Scott's Hill, Taiping (Raptor count) 101010

I got an sms from Choo Eng, my birding partner inviting me to join our sifu Kanda and a lecturer from school of physic,USM to go to Scott's Hill, Taiping. The main reason is to witness and count the migrating raptors.

Started the journey a bit late from Penang, at 7 am. We arrived and greeted by one of the raptor expert in Malaysia, Lim Kim Chye. The weather was a bit cloudy in the morning but it heats up as the sun rise up.Overall not so many flock of raptors seen, not more than 5 flock. Majority of them are the Chinese goshawk/Sparrowhawk.

Some Oriental Honey Buzzard, this male circling low enough giving me a chance to get quite a decent photo of it. At first i thought it was a Crested Serpent Eagle... :(

A nice surprise by an Osprey,

According to Kim Chye, this is the first record of it migrating this season. Nice!

In the evening, there is no other flock passing through and we decided to wrap up the day early. When we got back, Choo Eng found out that there was a big storm up north at Perlis which could be the reason of the low count.... Anyway, there's always next time...

Bukit Mertajam Hill 101003

Bukit Mertajam Hill or some call it Cherok Tok Kun recreational area is one of the good place to rest. The forest is still in quite a good condition. During weekend or even weekdays, this place will be full of people who came here to hike and cycle up the hill. On top, there are four tower which belongs to Telekom and Celcom. For the prupose of maintaining and guarding the tower,  a tarred road was made available up to the summit just like other hills with these kind of tower (e.g Bukit Palong,Baling). So when u see a hill with tower there should be a road up to the top, making it as one of a good place to go birding and herping (plus the forest is stil intact of course).

I came here to help 2 students from USM to do their final year research project on bats and herpetofauna. We have a special permit from the forestry,enabling us to drove our van to the top. While they are busy setting up the harp trap for bats, i get to do some birding.  Some of the birds seen,

A male Asian Paradise Flycatcher (rufous morph)

A male Blue Winged Leafbird

Dark Sided Flycatcher,

Some obstacle in bird photography, a Crow Billed Drongo with body and tail but without head

Head and body but without tail.

Well, nobody said bird photography is easy..

So i decided to do some butterfly photography. A mating butterfly but not sure which species..

Now come tthe herpetofauna,

An Oriental Whip Snake (pale morph).

 It was seen crawling in between the fern besides the road.

A newly described species, Cnemaspis shahruli, Shahrul's rock gecko

Eutropis rugifera,

Xenophrys aceras,

Note the short hind foot,

That's all folks. Thanks a lot.

My recent publication

These are the list of my recent publication list as of  October 2010...

Zootaxa 2625: 40–52 (24 Sep. 2010) 7 plates; 56 references                          Accepted: 16 Aug. 2010
A new spiny, prehensile-tailed species of Cyrtodactylus (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from Peninsular Malaysia with a preliminary hypothesis of relationships based on morphology
L. LEE GRISMER (USA), SHAHRUL ANUAR (Malaysia), EVAN QUAH (Malaysia), MOHD ABDUL MUIN (Malaysia), CHAN KIN ONN (Malaysia), JESSE L. GRISMER (USA) & NORHAYATI AHMAD (Malaysia)

Zootaxa 2576: 59–68 (25 Aug. 2010) 3 plates; 30 references                           Accepted: 26 Jul. 2010
A new endemic rock Gecko Cnemaspis Strauch 1887 (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from Gunung Jerai, Kedah, northwestern Peninsular Malaysia
CHAN KIN ONN (Malaysia), L. LEE GRISMER (USA), SHAHRUL ANUAR (Malaysia), EVAN QUAH (Malaysia), MOHD ABDUL MUIN (Malaysia), ANNA E. SAVAGE (USA), JESSE L. GRISMER (USA), NORHAYATI AHMAD (Malaysia), ANA-CAROLINE REMIGIO (USA) & LEE F. GREER (USA)

Zootaxa 2569: 55–66 (17 Aug. 2010) 3 plates; 17 references                           Accepted: 26 Jul. 2010
Another new, diminutive Rock Gecko (Cnemaspis Strauch) from Peninsular Malaysia and a discussion of resource partitioning in sympatric species pairs
L. LEE GRISMER (USA), CHAN KIN ONN (Malaysia), EVAN QUAH (Malaysia), MOHD ABDUL MUIN (Malaysia), ANNA E. SAVAGE (USA), JESSE L. GRISMER (USA), NORHAYATI AHMAD (Malaysia), LEE F. GREER III (USA) & ANA-CAROLINE REMEGIO (USA)

Russian Journal of Herpetology, Vol. 17, No. 2(2010) First report on the Herpetofauna of Pulau Pangkor, Perak, Malaysia
Chan Kin Onn, J. van Rooijen, L. Lee Grismer, Daicus Belabut, Mohd. Abdul Muin Md. Akil, Hamidi Jamaludin, Rick Gregory, and Norhayati Ahmad

 Thanks to all my friends who has includes me as an author in their paper. Looking forward for more coopertion in future. Thanks.

