A Malaysian Birder

Genting Highland 23rd February 2017

Lesser Shortwing with Nikon V1 + Nikkor CX 70-300mm VR

We missed the sunrise, but luckily we did not miss the birds. As soon as we arrived, we stationed ourselves at designated area for observing and taking photos of birds. The weather in the first hour was almost perfect, but slowly the mist approaches and ruined the session. After a few minutes the mist has cleared and we get good light! (darn it! speak too soon), another round of mist....

Nevertheless, we secured some of our target species along with a pair of Snowy-browed Flycatcher.

Siberian Thrush (Nikon V1 + Nikkor CX 70-300mm VR)

Large Niltava (Nikon V1 + Nikkor CX 70-300mm VR)

Blue-tailed Bee-eater with Nikon V1 + Nikkor CX 70-300mm VR

Today target is (again) the Crimson Sunbird, Purple-throated Sunbird and Black-and-Red Broadbill. However, we managed to secure 2 targets out of 3. No sign of the Purple-throated Sunbird. The guest today may not be interested with dark or dull birds, but I saw the 2 White-vented Myna again in the morning, this time within the park. I was also excited to see Plaintive Cuckoo at a close range, perched much lower than what I have seen on my previous trip to this park.

Plaintive Cuckoo with Nikon V1 + Nikkor CX 70-300mm VR

Kuala Sepetang / Taiping 15th - 16th February 2017

Miguel and his wife admiring a star bird on a misty morning

Easy target at the town centre however, need to pay more attention to the traffic situation here

“Weng Chun was a fantastic guide and we would highly recommend using his services. We thoroughly enjoyed our trip to Fraser's Hill and saw over 60 different types of birds and several different mammals as well! Weng Chun knew all the special locations to see particular birds and we didn't stop birdwatching even on the way home. He was able to see and hear things we could not - a real talent. We will take away a lot of knowledge from our day and try and imitate some of his skills when we return to birdwatching at home.” – Miguel & wife

Crimson Sunbird

Nikon V1 + Nikkor CX 70-300mm VR

Me and Thomas has been talking about White-vented Myna for several weeks. So today, we were lucky. We nailed the boogie bird along with other species which include Black-and-Red Broadbill, Crimson Sunbird, Plain-throated Sunbird, Pied Triller, Plaintive Cuckoo and Hooded Pitta (which is very elusive today). So what did we missed out in our target list? Let's see....Purple-throated Sunbird! Only missed out 1 target bird for today.

White-vented Myna a.k.a. Great Myna

Nikon V1 + Nikkor CX 70-300mm VR

Actually, we were just chatting while driving towards the birding spot and jokingly I said there could be White-vented Myna among all those Javan Myna by the roadside and neither of us believe our eyes when 2 different looking Myna landed on the grass. What else? I quickly stopped the car by the roadside and both of us pull out our binocular and camera to record our 1st bird of the day (a lifer for Thomas!).

While in the garden, we walked towards the Broadbill nesting site after a tip-off from other bird photographers several days ago. No effort was necessary as 1 Black-and-Red Broadbill flew past me and perched on a tree branch near where Thomas was standing. We only spent the next few minutes at the open area observing another bird perching at the opposite side of the lake before we resume our walk to look for the remaining targets. Some where near the Bottle Brush tree, we heard a Pied Triller calling. After a few seconds, there were movement up on a Melaleuca tree....a Pied Triller!!!! lifer for Thomas. Then, we walked back towards the broadbill nest. Numerous sunbirds were heard and seen with one unusually dark sunbird high up on a tree caught our attention. After carefully observing the bird, we noticed that it was not dark but reddish! That's our target - Crimson Sunbird! Hooray!!!! Somewhere near the broadbill nest, a Cuckoo was calling. We looked up, and got another lifer for Thomas in the form of Plaintive Cuckoo. And the bird really went cuckoo for several minutes before flying away. We tried hard for our next sunbird target but no avail. We just could not find or catch a glimpse of a Purple-throated Sunbird. Nevertheless it was a good day.

