14th October: Kampung Pertama (PERDA) mainland Penang,

After all the inclement weather of late, I took advantage of some afternoon sunshine to pay a visit to what I have previously called Bukit Mertajam ricefields, with the expert local guidance of former student of Universiti Malaysia Terengganu student, Muhd Hakim.

The rice-fields are in just the right state for waders, and I wish I'd visited a few weeks ago during the best time for rare passage waders like Oriental Plover, Pectoral and Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, as the place looks ideal for them.

As it was, the fields were busy with Long-toed Stints (112), Wood Sandpipers (111), Little Ringed Plovers (38) and Black-winged Stilts (33), with smaller numbers of Grey-headed Lapwing, Pacific Golden Plover, Red-necked Stint, Curlew Sandpiper and Common Sandpiper, though all were a bit far away for photography.



There were a few Whiskered Terns about, along with White-winged and Little. This pic illustrates the typical feeding behaviour of the 'Marsh Terns' (White-winged and Whiskered) - dipping down to snatch prey off the water surface. 'Sea terns" (including Little Tern) typically hunt by hovering and then diving to catch their prey.





Another Whiskered.

A couple of years ago I saw a series of Riparia martins which I tentatively identified as the fokhienensis race of Pale Martin. The jury is still out on these birds pending a clearer understanding of the diagnostic differences between this and the poorly known ijimae race of Sand Martin. Anyway, we saw another of these birds today among the Barn Swallows. Only flight views were obtained unfortunately.













As I understand it, the shallow tail fork, narrow breastband and lack of marking on the lower breast below the breastband make this likely to be a Pale Martin rather than Sand. Pale Martin is not yet on the Malaysian list, but it's possible that a good proportion of 'Sand' Martins reported are actually Pale. For more pics and discussion of the differences, see here, here and here.







A few Barn Swallows for comparison!



This Barn Owl was an early riser in the evening!






















Flexing its muscles in preparation for the hunt?



Low sun and thunderclouds made for interesting lighting. I explained to Hakim that Great Egrets rarely occur in rice-fields, and that a short yellow bill is characteristic of an Intermediate Egret, which is what I confidently identified the right hand bird as...




... till I took a closer look and realized that it was actually a Great Egret! It can be identified by the triangle of gape skin extending backwards from below the eye. Compare with this image of a real Intermediate and this one of a Great. It always pays to double-check!





At dusk the egrets converged on a group of trees left standing in the middle of one paddyfield, making for an attractive spectacle. I guess it would have been easy for the farmer who owns the field to increase his yield by doing away with this little clump of trees, but I for one am very thankful that he didn't!

The Bible talks a lot about compassion in agriculture. For example, "When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and the alien," and "When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands." I am reminded of this principle every time I see modern intensive agricultural projects that remove every blade of unproductive vegetation in order to maximize yield, or aquaculture ponds entirely covered in netting so that not even one fish can be taken by birds. The project manager may call it efficiency, but I suspect it is greed. More power to smallholders like the rice farmers of Kampung Pertama who leave 'unproductive' trees in the middle of their rice fields!

A Tale of Two Redshanks

Going back to that odd Common Redshank I photographed in Singapore recently, Prof Bill Hale has helped me to age the bird as a first winter.

The ultra-close views which Sungei Buloh allows of Common Redshanks reveal some interesting variations in plumage.





These are two adults in non-breeding plumage, yet the pattern of the non-breeding coverts is quite distinctly different, as shown by the two isolated median coverts. The upper bird has rather plain brown coverts, with a thin whitish fringe and barely discernible subterminal marks. The lower individual has rather obvious blackish subterminal notches on most median and greater coverts.



Here's a juvenile in what I would call 'typical' plumage. The coverts are dark brown with warm buff edges, and median and greater coverts have dark notches.

Now back to the puzzling bird!



The lesser coverts and uppermost tertial are 'typically patterned' juvenile feathers, proving that this is a bird hatched this year. The scapulars are all non-breeding feathers, showing that it has undergone its first head and body moult into '1st non-breeding plumage'.



These inner greater and median coverts also seem to be '1st winter' feathers, being similar in pattern to the lower of the two adults above.





And finally, what about these feathers?? Presumably, they are juvenile coverts, but quite significantly different from the pattern of those on the juvenile above.

So, I wonder if these represent merely individual variation, or whether they might be indicative of different populations (present sub-species). Something for the wader-banders at SBWR to look into!

Whistling Thrush Project: Fraser's Hill 8-11 October 2009

We caught fewer birds than on just about any previous trip this time, but who cares - we caught the one that we really wanted!

On our first morning we had set up nets at two locations, Kim Chye manning one lot and myself the other. On my way to open the nets before dawn, completely by chance, I shone my spotlight on a very close Mountain Scops Owl. I had neither bins nor camera with me, so just enjoyed great bare eye views at it sat there blinking at me!

That proved to be the highlight of my netting site - and by ten o'clock there had been neither sight nor sound of a whistling thrush, and not a single bird had been netted. Deciding to cut my losses, I packed up and moved down to Kim Chye's patch. When I arrived KC was taking a break so I went to check the nets. First one - empty. Second one - hmm - a single bird in the bottom shelf - a medium-sized black bird ... can it be?? Until that moment KC had not heard or seen a whistling-thrush all morning, and yet there it was, miraculously...a Malayan Whistling Thrush! I almost didn't dare breathe till the bird was out of the net and in the bag, whereupon a quiet whoop may have escaped my lips!!



