Last weekend (17 to 19th January) i went to Fraser's Hill for my first 2014 birding there taking advantage of the Thaipusam Holiday which was celebrated by the Hindus nation wide. Unfortunately, that means everybody else was also doing the same thing, so as expected the crowd was heavy. There were the normal folks, families, kids; then there were organized convoys of car clubs, heavy bikes, scooters and dirt bikes. The hotels were full which was good for business. Unfortunately, it was not so good for birders and birding as the sound of cars, big bikes and people scared away the birds. Add to that the heavy mist and cold weather birding was miserable. It was very rare when to have heavy mist that would not go away for two straight days with visibility around 30meters in some places and the temperature dipping to around 15celcius with strong wind in Fraser's Hill specifically and Malaysia generally as we are in the tropics.However, birders being birders come what may we have to make do with the weather and still try our best to get a few shots of the birds unless there is a very heavy rain which make the whole thing pointless.
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| Heavy mist throughout the trip |
DAY 1 - I managed to get a few shots of male and female Little Pied Flycatchers,Striated Spiderhunters and Crimson-breasted Oriole within a few hours of available light to me due to the heavy mist. Fortunately, they came quite close to the roadside so the visibility was good even though it was quite late in the afternoon.
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| Male Little Pied Flycatcher |
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Female Little Pied Flycatcher
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Striated Spiderhunters
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Striated Spiderhunters
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| Crimson-breasted Oriole |
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| Crimson-breasted Oriole |
DAY 2 - Very poor birding due to the weather. I managed to shoot a Drongo in the pine forest area behind the horse paddock but the exposure was very bad due to the weather despite using a flash gun, not worth posting the photo here.
DAY 3 - The weather improved in the morning with much less mist however occassionally they came back, you know how it is like in the mountain(almost 5000 feet elevation from the sea) which is very unpredictable. However, this last day was the most productive as i managed to capture photos of one of the most elusive species - the Green Magpies, and a female Leafbird, along with Fire-tufted Barbet and a Fire-breasted Flowerpecker. I had to resort to using ferns cut from the road side to camouflage my tripod and camera as the Green Magpies are a bit of a shy species. Using camo gave me time to get good shots and get closer to them without scaring them away. However, i should not wear jeans the next time i go birding as you can see no amount of camo can cover the blue color unless i use a lot of leaves which is troublesome in case i need to move to better spots.
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using ferns for camo helps
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The birds would come to the edge of the road looking for insects
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The area where the Green Magpies came out looking for insects
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| The beautiful Green Magpy |
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My favorite Fire-tufted Barbet
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Fire-tufted Barbet
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Fire-breasted Flowerpecker
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Female Leafbird
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| Black-throated Sunbird |
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Black-throated Sunbird
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My third day birding finished with a few shots of Black-throated Sunbird. All in all, it was a good trip considering the nuisance of the weather, bikers and car club convoys and the folks coming to me asking what i was doing, that i managed to get almost a dozen species( Silver-eared Mesia, Longtail Sibia, Chestnut Laughing Thrush and Oriental Magpies was not included inside this post) photos for my blog. It was a good beginning for birding for 2014 and i hope the next trip will be as productive if not more.
I hope you enjoy watching the photos. Happy birding. Cheers.
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