Sungei Buloh 29Mar26

From KH

Danny and I went to Sungei Buloh today. Nice to see a Blue-eared Kingfisher at the visitor centre pond.

Not many species of waders, just 1 Common Sandpiper, 10 Eurasian Whimbrels and 30 Common Redshanks.

Eurasian Whimbrels

Common Redshanks

Common Snakehead in the pond.

Lots of egrets at the main hide.

Eastern Cattle Egret

Little Egrets

Medium Egret

Great Egret

Plus the local Grey Heron.

Asian Openbill tackling Geloina shellfish.

A flock of 13 Lesser Adjutants! There are some of them.

Good spotting by Danny, a Common Greenback.

Oriental Whip Snakes mating, heads down, alarming Copper-throated and Brown-throated Sunbirds and Ashy Tailorbirds.

Water Monitor eating catfish.

A huge Estuarine Crocodile more than 3m long.

Smooth Otter, you would make a nice meal for the croc, so you better sprint!

Common Treeshrew came out to play on the trail.

Batik Golden Web Spider and tentweb weaver Cyrtophora web.

Kinabatangan 09Jun18 late afternoon

From KH

At 4 pm, it was back to the river.

First, a pair of White-breasted Woodswallows.

Then, a Lesser Adjutant flew past.

Purple Herons were common here.

Both of these kingfishers were common too.

Stork-billed Kingfisher

Blue-eared Kingfisher

Black and Oriental Pied Hornbills were also common.

Male Black Hornbill. Female Oriental Pied Hornbill with fruit in mouth.

The Wrinkeld Hornbills (female above, male below) were not so common though.

Proboscis Monkeys were hanging out: the females were grooming their youngs, while a male was munching away.

River prawns for dinner!

These Bearded Pigs were here again!

1. 1 Lesser Adjutant
2. 1 Oriental Darter
3. 10 Purple Heron
4. 5 Green Imperial-Pigeon
5. 3 Greater Coucal - Heard
6. 1 Violet Cuckoo - Heard
7. 1 Brush Cuckoo - Heard
8. 5 Plume-toed Swiftlet
9. 30 dark swiftlet sp.
10. 1 White-crowned Hornbill
11. 1 Rhinoceros Hornbill - Heard
12. 1 Bushy-crested Hornbill - Heard
13. 3 Black Hornbill
14. 5 Oriental Pied-Hornbill
15. 2 Wrinkled Hornbill - A pair
16. 3 Blue-eared Kingfisher
17. 2 Stork-billed Kingfisher
18. 5 Blue-throated Bee-eater
19. 2 Blue-eared Barbet - Heard
20. 1 Red-throated Barbet - Heard
21. 3 Blue-crowned Hanging-Parrot
22. 2 Black-and-red Broadbill
23. 1 Black-and-yellow Broadbill - Heard
24. 1 Black-winged Flycatcher-shrike
25. 2 White-breasted Woodswallow
26. 2 Malaysian Pied-Fantail
27. 1 Black-naped Monarch - Heard
28. 5 Slender-billed Crow
29. 4 Ashy Tailorbird
30. 1 White-chested Babbler - Heard
31. 1 White-rumped Shama (White-crowned) - Heard

Mt Faber, Poyan 16-17Dec12

From Con at Mt Faber on 17 Dec

Since Mt. Faber is close I went over for about 1.5 hours this morning. No sign of the ashy drongo, there was dollarbird on the tree instead.

A changeable hawk-eagle flew past a couple of times, once with nesting material. I couldn’t see where it took the nesting material and I didn’t search the old nest area to see if it was there. But it’s nesting somewhere close by.

Briefly a pale morph Changeable Hawk-eagle perched on the bare tree, just unfortunately blocked by a branch in front.

From Danny at Mt Faber on 16 Dec

Took a walk around Mt Faber this morning as the weather was cooling. Seen from afar, a dark morph CHE perched on a familiar tree just beyond the slope side garden (recall Ashy Drongo) off Mt Faber Point. On arrival, it started to drizzle, then the bird wave started around the tree right at the end of the park. The rains started but I was sheltered below the tree as waves of Striped Tit-babblers, Bulbuls (Yellow-vented & Olive-winged), Crimson Sunbirds, Arctic Warblers, Greater Racket-tailed Drongoes and the distinctive grey morph Ashy Drongo swooped in & out diving for insects. Seen and heard the ASHY calling the distinctive 2-note "wu-wheez" amidst the chorus around me.

After 15 min the rains stopped, as I stepped away from my shelter, the birds were still at it even though the CHE was just on the bare tree about twenty feet away oblivious to the wild party (probably already finished breakfast). Then it suddenly quiet down, looking up saw the shadow of a tiny raptor, as it swooped low and circled twice, the streaks & barring on the underpart and wing shape was an unmistakable juvenile Japanese Sparrowhawk. After it flew off, one White-throated Kingfisher flew in with its Alarm calls signalling all clear and time for me to move on. What a beautiful Sunday morning.

Recently came across a male Grey Nightjar sleeping high on a tree branch at Mt Faber. Usually consider a dour, drab looking bird, he does have a colorful underpart.

From Danny at Poyan on 16 Dec

On Sunday eveing, I dropped in to Poyan to look for any duck. Too bad live firing was going on but at the pond next to guard house, the Blue-eared Kingfisher was around feeding, caught two big fish while I was around. On the way out the Buffy Fish-owl was still around at the flooded end of the Malay cemetery, likely going to breed soon.

