Sungei Balang, Parit Jawa, Malacca Strait, Muar 25-27Nov11

From JS

On 27th Nov, Con, my father (Danny) and I went for a short half-day (exactly 3h) pelagic along the Malacca Straits. The highlights being seeing a lot of feeding Aleutian Terns (probably the most common tern along the Malacca Straits at this point of time) and a lone passing Swinhoe's Storm Petrel - unfortunately, no photos for the latter. Additionally, we had a very close encounter with a large pod of >10 dolphins, including a jumpy baby.

Briefly, we started from the fishing village of Parit Jawa and headed out to the International Waters. Based on the few sighting records off Malacca Straits (Kedah) and Singapore Straits for the month of November, we were expecting a "dry" session and according to the local fishermen, there was a real chance of a "bird-less" outing. The first hour was literally (sea)bird-less, minus the few barn and pacific swallows. Fortunately, we had some dolphins as company for the first part of the second hour. After reaching close to the mid-point of the channel, we had our first sighting of a seabird, an Aleutian Tern. This followed by more sightings of Aleutian Terns before culminating with a rough count of 7 flying birds in a 100m radius of our boat (Poor visibility due to haze and impending storm), excluding 3 on driftwood (not rubbish!). On the way back, I spotted a lone Swinhoe's Storm Petrel heading in the direction of the Indian Ocean. Rounding up the trip, we saw a pair of Common Terns resting on a drift wood. Although the pelagic trip was done on an ad hoc basis, seeing some of our regional migrants appearing along the Malacca Straits may be newsworthy itself.

List of Seabirds seen along the Malacca Straits (MS) and Parit Jawa (PJ):
1) Little Tern (>10 at PJ and MS)
2) White-Winged Tern (>20 at PJ and MS)
3) Whiskered Tern (1 adult was seen at PJ)
4) Great Crested Tern (2 at MS)
5) Aleutian Tern (>10 at MS)
6) Swinhoe's Storm Petrel (1 all-dark petrel-like bird was seen and suggested to be of this species because of flight (close to the water surface with slight changes in direction, typical of passing Swinhoe's Storm Petrels along the Singapore Straits), darkish appearance, pigeon-headed and paler upperwing coverts.)
7) Common Tern (2 at MS)

Other notable sightings: Indopacific Bottlenose Dolphins (2 pods of >10 and >5 respectively. Both pods were seen heading towards Singapore Straits with one pod spending some time at the fishermen's net.)

Courtesy of Con, below link to his write up and wonderful pictures. http://confoley.com/trip-to-parit-jawa

List of Birds seen at S. Balang (SB), Parit Jawa (PJ), Malacca Straits (MS) and Muar (M) from 25-27/11/11:

1)White-Bellied Sea Eagle (1)
2) Brahminy Kite (>10)
3) Eastern Marsh Harrier (1 Juvenile was sighted at SB)
4) Pied Harrier (2, 1 sighting each at M and SB)
5) Accipiter Sp. (2, 1 sighting each at SB and PJ)
6) Black-Winged Kite (>4, sighting of 1 pair each at SB and M)
7) Wood Sandpiper (>100 at M and SB)
8) Common Sandpiper (>10 at M, SB and PJ)
9) Terek Sandpiper (>50 at PJ)
10) Common Greenshank (>3 at M and PJ)
11) Common Redshank (>50 at PJ)
12) Lesser Sand Plover (>100 at PJ)
13) Little Ringed Plover (>30 at SB and M)
14) Pacific Golden Plover (>30 at M, SB and PJ.)
15 Eurasian Curlew (4 at PJ)
16) Whimbrel (1 at PJ)
17) Little Egret
18) Cattle Egret
19) Great Egret
20) Intermediate Egret
21) Purple Heron
22) Grey Heron
23) Little Heron (>3 at SB and PJ)
24) Black-Crowned Night Heron (3 were seen returning to roost at PJ at dawn)
25) Pond Heron sp.
26) Lesser Adjutant (>20 at SB and PJ)
27) Greater Spotted Eagle (>2 were seen at SB, including 1 juvenile and 1 adult)
28) Chinese Goshawk (1 juvenile was seen at SB)
29) Little Tern (>10 at PJ and MS)
30) White-Winged Tern (>20 at PJ and MS)
31) Whiskered Tern (1 adult was seen at PJ)
32) Barn Swallow
33) Red-Rumped Swallow (1 bird was id at SB)
34) Pacific Swallow
35) Swiftlet sp.
36) Brown Shrike
37) Long-Tailed Shrike (2, 1 pair was seen at M)
38) Greater Racket-Tailed Drongo (1 bird was seen along the road)
39) Black Drongo (>8 at SB)
40) Black-Capped Kingfisher (1 at SB)
41) Collared Kingfisher
42) White-Throated Kingfisher
43) Stork-Billed Kingfisher (h)
44) Red-Necked Stint (>50 at PJ. As the birds were very far from us, even through the scope, we were not able to pick out any subtle difference in plumages to positively id any individual as little stint and we assumed all to be red-necked stints on the grounds of the higher likelihood of occurrence.)
45) Long-Toed Stint (>10 at SB)
46) Curlew Sandpiper (3 at PJ)
47) Yellow-Vented Bulbul
48) Black-Naped Oriole
49) Asian Koel
50) Little Bronze Cuckoo (h)
51) Rock Pigeon (>3 at SB and M)
52) Pink-Necked Pigeon
53) Spotted Dove
54) Zebra Dove
55) Oriental Reed Warbler (>5 at SB and M)
56) Rusty-Rumped Warbler (>3 at SB)
57) Zitting Cisticola (2 at SB)
58) Olive-Backed Sunbird (1 eclipse male at PJ)
59) Blue-Tailed Bee-Eater
60) Barn Owl (2 at SB, including 1 adult and 1 juvenile were seen inside a nest box that was one of the many installed at the Padi fields.)
61) Purple Swamphen (>5 at M)
62) Common Moorhen (>7 at M)
63) Watercock (2 at SB)
64) White-Breasted Waterhen
65) Ruddy Breasted Crake (1 at M)
66) White-Browed Crake (1 at M)
67) Cinnamon Bittern
68) Yellow Bittern
69) Lesser Whistling Duck (1 at M)
70) Common Snipe (>1, including 1 bird that was positively id in flight at SB)
71) Snipe sp.
72) Yellow Wagtail
73) Paddyfield Pipit
74) Eurasian Tree Sparrow
75) Oriental Pratincole (>50 at SB)
76) Dollarbird
77) Red-Wattled Lapwing
78) Barred Buttonquail (1at SB)
79) Magpie Robin
80) Golden Flameback (1 at M)
81) Brown Hawk Owl (h at PJ)
82) Common Myna
83) Javan Myna
84) Gerygone (h at PJ)
85) Scarlet-Backed Flowerpecker (h at PJ)
86) Red-Collared Dove (>20 at SB)
87) Scaly-Breasted Munia (>300 at SB)
88) White-Headed Munia (2 at SB)
89) Baya Weaver (>20 at M and SB)
90) House Crow
91) Large-Billed Crow
92) Glossy Starling
93) Great Crested Tern (2 at MS)
94) Aleutian Tern (>10 at MS)
95) Common Tern (2 at MS)
96) Swinhoe's Storm Petrel (1 all-dark petrel-like bird was seen and suggested to be of this species because of flight (close to the water surface with slight changes in direction, typical of passing Swinhoe's Storm Petrels along the Singapore Straits), darkish appearance, pigeon-headed and paler upperwing coverts.)

Aleutian Terns