A Malaysian Birder

Day Trip 8th April 2018 - 3 species of Pitta

Another trip with Henk. Yes, he is back in KL. We have traveled to several different habitats before but this time we are covering the open country and small patches of mangrove at the coast. Highlight for this trip is the 3 species of Pitta in a short period of time. Amazing and it was lots of fun birding with him. Very determined and birding with patience.

"This is the first time for my wife and I to visit Peninsular Malaysia, and we want a professional guide to strengthen the success of this trip, so we contact Weng Chun for the arrangement. He answered our questions quickly, also tried to understand the way we used to birding and take photos, also given a detail plan for us, we had a very good first impression and decided to have this tip with him. As flexible birders we brought binoculars and hand-held camera gears without tripods. Weng Chun adjusted the trip plan with more flexibility to meet our demands, which made us to see and take photos of more bird species even some tough targets. He also paid lot of attention to our food and accommodation situation and make sure we're fine and comfortable for all the logistic arrangement, very considerate. Weng Chun has expertise and rich knowledge as a birding guide, and also excellent eyesignt and hearing that always can find hidden birds or calling, which helped us to find a lot new species that we were not aware, so impressive! In a word, we quite enjoyed this 7-days fruitful trip with Weng Chun, couldn't be better. If you want a professional birding tour guide in Peninsular Malaysia, Weng Chun is highly recommended!" - Jimmy, Taiwan

I only guided 2 birders. This photo at the top of this post shows my guests were surrounded by 2 big groups of photographers from China and Taiwan, as well as 2 local couples. For 7 days, we covered the highlands, lowland forest and coastal grassland / patches of mangrove trees. Lots of good birds because we managed to cover more grounds walking around without tripods. Ok, I had a tripod but it was a lightweight tripod for my spotting scope. :D

Guided my first Philippines guest today! Benjamin is an avid bird photographer and he has his favorite species of birds. So we went out looking for Kingfisher and Pitta.

Sudip was on a family trip and he contacted me for guiding in the hill station. He arrived on the day when I was leaving on 25th March. Yes, it's a back-to-back trip at Fraser's Hill. Tiring? Yes, definitely but it is the joy of meeting new birding guest (friend) and seeing happy faces encourage me to continue my work as a bird guide. His daughter already showing an early sign of becoming a birder, she is so interested with the birds and she can even remembered the names very very well.

Out in the field again for another 3 days covering the mangrove of Kuala Selangor and the highlands of Fraser's Hill. Exciting trip too! Broadbills, Barbets, Partridge and of course not forgeting a close encounter with the Brown Wood Owl twice!

I went to check out Krau forest early morning. Met a birding tour group and a local photographer there. It is good to see some keen birders around.

2 sites in a day. Possible. But make sure keep track of the time. Met a few avid birders in the highland where we were targeting the Mountain Peacock Pheasant and Ferruginous Partridge. DIPPED on the partridge! We left around 9-10am after getting no sign of the partridge. The info I received from other local photographers who stayed on until middle of the day, the partridge eventually came out but very very late. Oh well, we need to cover another site which is another 1 - 1.5 hours away from the highland. Target in the lowland forest.....Rail-babbler. But instead we were rewarded with several babblers, bulbuls and a magnificent view of a Green Broadbill!

Hulu Langat is Great!

The forest in Hulu Langat is just incredible. This place is just short of 1 hour drive from my home and technically my new 'office' :D

"My wife and I are serious birders from the USA. We frequently find ourselves in Bangkok for work assignments, and one of our favorite birding destinations while in Asia is Peninsular Malaysia. There a tremendous variety of quality birds and habitat within a few hours of a major international airport at Kuala Lumpur. There is also a fantastic guide, Weng Chun, based out of KL, who can maximize your success in the area. We have now taken two birding trips in Malaysia with Weng in the past thirteen months. Both trips have been very good; the first trip being our introduction to birding in this country, and the second being aimed at a broader range of habitats and the goal of picking up some of the tougher species not seen on the first trip. I sent Weng a long list of targets and he came up with a detailed plan that was very successful. Weng has an extensive knowledge of the area and knows specific places that yield specific birds; he also is a great 'ear-birder' and never misses a vocalization - I frequently record songs and calls while birding and then compare with xeno-canto after (and share them there if they are high enough quality) - and verified that Weng was always spot-on with his IDs. And importantly for me, he has the patience to help me find obscure or well-hidden birds that challenge my poor eyesight. We will be in Bangkok for the rest of 2018 and will certainly go out with Weng again. Very highly recommended." - Michael, USA

2nd birding trip with Michael and Claire! It's always nice to have birders coming back and be able to guide them again. We only had a day in Fraser's Hill during our 1st birding, but this time, Michael gave me a list of birds that he wanted to see. I recommended Krau / Bukit Rengit and Fraser's Hill. In the morning, we managed to get a good species off from the target list which include Large-tailed Nightjar, Black Hornbill, Little Green Pigeon, Stork-billed Kingfisher, Blue-crowned Hanging Parrot, Little Bronze Cuckoo, Banded Bay Cuckoo, Sooty-capped Babbler, Black Magpie, Grey-and-Buff Woodpecker, Banded Broadbill, Black-and-Yellow Broadbill, and a few others.