Buffy Fish-owl

Blue-eared Kingfisher

Mt Faber, BBNP 19Sep10

From Danny

In the morning saw my 1st Eastern Crowned Warbler of the season at Mt Faber car park A, followed by the 1st Tiger Shrike for the season. As for why no adult plumages for Tiger Shrike, refer to Forktail Aug 2010, pages 24-25. Essentially, Tiger Shrike moults twice in a year.

Saw a pair of Blue-throated Bee-eaters mating on a bare tree at Mt Faber & before long a third bird came along and all three thermal high up before flying off towards north. Well one day such info maybe useful to anyone studying the migration of bee-eaters.

Went to BBNP in the late afternoon after tip off from Kim Chuah. JS reached the first look-out (from the Tower) about 5.20 pm and saw the Yellow-vented Flowerpecker but I came along later and missed. Heard the BEKF calling and later found out from Jonathan, there were many photographers at the pond chasing the BEKF.

Lower Peirce 27Feb10

From GC

Was at Lower Peirce Sat evening. There were some photogs at the straight stretch looking for BW Pitta and BBKF. At the Y-junction, there was a BBKF that came to bathe and a 1st winter Siberian Blue Robin male. Around 7pm, the BEKF showed up for a few minutes to shower. It looks like a male. No sign of Buffy. It did not help that a troop of macaques moved through the big trees.

Lower Peirce 07Feb10

From KH

I was at Lower Peirce this evening. Initially, I was patiently waiting at the corner of the Y junction for action. The same cast of Olive-winged Bulbuls, Cream-vented Bulbuls, Short-tailed Babblers, a female Siberian Blue Robin and a BBKF put on the usual show.

The only difference today was, at the reservoir side of the Y junction, a pair of BEKFs were putting up a good show. A female (red bill and orange ear coverts) was sitting on the branch for the whole 30 mins I was with it (5:30 - 6 pm)! The male (mostly black bill and blue ear coverts) dropped by twice to feed the female, which would become very excited and started calling. By the time I left at 6 pm, the female was still sitting on the branch!

Tuas, Chestnut Ave 27-28Jun09

From Con

Here's the reason I missed Panti yesterday, the Zitting Cisticola chicks did fledge on Saturday 27 Jun.

Today (28 Jun) I hear about a Chestnut-bellied Malkoha nest on the bike trail at Chestnut Ave so I went to have a look. I couldn't find it but I did see a Blue-eared Kingfisher cross the bike trail twice!

Poyan 02Sep07

Danny and Con did their census at Poyan. There are substantially less birds counted during the FMBC probably due to the gloomy weather. Grey wagtail, ashy minivet, barn swallow and cattle egret are the 4 migrants counted in Sep. The bird of the day for the FMBC is a blue-eared kingfisher.

     MYBC07  FMBC07
     16/7/07  2/9/07
1  Red junglefowl   1    -
2  Sunda pygmy woodpecker  -   3 
3  Banded woodpecker  1    -
4  Laced woodpecker  1  2 
5  Common goldenback  3  4 
6  Coppersmith barbet  4   -
7  Lineated barbet  -    2 
8  Oriental dollarbird -   1 
9  Blue-eared kingfisher -   1 
10  White-throated kingfisher 3  3 
11  Collared kingfisher  5  1 
12  Blue-throated bee-eater  3  4 
13  Banded bay cuckoo -   1 
14  Violet cuckoo   1  -  
15  Asian koel   1  2 
16  Chestnut-bellied malkoha 2  -   
17  Lesser coucal   4   -  
18  Red-breasted parakeet -   1 
19  Long-tailed parakeet  20  12 
20  Large-tailed nightjar  1  -  
21  Spotted dove   15  9 
22  Zebra dove   4  1 
23  Pink-necked green pigeon 33  5 
24  Swiftlet   25  20 
25  Slaty-breasted rail  -   2 
26  White-breasted waterhen  1  4 
27  Red-wattled lapwing  2  -  
28  Brahminy kite   1  1 
29  White-bellied sea eagle  4  -  
30  Cattle egret  -   4 
31  Black-naped oriole  10  11 
32  Pied triller   1   -
33  Ashy minivet   -   2 
34  Greater racket-tailed drongo 4  4 
35  Common iora   3  2 
36  Oriental magpie robin  4  2 
37  Asian glossy starling  55  19 
38  Common myna  -   1 
39  White-vented myna  60  40 
40  Barn swallow  -   2 
41  Pacific swallow   1  2 
42  Straw-headed bulbul  1  2 
43  Yellow-vented bulbul  18  21 
44  Yellow-bellied prinia  3  4 
45  Common tailorbird  4  5 
46  Ashy tailorbird  -   4 
47  Dark-necked tailorbird  1   -
48  White-crested laughing thrush 5  5 
49  Striped tit babbler  1  1 
50  Scarlet-backed flowerpecker 1  3 
51  Brown-throated sunbird  -   4 
52  Olive-backed sunbird  6  4 
53  Crimson sunbird   2   -
54  Eurasian tree sparrow  20  10 
55  Grey wagtail  -   1 
56  Baya weaver   10  3 
57  Scaly-breasted munia  5  6 
58  White-headed munia  1   -
 TOTAL SPECIES   44  45 
 TOTAL NO.   377  241