Natural Talent.

Just imagine, never used a dslr before, have no experience in birding..

when the camera was given to her, Showed how to operate the manual focus knob on the Tair 300mm manual focus lens.. And her result is one of this.. One of it is my shot.. Same bird same branch..can guess which is hers?





That is what I say is a natural talent.. for myself, i took few years to improve my bird pictures .

What if her skills is honed, given the proper equipment, perhaps she could be a good photographer. No doubt..

Now is my so and so shot of the rufous-browed flycatcher sponsored by HSBC ;)



btw: her shot is the second pic.

here is another shot.. what do you think?

Rufous-browed Flycatcher
Sambar Leher Putih

Teriakan Ular Tedung

Semalam aku ke tempat biasa aku memburung. Kali ni aku menuju ke taman koko. Di situ pokok-pokoknya koko agak rendah, senang untuk mengambil gambar burung-burung yang hinggap di dahan pokok koko yang agak rendah, sekitar 2-3 meter.

Oleh kerana ia bukanlah kawasan hutan, aku terus masuk dan mencari burung lalu celah-celah pokok koko. Kedengaran kicauan burung perenjak,aku ekori mereka mencari makan. Dapatlah sekali memetik 'shutter'. Susah juga kerana mereka amat lincah untuk diambil gambar..

Lalu aku bergerak ke arah pokok-pokok kelapa sawit. Nampak seperti banyak burung merbah dan tiung sedang memakan biji sawit.

Tiba-tiba terbang dari belakang ku, seekor enggang hinggap di ke pokok kelapa sawit .

Enggang Kelingking @ Oriental Pied Hornbill

Sekejap saja ia hilang dari pandangan mata...

Aku bergerak lebih dekat lalu di bawah pokok yang banyak daun kering di bawahnya...

Hriiiiieeekkk..... Seekor Ular Tedung berdiri setinggi lututku dari bawah daun-daun kering itu.. bunyi nya seakan kucing yang dipijak ekornya..

Seperti automatik.. aku terus mengangkat kaki tripod menghalakan kepada ular itu...sambil aku mengundur ke balakang, setapak demi setapak..

Ular itu tetap berdiri tegak sambil mengeluarkan lidahnya yang merah.. selepas beberapa saat, mungkin merasakan tiada lagi dalam bahaya.. ia pun menghilangkan dirinya...

Alhamdulilah aku selamat, sayang sekali tangan aku mengeletar teramat sangat untuk menangkap gambar ular tadi sedang berdiri... aku cuba mencari ular tadi dengan teropong, tidak ketemu...

Langit nampak mendung, setelah mengambil beberapa gambar burung merbah kapur, aku pun berjalan keluar ke pintu keluar.

Tahu nama saya!

Ada beberapa burung yang diberikan namanya mengikut bunyi yang di buatnya.. contohnya burung bubut dan ruak-ruak.. burung ini juga namanya sama dengan bunyinya..

cuba baca perbualannya dengan pucung keladi ;)




Sudah dapat agak?

"uhhh wuuuhhhhh"

mungkin susah di tulis dalam tulisan arab... jadi dieja 'ta' 'wau' yang sebutan nya jadi "tau"

akhirnya jadi burung tahu atau tuwu.
itulah andaian saya mengenai asal nama burung ini..

Daun dan ranting

Sekarang adalah musim membiak untuk burung-burung tempatan. Kita dapat lihat burung-burung sibuk mencari pasangan, mengawan dan membina sarang.

Seperti Murai Kampung ini membawa daun-daun penuh dalam paruhnya..

Semasa ia membawa bahan-bahan binaan ke sarangnya, ia melihat sekeliling takut-takut ada yang melihat kedudukan sarangnya, setelah rasa selamat baru ia ke sarangnya..

Burung Takau Rakit ini juga kelihatan sedang membawa sebatang ranting di dalam paruhnya..


Takau Rakit
Black-and-red Broadbill
(Cymbirhynchus macrochynchus)

lama ia menunggu dengan ranting di dalam paruhnya... setelah saya beredar baru ia terbang. Rupa-rupanya sarangnya berada betul-betul di atas tempat saya berdiri tadi.. rupanya ia menunggu saya beredar dari situ ;)..

Cameron Highlands

During the Chinese New Year holidays, I took a gamble to went up to Cameron Highlands for birding. It has been 3 or four days after CNY already, so I tought the hotels might be a bit clear and might get a room cheaply.. I didnt make any reservations then.. hehe..

By the time I went to the first cheap accomodation of my choice, the place already fully booked. So I went to downtown Tanah Rata where there are quite a selection of hotels available, got a rm70 per night room and without wasting my time went to search for the trails..

