14th May 2010: Gelugor coast, Penang

A late afternoon excursion in the hope of finding a few waders in good light, this was also a chance to try out the RAW settings on my camera for the first time (!)



I could see about thirty Common Redshanks roosting on the other side of the lagoon, and I hoped that as the tide went out, they would come over to feed in front of me. In the meantime I contented myself watching the Little Herons hunting. This subadult was digiscoped.



This breeding adult, with legs flushed pinky-red, should have come out well, but the RAW image produced a jpeg that is rather badly pixellated to my eyes.



The same applies to all the images I processed from RAW. In addition, the range of tones seem to be poorer than when I shoot jpegs. I'm obviously doing something wrong! Can anyone enlighten me?



The stinky mud isn't just for the waterbirds. A variety of Mynas - Jungle, Crested and these Common, came down to feed. I was surprised by the apparent difference in size between these two birds.



Here's what they were after - worms for their babies!



Another pixellated shot. This was taken at ISO200, but looks like ISO1200!





Asian Glossy Starlings are a really common species that I rarely manage to photograph well. They're usually obscured by foliage. Not today though! These were digiscoped.



I waited and waited, but the Redshanks refused to come over and be friendly. I've got nothing against crabs, but times are hard when I start digiscoping them!



Eventually a wader did fly in - it was a Whimbrel - no doubt the same bird that has used the site for some months.



Back in January it had the use of both its legs, but now it is clearly lame, which is probably why it has not attempted the return migration.



A lone, injured bird is an easy target for predators, and it was clearly conscious of its vulnerability. It was keeping a wary eye on a Brahminy Kite soaring very high overhead.

Before you write me an email telling me that waders often stand on one leg and that the bird is perfectly OK, check the video!

10th May 2010: Boat trip off Tanjung Dawai, Kedah

Ever since I went on my first trip on the boat out from Tanjung Dawai with Choo Eng back in April 2008, the fishermen have told us of small black 'ducks' that arrive in large numbers off the coast in May and June.

From what they told us, and from reports in Thailand and Hong Kong of sometimes large numbers in May and June, we figured out that these must be Short-tailed Shearwaters, a species that is not yet on the Malaysian list.

So we waited for May and June 2008 with eager anticipation... but the fishermen reported only one or two birds on odd days. It was the same again in 2009, and we wondered whether this phenomenon was a thing of the past.

This year, my main man on the boat, Harom, started seeing the occasional 'black duck' back in April. Was this a sign that 2010 would be a 'good year'? Over the past week, Harom smsed me a few times reporting the sighting of one or two birds on three or four days, so I decided now was a good time to go and try again! For the first time, Choo Eng couldn't join me, so I couldn't rely on anyone else's eyes to help me!

Not long after setting off at about 7am, the boat flushed two shearwaters in quick succession.



This was the first...





And the second, a bit closer. As the birds were flying more or less away from me, it wasn't easy to see the diagnostic features. I knew I needed to see the tail shape and length to eliminate dark morph Wedge-tailed Shearwater. On the first of these pictures you can just about make out the toes projecting beyond the tail, and the pale brownish underwing lining is a good feature, eliminating the similar (but unlikely) Sooty Shearwater, as well as Wedge-tailed. A two-year old mystery solved!







We went through a shoal of garfish, sending them skittering across the waves.



I discovered that this escape strategy has its own risks, when I suddenly found myself looking into the eyes of a White-bellied Sea Eagle which had seemingly materialized out of thin air!



We've all heard the expression 'eagle-eyed' but I was still amazed at how the bird could have spotted the fish from way up in the sky!





In one last desperate act of defiance, the garfish took advantage of the momentum of the strike to have a stab at the back of the eagle!



Now we know what feathers are for!





So it was lights out for the Garfish and breakfast for the eagle!





Next up were several more rather distant Short-tailed Shearwaters...





...including a couple on the water. They have a distinctive short-necked shape, and ride high in the water, and I could see why the fishermen call them 'ducks'! I watched one bird sitting very close to one of the boats in our fleet, and then fly to sit next to another one... but of course, it didn't come to ours! Next time!

The boat crew were kept busy by the presence of huge shoals of ikan bilis (anchovies). In one mad period, we let the net out three times in quick succession, casting it out again as soon as the previous catch had been dealt with. At the end of the day I counted 440 trays of fish! We were in a fleet of about 8 boats which each also had their nets out, so it meant that the birds were spoilt for choice, and didn't necessarily come to our boat.



















While watching the birds round one of the other boats, I saw two black-looking birds which appeared to be harassing the terns. Oddly though, the terns were not reacting as I've seen them do when attacked by jaegers. These birds were too dark for Long-tailed Jaegers, and also rather small, being just a bit bigger than the Bridled Terns. Finally I realized they were Brown Noddies, the first I've seen from the boat.I took some 'record shots' showing one bird flying with Bridled and Black-naped Terns.



There were five species of terns, with Bridled being the most numerous. The others were Black-naped, Common, White-winged and Little. It's not often you get Bridled and White-winged in the same shot!



While scanning the stern of the boat for shearwaters, I came across this bird skimming across the waves quite a way back.



At first I took it to be a shearwater, but there were several things 'not right'. The bird was following a zig-zag path back and forth across the wake of the boat, the tail was much too long for Short-tailed Shearwater, the wings were held forward and bent back at the carpal, and the bill was way too thick for a shearwater.