It was almost middle of the day, so we took a short break at the bird hide and joined a part of 7-8 bird photographers there.

Upon arrival at Fraser's Hill, we wasted no time and headed to the spot for Malaysian Partridge. We were not alone. This partridge is an attraction to many bird watchers and photographers. There were 6 photographers with us for almost 1.5 hours but they left after not getting any response from the partridge and it started to drizzle. We were the reluctant birders! We stayed on ..... then I heard Large Cuckooshrike and quickly alerted Michael and Claire. We retraced our steps back to the "blind" and got a better view of Emerald Dove. Suddenly the partridge called! and it popped up and gave us a few minutes look at it.... well worth the wait. After dinner, we nailed 2 Grey Nightjar. No owl....everything so quiet....very windy. We called it a day.

In the morning after breakfast, we drove towards our birding stop.....unfortunately a tree fell and blocked the road. It was a very....very....very windy last night and this morning. So we had no other choice but turn around and use the other way to reach our birding stop.

This is the look from the other side of the road. Anyway, I told Michael and Claire to stay focus on our targets. We just need a White-tailed Robin. But Mugimaki Flycatcher came out first, got chased away by Rufous-browed Flycatcher. Large Niltava was calling but never show up. Then, Claire pointed out a silhouette of a bird at a distance. Can't see much details ... I had to take out the scope and luckily the bird was still there. It was an Orange-headed Thrush (unexpected but it is inside the list of targets). After a few more minutes, The robin showed up! Great view!!!! can't complaint. Drove down to the Gap and back up the hill station in the next few hours. It was pretty quiet. Although we managed to ticked a few targets. Then, I suggested that we depart early to the airport and stop by a botanical park to get Pitta(s). They agreed because they have never see a Pitta before (who would ever say NO to Pitta).

We walked quite a bit to reach the stakeout for the Blue-winged Pitta and yes, like any other birds, we waited for a while...entertained by a family of Dusky Leaf Monkey. Next, our target is Hooded Pitta which requires to walk a little bit more but along the way, we ticked Grey-breasted Spiderhunter and Spectacled Spiderhunter. After getting the Hooded Pitta, we also had Little Spiderhunter and Green-backed Flycatcher. That ended our birding chase for this time. Hope to see Michael and Claire again after they completed their planned trips to several countries in Southeast Asia.

During this 12-days tour, we had most of our birding affected by unfavorable weather condition, lots of rain and mist. We were made to work harder than usual to get views of our target birds. Some species eventually made it into the trip list.

Jan birding in Fraser's Hill

"I had a great day with Wengchun in Frasers Hill. He knows the site very well and is very, very enthusiastic about birds. He really put in a lot of effort to show me as many birds as possible and to put me on a bird when I could not find it. In my opinion he is doing a superb job as a birdguide and it was a pleasure birding with Wengchun. I would definetly recommend him!" - Jan, Germany

This is the first visit for Jan to this region. Apart from covering Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand, I had the opportunity to show him around Fraser's Hill. We drove up to the hill station very early in the morning so that we can get to see some of the finest birds. Weather wise, it is not the best, but we just need to proceed with the plan - birding. No one should leave Fraser's Hill without seeing Silver-eared Mesia and Rufous-browed Flycatcher. Both with its own distinct features that capture our attention.

Silver-eared Mesia

Apart from the Silver-eared Mesia, some of the other species we have observed: Long-tailed Sibia, Chestnut-capped Laughinthrush, Chestnut-crowned Laughingthrush, Little Pied Flycatcher, Rufous-browed Flycatcher, Streaked Spiderhunter, Black-throated Sunbird, Malayan Partridge, Common Green Magpie and Wreathed Hornbill.

One of the few squirrels we encountered during the day trip is a Grey-bellied Squirrel.

Lothar is back again. Together we went 'hunting' for target species early in the morning until afternoon. We only spent time looking around our usual birding grounds. Plenty of birds came out to greet us including Black-and-Yellow Broadbill, Black-and-Red Broadbill, Black Magpie, Dark-sided Flycatcher, Pale Blue Flycatcher, Ferruginous Flycatcher, Arctic Warbler, Bar-winged Flycatcher-shrike, Pin Striped Tit-babbler, Hairy-backed Bulbul, Stripe-throated Bulbul, Buff-vented Bulbul, Yellow-breasted Flowerpecker, Yellow-eared Spiderhunter, Spectacled Spiderhunter, Little Green Pigeon, White-bellied Sea-eagle, Blue-tailed Bee-eater, Oriental Magpie Robin, Banded Woodpecker, Maroon Woodpecker, White-chested Babbler and others. But the highlights would be the 2 species of Hornbills and the kingfisher....