Fortunately I got my Sgps enabled phone and with malsingmaps, got there in no time..

I picked trail 3 for the afternoon.. Quite an experience as I entered the mossy forest alone, the earth is like sponge, almost under every tree there is a hole ,like any creature might pounce at me.. hehe...

The moss is everywhere... at the branches, at the trunk, on the ground, on the rocks... There are birds there alright, but the darkening sky and shadow of the trees doesnt help in getting a descent photo. And spoting them is quite hard on my first day.. The whining sound that keep following me doesnt help either..;)

The next day, I was the first one to went out of the hotel, have to wake up the keeper to open the door. Have 2 half boiled eggs and teh-tarik for breakfast and go off to the parit falls..

How this Fraser Hill bird got here?

Silver-eared Mesia
Rimba Telinga Putih
(Leithrix argentauris)

then took the trail to the forestry dept, A rather distict "tiiieeeennnngg" sound coming from the river. I just dismiss it for now for I just cant find what makes that sound..

At last got this bird that are mocking me at fraser... laughing then hide from me...

Chestnut-capped Laughingthrush
Rimba Mata Putih
(Garrulax mitratus)
The drizzle didnt stop me...

On the way back to my car, managed to spot the bird that make the "tiiieeeennnngg" sound. It a Slaty Backed Forktail!

Slaty-backed Forktail
Cegar Tengkuk Kelabu
(Enicurus schistaceus)

It went upstream and downstream from time to time, just wish it land nearer.

It basically ended up my birding for the morning before I check out at noon.

After searching around at Tanah Rata and Brinchang for affordable accomodation without success, I figure that I just went down before dark.

I stop by a stall by the roadside selling fried bananas and drinks. A foreign couple stop by ask for direction to parit falls from the 'makcik' the goreng pisang seller. The makcik gave directions to the robinson falls instead. Huh! talking about local knowledge.!

After finishing my 'cekodok', I drive my car to the robinson falls. If I see the couple maybe could give them a ride to the right location but they are nowhere until I reach the falls. Only as I walk in did I see them coming out. Boy! they do walk fast!

At the robinson falls, I saw this lone male

Grey Wagtail
Kedidi Kepala Kelabu
(Motacilla cinerea)

foraging on the rock. I just spend my time watching it until the time to go back home.

btw: The whining sound on the first day is my own breathing, its soo quiet there. ;)

The cattle and the egret.

So lucky of me to catch this two together.


As the name suggest, this egret like to hang around cattles, but why?

Lets observe what it does..


Intently looking at the flies.. maybe it was thinking, "What happen if I just jab my beak?"

Well, it doesnt.. it easier to pick up the flies that landed on the grass.



The cattle is quite confortable having the egret around, maybe the cattle egret cuts back the number of flies it have to endure.


Cattle Egret
Bangau Kerbau

Bitten by the bittern bug

Its late afternoon, I picked a spot with my back against the sun.. The water just a feet below me.. With the trees along the highway being felled, no sign of the purple heron which always perch at the tallest branches. Only the crit crit sound of the fast flying swallows fill the air..

Once a while, a 'eeekk ek ek ek' sound coming from the reeds. Some bittern must be around.. I kept my silence..

Not until its nearly sunset, did a bittern finally show it self. Keeping my self well hidden, I took a few shot..



A beautiful bittern indeed. I kept myself hidden until it went away..

The next day, I went again to the spot. Maybe luck will be with me today..

I wait and wait.. not until it was very late.. 7.20pm, it landed at a clear spot amongst the reeds..


Not near enough but ok for me... As I am shooting without flash, I had to bump the ISO to 800 resulting in quite noisy photo..

The next day, I went again.. hoping its My 3 days lucky.. but the bittern didnt show it self..

Then after 10 days... I saw it.. Clear view!

crept closer and shoot!


Black Bittern
Pucung Hitam

Well worth the hundreds of mosquito bites I had to endure waiting..

Hati Nyamuk anyone?

* hati nyamuk='mosquitoes heart' as requested by the princess of gunung ledang in the malay folk stories.

Drifting like a log.

I think I have improved my techique in shooting from a canoe..It is like drifting log..

about 10 meters from the bird, I angled my canoe to go pass in front of the bird going nearer and nearer..then give a gentle push with my paddle.

Perhaps this photo sequence would show it better

you can see the bird getting bigger and bigger..

this is the last frame of the sequence



fortunately I didnt flush out the bird..

I also get this reflection of the bird in the water


I notice a pelican(undan) are perching on the tree branches at the side of the lakes.. which is a good thing since a few years back, theres is no Burung Undan(Pelican) at The Pulau Undan(Pelican Island) which is the name given to one of the island.



