A male White-throated Rock-thrush has been showing well for photographers since it was found by Mun on 25 Feb, and, since it's a species I'd yet to connect with in Malaysia, I had been tempted to go for quite a while.
Things finally came together yesterday, and Choo Eng, James and I took the hour or so trip south. It proved to be a good decision!
This was my first view of the bird as it alighted momentarily, in full sunlight, on an overhead wire. It proved to be the only shot I got of it in sunlight the whole day!
As I watched the bird sit motionless for long periods, I realized I've probably walked past more of these than I've had hot dinners - well - you get the point!
People have regularly been putting mealworms out for this bird, and even set up a perch for it to land on! Well - these shots look a bit 'staged' to my eyes, but I'm not complaining too much!
This is how it spent most of its time, just sitting quietly in the undergrowth.
A few other birds did distract my attention too!
Ashy Minivets got a good grilling, but proved to be just Ashy!
There were lots of Eastern Crowned-warblers about, and several were singing their 'fizzy' songs - delightful!
The warblers were roaming around with a pack of Everett's White-eyes...
... and White-bellied Yuhinas (which I should really call Erpornises, except that I find that difficult to do without conjuring up an image of some kind of dinosaur!)
And finally, a Golden Babbler peered into my lens to check me out!
So - thanks to Mun for finding this bird - you might want to make another visit to finally get some pictures! Oh - there's a video of it here.
I finally made time to go down to the Swinhoe's Plover site today - and the birds didn't disappoint - there were four present.
There's a bird just to the left of the post, on the water's edge.
Bird 1.
Bird 2.
Bird 3.
Bird 4.
I had a hard time trying to age these birds as they all seemed pretty worn. Eventually I managed to see that the bird with the brightest cap (on the left) was in primary moult and therefore must be an adult.
All the others showed uniform flight feathers and I therefore aged them as 1st winter birds.
A solitary minivet was flying around, so I had to check it out in case it was my second 'Swinhoe's' of the day - nope - just an Ashy!
The other highlight of the afternoon was a group of 8 Smooth Otters. I never managed to photograph them when every head was up, but 7 out of 8 ain't bad!
As soon as the workshop in Kuantan was done I hit the road - at about 6pm on Friday evening. I was determined to make it to Fraser's Hill in order to be in my hide the following morning to try to get better pictures of the peacock-pheasant! About 5 hours later I rolled up at the Puncak Inn to collect my keys, feeling like a zombie and just thankful I had made it without driving the car off the road!
By 6.30am the following morning I was installed in my hide where I'd seen the male pheasant twice on the 20th. However, due my extreme fatigue I was battling a migraine, and I gave up after a couple of hours, having seen nothing.
On my way back to the car I found a Mountain Imperial Pigeon sitting on a fairly low perch.
While I was watching it it suddenly slipped off the perch and dived for cover. Looking up, I saw a Black Eagle skimming the tops of the trees!
Unfortunately for photography, the clouds were low and rain was imminent - in fact it started to fall while I was watching.
Excuse the weird colours - I've had to lighten the images up quite a bit to get any detail on the underside of the bird at all!
As Terence commented on a previous post, this bird looks older than a juvenile. In fact it seems to have begun primary moult, with the three innermost looking fresh and the outer 7 quite worn. So perhaps it's last year's or even a third-year bird. Note the epiphyte it is sitting on at the top of the pine tree.
While I was photographing the bird perched on the pine tree, it started looking up and I was surprised to see a second bird approach and knock the first one off its perch!
The new bird was also a subadult, but was clearly larger than the first, making it a female, the smaller bird being a male.
It wasn't easy to tell them apart unless a direct size comparison could be made.
Which it could sometimes!
Note that the female has grabbed a chunk of the epiphyte from the pine tree. I noted this behaviour by a juvenile last year, when it was suggested that the observation might refer to the bird having robbed a nest. These photos show otherwise. The bird has ripped off a chunk of epiphyte from the tree and appears to be carrying it 'for the fun of it', or maybe to practice seizing and carrying prey?
There was quite a bit of sparring between the two birds.
Eventually, I had to walk away from the two birds and head for something to eat, followed by a few hours sleep!
A few photos from the afternoon - this female Black-and-crimson Oriole had found the most enormous caterpillar, and was roundly smashing it against a branch. Unfortunately she flew off before I could see how she would go about swallowing it!
I spent some time at the Glossy Swiftlet breeding colony in the garage on Telekom Loop trying to get flight shots. These were my best attempts.
A photogenic male Grey-chinned Minivet.
Little Pied Flycatchers are common but always good to see!
I came across this juvenile snake, which I believe is a Speckle-bellied Keelback. Please let me know if I'm wrong!
On Bishop's Trail I had the good fortune to see two Rusty-naped Pittas. They were two males, and they were chasing each other in an apparently territorial dispute. I was surprised to see that they perched on low vines as well as on the ground. No photos unfortunately. This is the first time I have actually set eyes on this species at Fraser's Hill in 22 years! I saw a Malaysian Partridge also along the same trail, but briefly!
My final shot of the day was this female White-thighed Surili with her baby. Now I know where the idea for the Teletubbies came from!
