rump is blackish and concolourous with the rest of the upperparts, and the underparts are dark brown. The extent of tarsal feathering and measurements all indicate that these birds are most likely Mossy-nest Swiftlets Aerodramus salangana, a species which breeds in West Sumatra and Borneo but has yet to be recorded in the Peninsula. The nest is, as the name suggests, made of mosses and other vegetable matter, and is usually sited on a ledge in a cave, since the saliva is not sticky enough to attach the nest to the roof of a cave. For an idea of what the nest site looks like, have a look at this pic.
Anyway, frustration - no sign of either swiftlets or nests. Despite my own personal blank, the birds continue to be seen regularly, so I am quite sure they are breeding somewhere in the Ipoh area. So - Ipoh birders - your mission, should you choose to accept it - is to track down this potential new breeding species for the Peninsula! In the field they should be easily distinguishable from the typical Germain's Swiftlets by their all dark rump and dusky underparts (so they may appear all black).
My other goal was to check up on the Blue Whistling-thrushes we colour-banded back in May 2009. I have been busy over the last month writing up the final report on the project, so I've been thinking a lot about these birds lately!
It was good to see one of our colour-banded males and his mate busily feeding young. We sexed him on the basis of his brighter, richer plumage colours and more extensive metallic spangling compared to his mate.
I found that he was regularly returning to the same spot to collect... fish for his offspring! Looks like I need to re-edit that report to add another food item!
Serving up sushi!
And here's the lucky recipient!
I got a lifer today - not a bird, but a dragon!
What a beauty! This is Camacinia gigantea, which looks like several much commoner Neurothemis species but is much bigger. Apparently it's quite rare.
There were also some Java Sparrows about. Before I got married (in fact, as a condition for getting married!), my wife-to-be insisted that I show her a Puffin. I had to take her all the way to Anglesey in Wales, UK, to meet this condition. Just in case there are any other poor fellows out there in a similar predicament, and short of cash, you could try taking her to Ipoh and showing her a Java Sparrow...
...she might just be fooled! Thanks to George Diko for permission to use his great Puffin pic. More of George's pics can be seen here
Finally, I had the good fortune to photograph this roosting Large-tailed Nightjar. From the size of the whitish tail tips, comparing them with this pic, I would say that this bird is a female.
Here you can see that the middle claw is strangely curved and has what appears to be a comb along one side. This is not a deformity, but a special adaptation possessed by some birds, such as nightjars, herons and some owls. It's known as a pectinate claw, and is thought to be used to help with preening.
On our final site visit we were pressed for time to visit all the potential HCV areas, as there are a number of Forest Reserves in the area. In the end, we visited two: Bukit Jemalang Permanent Forest Reserve and Sungai Cherul Forest Reserve, and they could hardly have been more different in terms of their management.
Bukit Jemalang is apparently gazetted as Permanent Forest Reserve, yet within our short visit we saw areas cleared for orchards, oil palm and a landfill site! It has some nice peat swamp habitat left in it, which is still apparently home to some large mammals, but surely its days are numbered. Apart from this sign we saw no signs of enforcement and plenty of signs of encroachment.
Nannophya pygmaea is a peat-swamp loving species and the smallest dragonfly to be found in Malaysia.
The distinctive four-toed front footprint of a Tapir.
A Banded Broadbill sat on an uncharacteristically exposed perch - too bad I didn't have my digiscoping gear with me!
It was joined by a Puff-backed Bulbul. There were good numbers of this swamp forest-loving species here.
I still wasn't able to get a good photo though!
The other forest reserve, Sungai Cherul, has forest rangers permanently stationed on site, and is protected as water catchment forest. In consequence, it appeared to be in excellent condition and full of birds, among them, Banded and Garnet Pittas and Malaysian Peacock-pheasant.
Some of the many fresh tracks seen on the road, tentatively identified as: monitor lizard, otter sp?, small ungulate - possibly Barking Deer, even smaller ungulate - mouse deer sp, small felid - possibly Leopard Cat, Sun Bear.
There was certainly a healthy population of Wild Pigs.
They were very active in daylight - some unaware of our presence...
... others definitely knew we were there!
Some of the forest occupants were feeding opportunistically in the adjacent plantations - this is porcupine damage.
The monitor and the mosquito! We spotted this Clouded Monitor resting high up a tree, but he still couldn't escape the mozzies!
This is one of the rarer dragonflies - Ryothemis obsolescens - which was seen in swarms at canopy height.
We again recorded 87 species of birds, but only a few consented to be photographed!
A Sooty-capped Babbler - the commonest babbler in the forest.
A pair of Spotted Fantails were attending a nest.
This female Raffles' Malkoha was foraging for spiders.
Our night surveys were a bit disappointing bearing in mind all the mammals we'd seen evidence of by day. This was a roadside Large-tailed Nightjar.
I think this is Limnonectes blythii, otherwise known as Blyth's Giant Frog. Please correct me if I'm wrong!
This male Leopard Cat was rather obliging!
Fur looks so much better on a cat than on a catwalk!