Although the bird looked all dark, at times a faint paler bar across the upperwing coverts could be made out, which confirmed it as a Bulwer's Petrel - a lifer for me, as well as the fulfilment of a personal ambition - to see a petrel off the west coast of Malaysia!







































































The bird made its way gradually closer, but veered off and passed us some way to the right, indulging in a bit of 'foot-paddling' - a characteristic behaviour of many petrel species.





Within moments of the petrel, this imm Long-tailed Jaeger flew over the boat and started harassing terns, leaving me beginning to realize that this was quite a good day!





Getting closer! We sailed past this Short-tailed Shearwater, giving me my closest views yet. Onley and Scofield's book "Albatrosses, Petrels and Shearwaters of the World" mentions that Short-tailed Shearwaters fly to waters off Japan in June to moult. This bird appeared to be moulting some wing coverts.



The closest bird of all (one of three) drifted past us as we returned to harbour, well within sight of land. This brought the days' tally to nine birds. I'm pretty sure numbers will increase considerably in the next few weeks, and hopefully there'll be chance to improve on these shots.



A great end to a great day! The sunset reflected over Gunung Jerai on the Kedah coast.



The sun's last rays illuminate the sea and clouds. Glory!

5th-7th May 2010: Whistling Thrush Project, Cameron Highlands

Having covered the traditional higher elevation localities at Cameron Highlands on our previous trips, Kim Chye and I wanted to check out suitable habitat lower down in the hopes of finding Malayan Whistling Thrush.

Literature states that the altitudinal range of Malayan is 750 - 1,750m asl, so we drove up the old road from Tapah to Ringlet, stopping along the way at likely-looking spots once we'd reached the 750m threshold.























This was the first place we spent time. A group of Semai tribesmen recognized the picture of a whistling thrush straight away, and said that 2-3 birds use this stream. They call it "Cep talak", which apparently means 'the bird that lives behind the waterfall' - an accurate description of favoured Blue (but not, as far as we know, Malayan) Whistling Thrush nest sites. Despite waiting for a few hours in the evening (when they told us one regularly flies down the stream), we were not successful in either hearing or seeing one. Best birds here were Pygmy and Streaked Wren-babblers, Silver-breasted and Long-tailed Broadbills.

The following morning we followed a jeep track down from the MNS Boh Field Centre above Ringlet to where it entered good forest at about 950m.



Amazing purple seed pods! Anyone know which tree they belong to? [Quentin Phillipps and Ooi Chin Hock kindly supplied the answer - the tree is Saraca sp. Thanks guys!]

We had a brief view of a Whistling-Thrush along the stream that ran beside the track; disappointingly it was a Blue, as the habitat looked good for Malayan. There was a mix of submontane and montane species here such as Scarlet Minivets, Bushy-crested Hornbills, Buff-breasted Babblers and Bar-winged Flycatcher-shrikes.



We met a group of young Semai boys out hunting with catapults. They had three Blue Nuthatches in their bag. As can be seen, they had already plucked one of them, and all were destined for the pot. I find it hard to condemn hunting by local 'orang asli'. They hunt for food (in the main), and this place is their home. Their use of natural resources around them is not nearly as damaging as the destruction of habitat and use of resources by the more 'civilized' among us.



A few raptors we saw whilst driving - a Black Eagle...



...followed by a Blyth's Hawk-Eagle



This juv Yellow-breasted Warbler was being fed by its parent on Gunung Brinchang.



A juv male White-tailed Robin at the summit (2031m asl). It was interesting to see Oriental Magpie Robin and Common Tailorbird up there as well!






































I never tire of watching Pygmy Wren-babblers - half bird, half mouse!



Almost inevitably, one responds whenever we play the call of a whistling-thrush!



Not sure what this butterfly is. I spotted it resting on foliage at about 1,900m asl. The species it most nearly resembles in Corbet and Pendlebury's "Butterflies of the Malay Peninsula" is Taenaris horsfieldii, but this seems unlikely, given that the species is only known from one location in Johore. Can anyone help identify it?






















I think this is a Low's Squirrel.

Our last day was a repeat of the first, except that this time we travelled the new road, from Cameron Highlands to Pos Slim. We found a Blue Whistling Thrush singing at dawn at the pump house at Kampung Kuala Terla.

We found an interesting looking forest stream at about 1275m, and a whistling-thrush responded to a recording of Malayan Whistling-Thrush. We only got the briefest of flight views, and the only time it called, it sounded like Blue, so we left it undecided, and worth another look in future.











































Several other stops at likely-looking streams and waterfalls yielded no whistling-thrushes but some stunning scenery.



But for how much longer???



A fine adult Blyth's Hawk-Eagle catching the early morning sun.



Joined by a pair of thrill-seeking Red-eyed Bulbuls!



Further down the road we came across this logging camp.



We discovered that the operations had been suspended after the Perak Forestry Department had impounded the camp two months ago pending an investigation into its legality. It's good to see that some action is being taken, though sad to see so many trees now lying in rotting piles. We couldn't help wishing that action had been taken much much earlier.



We spotted this feline loping along the trail.



On closer inspection it proved to be 'only' a Leopard Cat, which is the commonest wild cat in Malaysia. I've seen them quite often at night in oil palm plantations; this is the first time I've seen one in its natural habitat and in the daytime.

A couple of dragons to finish...



Orthetrum pruinosum...



...and O. triangulare.