What all the fuss was about! To the untutored eye, just a black bird - certainly not as spectacular as the trogons, green magpies and minivets that you can see at Fraser's Hill, but for the connoisseur - one of Malaysia's five-star birds!



Back to the wild! The MWT stops briefly on release to show off its new yellow and white 'bling'. If you are lucky enough to see this bird, please let me know!



This is the kind of place a Malayan Whistling Thrush feels at home.





The same kind of places are also much beloved of Slaty-backed Forktails. These birds are always flying into our nets - shame the study isn't on forktails!





Up on the Telekom Loop there was a flock of what I took to be Himalayan Swiftlets - deeply forked tails and long slender wings.



The rump was conspicuously pale and the underparts quite dusky.





A resident Dark Hawk-Cuckoo (formerly the bocki race of Large Hawk-Cuckoo) gave prolonged but slightly distant views.



A foraging Golden Babbler was one of the few birds I managed to photograph in the field!





This rather attractive 'blue' butterfly - Heliophorus epicles - was purple, orange and dark brown on the upperside, and yellow and orange below!



A couple of years ago a lizard wandered into our accommodation at Fraser's Hill. I photographed it, and it turned out to be the juvenile form of a then undescribed species! It was subsequently named Acanthosaura titiwangsaensis. This trip I found what I am pretty sure is the adult form sunning itslef in the middle of the road! It had an interesting threat display. When it moved, it would open its mouth briefly, revealing a startlingly white mouth!

3-4th October: Singapore Advanced Wader Workshop

This two-day workshop was organized by Kenneth Kee, Alan Ow Yong and Lim Kim Seng of Nature Society Singapore at Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve and during my time in Singapore I was hosted and fed (sumptuously!) by good friends Dan and Mel Ong from A Rocha, so a big thanks to all of you!





Having the workshop at SBWR meant that we could literally walk from the indoor classroom straight to the outdoor classroom, which was a brilliant arrangement! I'd never been to SBWR before, but was hugely impressed with the way that it is laid out and managed.



Birds were so close that we barely needed binoculars, let alone a scope!



It was great to meet up with former AWC Coordinator David Li (now Conservation Officer at SBWR) again.



Participants trying to take field notes and ignore me spouting on about lesser coverts and tertials!



Those who made it to the end of the course without suffering plumage overdose! Thanks to Kenneth and Ben Lee for the extra pics.



Some of the commonest birds were Pacific Golden Plovers. SBWR has a very active ringing group (to judge by the number of leg-flagged birds! It was a case of 'spot the bird without the leg-flag rather than the other way around.)



Told you they were close!





A couple of other birds. Despite the large numbers we couldn't find any juvenile 'PGPs' - all adults at various stages of moult into non-breeding plumage.





Whimbrels were also numerous. The great thing about the Reserve is that birds can keep on feeding right through high tide, as the water levels at the tidal pools are controlled.



This one's an adult in pretty fresh non-breeding plumage.



This is a fairly worn juvenile (compare with a fresh one here).



This exceedingly worn individual is, I think, a first summer/first breeding bird.



Although the visible primaries on the near wing look fairly fresh, the outermost visible primary on the far wing and the tail feathers are extremely worn, suggesting that they are one-year old juvenile feathers. First summer birds which don't return to the breeding grounds seem to undergo a fairly leisurely wing and tail moult (see this pic taken in June).







There was a lot of bathing and preening going on, as the videos show. I couldn't help thinking how fortunate these birds were to be bathing in the litter-free and relatively clean water of Singapore, compared to the junk-infested and filthy water where I see most of my waders!





Two different Common Redshanks.





Very different, on closer inspection! The lower bird (with the white feather) is an adult. It still retains some worn breeding lesser coverts and tertials, but most of the wing coverts are fresh non-breeding feathers. The upper bird is a juvenile, and is rather an odd variant (see separate post - A Tale of Two Redshanks).



Here's a nice easy juvenile, rather worn already.



A couple more with their own 'Singapore visa' on the legs.



This Curlew Sandpiper is in first winter/non-breeding plumage - by virtue of its juvenile wing feathers and new non-breeding lower scapulars and mantle feathers.





A Red-necked Stint and a Broad-billed Sandpiper at almost exactly the same stage of moult as the Curlew Sandpiper.



I thought the streaks at the sides of the breast of this first winter Lesser Sand Plover were interesting.



The long bill is quite typical of the 'schaeferi' race and illustrates how the shape of the bill is more critical for id than the length.



After the course was over I was invited to visit Changi Cove, where we had tried to catch White-faced Plovers last year. There were plenty of Malaysian Plovers about.



A male.



A female.



The latest in my series of portraits of waders in power drill mode!





It was great to see that there were three White-faced Plovers in residence on the sandflats, beetling about like supercharged clockwork toys in search of crabs - the small ones that is - some crabs out there were bigger than the plovers!



I managed to get some shaky video of the typical hunting behaviour. I love the way they dash along with that sideways look! Apologies for the standard of video, but the wind was pretty strong and my tripod (Manfrotto no less) had just inexplicably shed one of its legs - sheared off at the top.

It was good to see the Lesser Sand Plover we ringed on 16th Feb 2008 (with the metal ring on the same leg as the leg flags to distinguish it from Sungei Buloh-ringed birds), still looking fit and well. I wonder if it remembered me with similar affection??!