13-14th June: Pedu Lake, Kedah

I stole a couple of days off work to accompany Choo Eng, Angie and James to the access road to Pedu Lake up on the Malaysia/Thailand border. Warning: there follow some of the worst photos you are ever likely to find on a bird blog!

 

A male Crimson-breasted Flowerpecker.

 

A typical view of a Raffles's Malkoha!

 

These two Red Junglefowl looked like a couple of old dears out for a morning stroll!

 

At last!! A flock of noisy, broad-winged and apparently tailless birds chasing each other around the treetops turned out to be...

 

GREY-AND-BUFF WOODPECKERS! Not the greatest views, but my #1 "Bogey Bird" laid to rest at last!  

  

If you have one of the older versions of Robson, you'll see that Whiskered Treeswift is illustrated with all dark wings. The 2008 edition corrected this oversight, but the rather obvious broad white trailing edge to the wing is still absent in other field guides. Odd how something so obvious can go unnoticed - but then - how many people really look at flying swifts/swiftlets/treeswifts?!

 

The sun setting beyond Pedu Lake.

Early morning Blyth's (Javan) Frogmouths were very active. Above is the female - plainer and more rufous; below is the male.

Hooded Pittas were rather numerous, easy to hear but difficult to see!

We watched a displaying Great Iora briefly. It's many, many years since I last saw one. When it was doing its fluttering parachute display, the bird showed a very obvious white rump (see lower picture). The photo shows that the 'rump' appears domed, as if fluffed out. When I got home and checked the books I was rather puzzled to find that Great Iora doesn't have a white rump! Further reading solved the mystery. The nominate race which we get here has "long, silky, white upper flank feathers" (Wells 2008), and it seems that it puffs these up when displaying, giving the impression of a white rump. Well - you learn something new everyday!

22-26 May 2012: Krau, Pahang

Krau Biodiversity Centre, set in Krau Game Reserve, isn't a bad place to be if you have to attend a training course! Even though the course kept us busy for most of the daylight hours, I still managed to squeeze a couple of hours in here and there at the beginning and ending of each day.

Early morning walks were productive for frogmouths, with this confiding Gould's perched about 5 feet off the ground...

And a splendid pair of Large Frogmouths put on a fantastic show. This was the brighter-plumaged and more aggressive of the pair, so I assumed he was the male. This rear view shows faint "ear tufts" and a prominent nape line.

 This is him reacting strongly when I played his call back.

 

The second bird was greyer and much less strongly marked. I judged this to be the female of the pair.

 

A comparison with the other bird.

In BirdingASIA 14, Tan Gim Cheong and Yong Ding Li mention the following plumage differences in a breeding pair:
1. The well-marked bird (presumed male) showed white traingular marks on the wing coverts with little or no black edging. The other (duller) bird showed more tear-drop shaped covert spots, edged with more black.
2. The scapulars were tipped black on the duller bird, but had black subterminal spots and buff tips on the brighter bird
3. The brighter bird had more well-defined pale buff brows than the other.

All three of these differences can be discerned in the two photos above, suggesting that these may be consistent plumage differences between the sexes.

Apart from the typical growling calls, both birds gave chicken-like clucks, which appeared to be alarm or threat calls uttered in response to my playback.

Also out and about early were swiftlets which were clearly different from the familiar pale-rumped Germain's which I see regularly at sea and around swiftlet farms. I assume that these were Black-nest Swiftlets. 

These birds were greyer overall (notwithstanding the lack of light), with barely notched tails. The wings appeared to be set slightly further forward on the body, with a longer tail projection (very thin when in profile) and a shorter head projection than on Germain's. The head was noticeably larger than Germain's - an impression in the field borne out by comparison of photos:

 

Black-nest Swiftlet. Note the neckless appearance and large domed head profile.

Germain's Swiftlet seen off Tanjung Dawai on 10th May. The wings seem more central, there seems to be more neck, and the head is small, typically with a flat head profile.

 

A few more birds of note - a blue morph Rufous-winged Philentoma.

  

An Olive-winged Bulbul.

 

And an overflying Large Green-pigeon at dusk.

I enjoyed a few days catching up with my old birding friend Mike Chong. On the morning after the course, we spent a fruitful morning birding along the road. After an hour's separation, I returned to find that Mike had been watching a family party of Grey-and-buff Woodpeckers over his head for five minutes! In case you don't know, G and B W is (and remains) my No. 1 bogey bird in Malaysia!

16 - 18 Sept: Ulu Muda

I finally made a trip to the forests of the north of the Peninsula, with the main aim of seeing Plain-pouched Hornbill.

I went as part of a group staying at Earth Lodge. We had no electricity due to someone helping themselves to a length of cable over the recent holidays, but this proved a very minor inconvenience, as the forest was cool by day and night.



















The hornbills didn't disappoint, with regular flights to and from the roost morning and evening; 379 was the best count.




















The biggest flocks were over 30 birds, but most were in the 6-16 range.








































Photographing them in good light was a challenge due to mist and low sun, but I finally managed to catch this flock on the last morning.