Before we ended our morning session, we drove to another bird stakeout for Hooded Pitta. What was suppose to be easy target turned out to be really difficult one. The Pitta didn't appear at the stakeout nor did it call. We walked around and waited.....there were Spectacled Spiderhunter and Grey-breasted Spiderhunter but still no Pitta. Knowing that the time is getting late, we walked back to the main entrance and suddenly heard the Hooded Pitta calling. It was testing our patience. We walked around and continue searching for the bird among the dried leave and logs. After few minutes, Thomas finally manage to see the bird well while I only managed a glimpse. It is still a good to end the day with a boogie bird.

Plaintive Cuckoo

Nikon V1 + Nikkor CX 70-300mm VR

Long-tailed Parakeet

Nikon V1 + Nikkor CX 70-300mm VR

An early morning drive from KL and after several hours on the North-South Highway, we reached Kuala Sepetang. For the next few hours, we found Greater Flameback which is much easier to see than Common Flameback (unlike the situation in Kuala Selangor), the uncooperative Copperthroated Sunbird, Olive-winged Bulbul, Mangrove Blue Flycatcher, Ashy Tailorbird and Chestnut-winged Babbler. There were also Crested Serpent Eagle perching silently, giving us good opportunity to see and take photographs of it. Further on, we saw Black-capped Kingfisher, Collared Kingfisher, Stork-billed Kingfisher, White-throated Kingfisher, Cinereous Tit, Pacific Swallow, Brown Shrike, Asian Glossy Starling, Yellow-rumped Flycatcher, Brahminy Kite, White-bellied Sea Eagle, Lesser Adjustant Stork, Little Egret, Great Egret, Striated (Little) Heron, and Black-crowned Night Heron.

My wife and I are serious birders and have worked with many guides around the world. We really enjoyed having Weng as our guide in Malaysia. He was willing to pick us up very early from our hotel in Kuala Lumpur so as to maximize our time at Fraser's Hill, and he helped advise us on our travel and hotel accommodations also. He is a very enthusiastic birder and his knowledge of the avifauna of Malaysia is extensive. He Despite having less than optimal weather for our trip, he helped us get a lot of the species we needed. We plan to bird with him again when our travels bring us back to Malaysia, and highy recommend him to anyone interested in finding more birds in this beautiful area.

-Michael and Claire

Met Mike and his wife very early in the morning in KL and drove up directly to the Gap. Unexpectedly, the weather was pretty dull. The first bird we saw was a Dark-necked Tailorbird followed by several other species. We decided to make our way up to the hill station hoping for better birding, but as I was driving, I heard a familiar call! Stopped the car and asked everyone to get out immediately. We hit one of the target species! a pair of Silver-breasted Broadbill. And other target birds were also recorded from this spot too. In between the Gap and the Upper Gate, we had woodpecker, laughingthrush, tailorbird, broadbill, bulbul and drongo. Unfortunately, the trogon decided to stay away from me this morning. *sigh*

Up at the hill station, we continue birding until lunch and check into the hotel for a short rest. It started to drizzle by the time we wanted to resume our birding and the situation remains until the end of the day trip. We covered the New Road in the afternoon but the weather was equally challenging. By 6pm, we called it a day.

For today, my personal favorite is the Large (Dark) Hawk Cuckoo. No doubt about it.

Bukit Tinggi & Krau Forest 15th January 2017

It was a last minute plan to go up Bukit Tinggi today. But I really think that no birder could resist the sighting of Mountain Peacock Pheasant and Ferruginous Partridge. We arrived at the stakeout just in time for both species to perform quite well. We spent the next few minutes waiting and observing both species. We left the place fully satisfied with our targets without disturbing the photographers who were at the stakeout much earlier than us. While Thomas was busy taking photographs of both species, I took a short video clip of the Ferruginous Partridge (knowing that I will not be able to get any decent shots with my portable photo gears).

The above image of Ferruginous Partridge was screen captured from a short video.

Another screen capture from the same video.

We tried to look for our other targets - Silver-breasted Broadbill, Red-bearded Bee-eater and Banded Kingfisher. Unfortunately, we could not see / hear them except a brief call from the latter. Whiel waiting at another stakeout, I told Thomas the Bushy-crested Hornbill is calling but we were not able to locate it. After a short wait and search, we walked back to the car and saw a Tiger Shrike perching quietly almost at eye level but some distance away. I drove down slowly and tried to stop at selected spots hoping to get a glimpse of any Hornbill. All of a sudden, Thomas said there were 2 big birds far away. Wasting no time, we got some photos to check for ID. "Black Hornbill" ? no way I said....carefully checking the photo, we realized that it was actually Bushy-crested Hornbill !!! Good bird...It flew passed us but neither one of us get a decent photograph of them (yes! there were 5 birds in total) flying. Soon after that, we drove towards the lowland forest in Krau (some called it Bukit Rengit while some called it Lanchang).

