BIRDS SPOTS IN FRASER'S HILL

 

Hello all birders. Gong xi fa cai to all birders who celebrates the Chinese New Year in Malaysia and around the world. For my part i am taking the opportunity to spend the holiday at my favorite location which is Fraser's Hill tomorrow.The good thing is that I will be there for five days to do some birding, the bad thing is that it will be crowded with families who are celebrating the new year at the hill station. All of the hotels are fully booked in advance especially during weekend. I only managed to get a room with the help of a lady friend who happens to be the daughter of the hotel owner. Well, what is a friend for right?

Anyway, i have been going to Fraser's Hill numerous times over the last few years and have recorded quite a number of bird species all over the hill. I have always wanted to map the locations and species that i have encountered so i can share with all birders especially those who visit Fraser's Hill for the first time. 

The above map is the observed locations of various bird species by me on Fraser's Hill up to today. It will be updated from time to time. Please keep in mind most species do not stay still at any one place as they would go around looking for food and insects in the early morning and late afternoon,but they have the habit of visiting certain spots that they had tried before and successful in finding food. There seem to be certain patterns with some species based on my observations like the Fire-tufted Barbets which seem to visit certain trees with orange colored fruits in certain areas, while the Black-throated Sunbird love to visit certain red flower plants for nectar while the Drongos like to perch deep in the shade of the forest along the roads. The Blyth's hawk-eagle like to fly high in a certain flight-path over the hill looking for prey and at certain times can be seen if you just hang around the Fraser's Hill golf course during the afternoon. The Spectacled Laughingthrush, Silver-eared Mesia and Long-tailed Sibia like to come in wave just next to a food stall near to the Paddock area practically a few meters only from the eating area, probably attracted by the smell of fried banana. The time of the season has a big impact on the appearance of certain species. A certain spot can be good in some months of the year but can be lousy in other months.

I hope this map can help the first time birders at Fraser's Hill where to look for the species that they are interested in. Currently this map has only 40 species that i have encountered so far which is a small percentage of the total 255 species of bird recorded in Fraser's Hill.

Happy birding.

FIRST 2014 BIRDING IN FRASER'S HILL

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.

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.

Male Little Pied Flycatcher

Female Little Pied Flycatcher

Striated Spiderhunters

Striated Spiderhunters

Crimson-breasted Oriole

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.

using ferns for camo helps

The birds would come to the edge of the road looking for insects

The area where the Green Magpies came out looking for insects

The beautiful Green Magpy

My favorite Fire-tufted Barbet

Fire-tufted Barbet

Fire-breasted Flowerpecker

Female Leafbird

Black-throated Sunbird

Black-throated Sunbird

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.

FIRST PHOTO Of 2014

Blue-tailed Bee-Eater

MERRY CHRISTMAS BIRDERS

I would like to wish merry Christmas and a happy new year to all birders around the world especially those who have visited this blog. For those who wish for special presents like a big prime or zoom lens or pro DSLR bodies to improve their birding shots i hope your wishes come true.

As Malaysia is experiencing an unpredictable wet season this year which has resulted in a few flash flood in the east coast and also in some areas in the west coast, my birding activities unfortunately has taken a hit therefore less posting in this blog.

Anyway, i am waiting for the month of  March 2014 when the raptors will be flying down from up north to the Cape Richardo area in Port Dickson which is an annual event. I seem to have missed it every year due to my work load, so hopefully i will not miss it next year. I am also wishing that i have enough fund to get my dream prime lens Canon 500mm F4 OS by the time march 2014 comes.

Till then, merry Christmas to all birders and a very happy new year.

Happy birding!!

WHITE-THROATED KINGFISHER (Halycon smyrnensis/Burung Pekaka Dusun)

These shots were taken on the edge of oil palm estate area near Sepang Gold Coast, Selangor using Canon 5DMK3 and Canon 70-300mm L lens.

COLLARED KINGFISHER (Todirampus chloris/Burung Pekaka Bakau)

This Collared Kingfisher aka Todiramphus Chloris or Burung Pekaka Bakau in Malay was shot on the beach in Sepang Gold Coast using EOS 5Dmk3 with Canon 70-300mm IS L lens.

COMMON SANDPIPER (Actitis hypoleucos/Burung Kedidi Biasa)

I went to Sepang Gold Coast(just 45minutes from Kuala Lumpur, twenty minutes from KLIA) on Sunday to fish for whiting. Unfortunately the fishing was not good due to the murky water condition propably from heavy rain the day before. Fortunately for me there were many lifers moving around at the water edge near the mangrove and sand flat. These tiny birds are called Common Sandpipers or Actitis Hypoleucos in Latin or Burung Kedidi Biasa in Malay.

The sandpipers are not native to Malaysia as they are migrant birds from up north but they can be seen throughout the year along the coast, padi fields, canals, riverbanks, ditches and even monsoon drains.

There were also Bee-eaters and Kingfishers sitting on top of the mangrove trees but they were too far for my Canon 400mm f5.6 lens and EOS 60D. So, i trained my lens on the Sandpipers instead which was not easy as they were very active and would fly away as soon as get within 20 meters from them. How i wished i had a 500mm f4 or 600mm f4 lens with me at that time so i can get tighter and detailed shots, but one thing i learned from my previous experience is that you have to make do with what you got when the opportunity present itself. The thing is i left my Sigma 15-500mm zoom lens at home which would give me a better focal length because it is too heavy to carry around in a fishing bag, so i brought the Canon 400mm prime lens instead.

The light available was not great as it was an overcast day, so i had to pump up the ISO a little bit to 500 or some time to 640 to get the shutter speed that i wanted around 1/1000 second. I was not using the flash because i also left it at home, duh. The most challenging task is to shoot the Sandpiper in flight as the EOS 60D AF is slow and struggled to lock on  the fast flying Sandpipers over the water. I brought my EOS 5D MK3 which has a better AF but did not use it because i needed the extra reach with the Canon 400mm lens, so an APSC camera like EOS 60D with the 1.6crop would give me an effective 640mm focal length, unfortunately the image quality is not that great like a full frame body. 

Below are some of the shots i took for record and i will endeavour to come up with better shots the next time i go there again hopefully with a better prime lens like the Canon 500mm f4 lens which i am planning to buy(when the fund is available that is).

crabbing

are you looking at me?

surfing

you are too close dude! Time for me to fly