The other highlight was the outstanding number of night-birds around the camp. I estimated 3-4 Reddish Scops-owls, 2 Collared Scops, 1 Brown Hawk-owl, 2 Buffy Fish-owls and one other large owl which called once briefly. Another frustrating once-only call was a probable White-fronted Scops. There were also 3-4 Gould's and 2 Javan Frogmouths in the area. The Reddish Scops, seen briefly and close-up at dawn on our last day, was my second lifer of the trip, and brought my 500 Club list to 555 - which has a nice ring to it!















































This male Gould's Frogmouth perched much lower than my only previous sighting.

Some other birds seen crossing the river while waiting for Plain-pouched Hornbills...



















One of a party of Great Slaty Woodpeckers.

























We counted 27 Large Green-pigeons flying to roost the first evening.



















Oriental Pied Hornbills were noisy and obvious!








































Oriental Honey-buzzard (top)and Crested Goshawk were among the six raptor species seen.



















A Ferruginous Babbler on a rare open perch! The bird activity on the forest trails was good, but the leeches were plentiful and ferocious, and I didn't have adequate protection, which meant I probably spent less time on the trails than I could have!















































I am pretty confident the swiftlets which came down to drink in the evening were Black-nest Swiftlets. They had virtually no tail notch, the plumage lacked the warmer brown tones of Germain's, and there was no obvious darker cap, which can be seen on Germain's with good views.






































Here's something you don't see every day...a leucistic swiftlet - very cool bird!




















A serene sunset on the Muda River. Something tells me I'll be back - once I've got my leech socks sorted!

9-10th March: Kedah and Perlis

This trip was some time in the making - I'd been batting around the idea of a trip to Perlis with James, Peter and Mark for some time, and this week we all had a couple of days free, so suddenly it was on.

Our first stop was Bukit Wang Forest Reserve, and our first bird was a male Green-backed Flycatcher, but I hadn't got my camera out of the car by then!

A sunbird feeding on a flowering tree in the car park attracted our attention, and it proved to be a Red-throated - a species I have rarely seen and never photographed before.
































Both male and female are very similar to the much commoner Brown-throated. Male Red-throated can be told from male Brown-throated by the much more extensive reddish colouration on the scapulars and wing coverts, redder ear coverts, pinker throat and paler, duller yellow underparts.



I didn't get such clear views of the female, but she seemed to be greener below and to have a less pronounced face pattern compared to Brown-throated.



This young male Wreathed Hornbill sat quietly over the track as we drove beneath him.



A rather distant raptor was identified as a subadult Grey-headed Fish Eagle after some discussion!

Our next stop was Timah-Tasoh, the large lake in Perlis, where we succeeded in getting good views of Pheasant-tailed Jacana but failed to see its rarer relative, Bronze-winged Jacana. A migrant Large Hawk-Cuckoo was another bird of note there.

A stop in the valley leading to Bukit Ayer Forest Reserve gave us a chance to compare the appearance and calls of the resident Rufous-bellied and migrant Red-rumped Swallows which can be reliably seen there.



Rufous-bellied (right) is substantially larger than Red-rumped and has a wheezier flight call.






















A Rufous-bellied catching the last bit of sunlight.



The Red-rumpeds are all worn and in heavy moult, so that the rump looks whitish on some birds.



The rufous nuchal collar which is one distinguishing feature from Striated is almost impossible to see, but it's there - just!



The streaks on the underparts are finer than on Striated.



Streak-eared Bulbul was one of the northern specialities James, Peter and Mark had travelled up from KL to see! A family of these birds obliged.



At the Malaysia-Thailand border we watched Dusky Crag Martins and a few Chinese Sparrowhawks and Oriental Honey Buzzards moving north.



The picturesque skyline of Perlis State Park.



We reached the Park HQ in late afternoon, and were treated to good views of 7 Forest Wagtails and 2 Orange-headed Thrushes feeding on the ground as we drove in. There was also a fine male Siberian Blue Robin. Too dark for photography unfortunately!

We'd come hoping for night birds, specifically White-fronted Scops Owl, and mammals. Though we neither saw nor heard the owl, the night-watching did not disappoint!



The first appearance of the evening was a Black Flying Squirrel in the same tree that I photographed Red Giant Flying Squirrel in previously!



This was followed by a great view of a Colugo, most likely holding a baby.



The first of three Slow Lorises - a male!



And another. They seemed to prefer using telegraph wires to trees to travel at night.



A Large-tailed Nightjar by the road was an obliging bird...





Very!






















This male Javan Frogmouth was equally obliging, and gave us fantastic views.



A moth's last moment!



Flying moth-trap!










































Credit must go to James for finding us this amazing bird!













In the morning, on our way south, we stopped to admire a flock of Brown-backed Needletails. The white lores (and they really are WHITE!)indicate that these were the migratory race 'indicus'.






































On our way south we stopped at Bukit Jernih, where we marvelled at the makeshift ladders used to scale the sheer cliff faces in search of swiftlet nests.

For about the fourth time the Racket-tailed Treepies eluded me and all of us!



If anyone can help me out with the id of this damselfly I'd be grateful!