A little more forward, I would be the target of the Pelican Poo.. Directly under it.

Dragons galore

Some of the beautiful tropical Dragonflies found during my hunt for birds...

These species I found near pool or lakes

Urothemis signata (male)
Common red color ones


Trithemis aurora (male)
red color with a violet thorax

At Paya Indah,Dengkil got this interesting dragonfly,
Rhyothemis phyllis (female)
read from somewhere, it is called a saddleback because of the colour on the broad hind wings.

Even in the jungle trails can see them

This beautiful metalic blue dragonfly perching on a spiny nipah leaves
Cratilla metallica (female)

also this orange and green coloured dragonfly
Lathrecista asiatica (female)

This dragonfly is almost invisible as it sit still on a tree trunk
Tyriobapta torrida (male)

This is how one dragonfly lays its egg (Ovipositing) in a pool of water..
. Orthetrum sp (female)
I just learn about this behavior from Tabib in Kemensah..

I tried to identify it from references in the internet, but I found it to be much harder than identifying birds.. ;) better leave it to the expert..

This blog seems to be a good reference for malaysian dragonflies
Odonata of Peninsular Malaysia

Update:Ian from odonata-malaysia have kindly identified the dragonflies here. Species names in italics

The Interceptor

"Landing strip clear, arrestor wires ready..You are cleared to land!"

Flaps down, wire in sight...


"Contact!"

No arrestor wires, no landing strip, just a single barbed wire. Now, that is I called precission.

what does the Blue-taled Beeater catch in the air?


a bee of course..


Hey, this time its not a bee. its a flying ant.

All caught in the air, impressive!

Otter in the klang river..

On 15 Jan 2010, I again spotted the Smooth Otter family in my patch



They makes a peculiar wave when they swim which is highly visible.



I can see they swim in a group, sometimes taking a dip underwater.

Here is a pic of them back in 2008

Berteman lebih baik.

Suatu petang seekor burung ruak-ruak turun ke sungai untuk mandi.



"Di sini macam tak selamat saja, risau pula mandi sendirian. Di sana tu ada Pucung Keladi sedang bertenggek. Mungkin lagi selamat rasanya", fikir Ruak-ruak.



Sampai di depan burung Pucung Keladi, burung Ruak-Ruak pun mandi sepuas-puasnya.

Selesai sahaja burung Ruak-ruak mandi, datang seekor biawak berenang di dalam air. Mungkin Ruak-ruak akan menjadi makanan sang biawak jika ia leka mandi sendirian.



Moral cerita: Jika berasa tidak selamat,elok berteman.

Rafting birds

Normally after work, I went for an late afternoon birding by the klang river bank. I pick a spot and waiting for the birds come to me.

The river isnt very clean actually..there are human floating trash carried by the water and some birds learn to use them.

Like this Chinese Pond Heron(Pucung Cina)




using a big plastic bag full of garbage. very untoughtfull of whoever throwing that in the river.

a Little Egret(Bangau Kecil also has been using this method, they fly up to the river and raft down fishing for fish..



Shooting is pretty easy too! just wait wait for them to float near and then click!

See the size of the Little Heron (Pucung Keladi)compared to the milk carton.


I think I will continue to watch this floating thrash in the river until people change their attitude which is never I think..

Main sorok-sorok.

Satu hari seekor burung Kelicap Mayang Kelapa betina (Brown-throated Sunbird) sedang mencari makanan di bunga pokok yang saya tidak ketahui namanya, lalu datang lah seekor merbah kapur datang menyapa.

mungkin sang kelicap tidak berapa suka kehadiran merbah, terus menyorok.



Merbah berpusing keliling pokok mencari kelicap

Berjumpa juga ..



tapi sesuatu telah mengalih perhatian merbah, ia memandang ke arah lain

Cepat - cepat kelicap terbang lari



Terus hilang sampai terpinga-pinga merbah dibuatnya..



Teringat saya akan cerita kawan saya, tentang burung besar yang hinggap di depannya dan hilang sekelip mata hingga menimbulkan perasaan seram padanya..

Pada saya, memang sifat burung, sekali terlepas pandang, burung akan terbang menghilangkan diri dan sekalipun ia berdiam diri, kita takkan perasan ia didepan mata.

Year of the tiger...

its nearly entering the year of the tiger, according to the Chinese Calender..I havent shoot a wild tiger yet, but I have this



My first clear shot of an adult Tiger Shrike.(Tirjup Harimau)

I'm wishing all my chinese birding friends a happy Chinese New Year!

100th post already ;p

'Shoot me if u can..:P ', says the skink..


Hey! dont shoot from the back...thats illegal... :P



Common Sun Skink
Mengkarung
Mabuya multifasciata