Grey-cheeked Bulbul (Nikon V1 + CX 70-300mm)

Yellow-bellied Bulbul (Nikon V1 + CX 70-300mm)

It was certainly another great trip to Fraser's Hill. Never fail to impress any of my guests for last 10 years and this site has been my favorite for almost 20 years since my first visit to the hill station. Despite the inconsistent weather, we managed to get almost all that we have targeted for this trip including the 2 species of trogon, glimpse of Malayan Whistling Thush (and I believe the 2 bigger looking thrush early in the morning were Blue Whistling Thrush as I have recorded them during my trip last month), 2 species of Shrike-babbler, tailorbirds, and a soaring Blyth's Hawk-Eagle. For me personally, the highlight for this trip are Green Broadbill on the first day and Brown Fulvetta on the second day.

Orange-breasted Trogon

Long-tailed Broadbill

Today I went birding with my last guest for year 2016 and so, this makes him my first guest of the year. We were already up in the highland even before sunrise on the first day of 2017! However, we were greeted by the wind and rain upon our arrival. Not giving up so easily, we waited for the visibility to improve to allow us to get our first birds for the new year. Moths were plenty and soon, the feast begins. Our first (few) birds were a pair of Mugimaki Flycatcher, Mountain Leaf Warbler, Oriental Magpie Robin, Long-tailed Sibia, Grey Wagtail, Stripe-throated Bulbul, Mountain Bulbul, Malayan Laughingthrush, Spectacled Laughingthrush, Streaked Wren-babbler, and Rufous-winged Fulvetta.

As we moved down to lower altitude, there was an incredible "bird wave" which consist of Blue Nuthatch, Orange-bellied Leafbird, Blyth's Shrike-babbler, Spectacled Laughingthrush, Sooty Barbet, Black-browed Barbet, Lesser Racket-tailed Drongo, White-throated Fantail, and also Black Laughingthrush (which concluded our Laughingthrushes without much serious effort). Before we depart from the site, I heard a Banded Kingfisher but unfortunately, it did not show itself.

Down in the lowland, we targeted for Rufous-backed Kingfisher and we managed to secure the target which was well hidden. In this forest, we also found Black-and-Yellow Broadbill, Ferruginous Flycatcher, Dark-sided Flycatcher, Green-backed Flycatcher, Checker-throated Woodpecker, Crimson-winged Woodpecker, Buff-rumped Woodpecker and so on....

We tried to look for the Malayan Night Heron which I saw with in my previous trip but no show. Anyway, it was a good start for the year.

While waiting for a friend to reply my call, I went over to a nearby park. Surprisingly there are many local folks enjoy a morning walk in this park. Unfortunately, I did not spend enough time to check what other birds can be found here apart from the Oriental Magpie Robin, Common Myna, Javan Myna, Common Iora, House Crow, and Eurasian Tree Sparrow.

It was a second birding trip to Peninsular Malaysia. We had done a trip together last year but the itinerary had to be adjusted due to the air condition back then. This time we went to the mangrove and secure our sightings for the Mangrove Whistler but no luck with Mangrove Blue Flycatcher. We even cover areas in southern part of Peninsular Malaysia. Some of the memorable / highlight species during our trip include Cinereous Tit, Sultan Tit, Lesser Adjutant Stork, Black-capped Kingfisher, Common Kingfisher, Rufous-backed Kingfisher, Sunda Pygmy Woodpecker, Bay Woodpecker, Grey-and-Buff Woodpecker, Buffy Fish Owl, Spotted Wood Owl, Ruff, Lesser Whistling Duck (lost count of the number), Large-tailed Nightjar, Grey Nightjar, Black Hornbill, Oriental Pied Hornbill, Rhinoceros Hornbill, Blue Nuthatch, White-tailed Robin, Crested Goshawk, Dusky Broadbill and so much more.