USM 100925

As the migration started, i'm stuck in the office with lots of things to be done. I manage to squeeze a weekend to check for the early migrants in USM while joining the Friends of Tasik Harapan Programme organized by the Uni. My intention is to look at how serious and to have a first impression of what's going to happen to this programme. And i'm quite dissapointed.....anyway its good to see somebody still concern about the lakes in USM. I hope they will succeed in future. The grill door of the store where the mudballs are is locked and the participant has to reach the mudballs located inside from outside.

While looking at the programme participants busy throwing mudballs, i heard calls of the Arctic Warbler. I manage to locate the bird and it was quite low,

Arctic Warbler calling,

After the mudball throwing event, no other activity is held. I'm surprised! Mudball throwing in this will furthermore add to this nutrient rich lake. This will promote a rapid growth of the water hyacinth which is only maintain once a month....Sad! I hope they know what they are doing....some of other suggestion that i have is that they repair the lake bank which is badly eroded. This should be done first i think...

Well, after a while i decided to go for birding around the campus. Here are some of other birds seen,

Another migrant, Brown shrike

A male Asian Koel,

 female,

The ever confusing swiftlet. I think this is Germain's,

The tame eurasian tree sparrow,

A subadult Magpie Robin. Notice that it still has brownish wing and throat.

A female pigeon. I think it's a Pink Necked as the base of the bill has no reddish patch and the subterminal of the tail is black. Correct me if i'm wrong...

A nice surprise at the end....a Dark Necked Tailorbird. Notice the yelowish vent in second photo. This is the most reliable feature to differentiate this species from the Common Tailorbird. This should be the first record from me in the campus.

What a nice record to wrap the day. More birding need to be done this season as i need to get those doubtful record of some migrants to be validated and photographed.....

Air Itam Dalam and Teluk Air Tawar 100808

Its the last weekend before Puasa or fasting month for Muslims starts. I decided to go for Mee Udang at Sungai Dua with my wife and kid. Before going for mee udang for lunch, i decided to make a visit to Air Itam Dalam to look for the spotted wood owl, mangrove blue flycatcher and streaked breasted woodpecker. When i reached the area, my little boy is sleeping so i walked in alone. It was quiet and not much bird around. Only some olive winged bulbul, pied fantail and black naped oriole.

After a while a Pin Striped Tit Babbler flew in quite close to the boardwalk. I manage to get some shots and i noticed that it is not as wary as the one in the forest....

I saw this Olive Tree Skink, Dasia olivacea, resting on the trunk of the Ficus,

Then i saw a Kembara drove into the parking area. I knew it is somebody i know, it is Dr Khaw. Together we wait for the mangrove blue flycatcher to come out. As people always said "Patience is always the key in birding and bird photography", later it came out and perched just few metres away from us. My shot of the bird always underexpose and i had trouble using my autofocus. Later i switch to manual and shoot one last single shot before it flew off. The shot was out of focus and slightly underexposed....no wonder, i forgot to change my ISO after i shot the skink...sigh!

This is the shot, the mother and chick,

After i wasted the chance, the bird hardly came out again. I decided to go for lunch. As i was packing my stuff into the car, i heard a juvenile flycatcher calling from the bushes besides the parking lot. I decided to give it one last try. I manage to get 2 shots...here is the best..

After taking our lunch, i went to Teluk Air Tawar for the waders. The full tide is at 5.45 p.m. and it's already 4. So i guess its a good timing...

When i arrived at the rivermouth, lots of people at the nearby stall and so do the waders on the mudflats. So i decided to take some shot and give it a count. Here are some of the shot...

Eurasian Curlew

Little egret and common redshanks,

Lesser sand plovers...one stil in breeding plumage

Common sandpiper (left) and Curlew Sandpiper

As usual, do correct me if the identifications are wrong. The total count was,

Eurasian Curlews - 7

Lesser Sand Plovers - 17

Little egret - 1

Common redshank - 10

Red necked Stint - 10

Many of them left unidentified as i don't have any scope and the lighting was too harsh for a better view of the bird. Anyway, there will be more of them coming and i'll surely come and visit this place again..

note: some name corrected. Thanks to Dave Bakewell for his kind comment..

USM 100806

Its the convocation week. I was on my bike waiting for my wife to go back home. It is then i saw a scaly breasted munia beside the parking lot of Eureka building. I was lucky that i brought my camera along. The bird  looked wary and i'm wondering why...

Then only i saw this fella on the ground,

It is a fledgling, i think it has just recently came out of its nest. No wonder the mother was so worried with me around....

Picking up some food for the baby, but no feeding shot..

After a while, i noticed that the mother is too worried with my presence. Worried that the chick might be left alone starving to death...i decided to leave them alone. I hope the baby survived....

Alor Setar 100724

I forgot to post this visit of mine...
I went back to Alor Setar in a rush after the demise of my wife's grandfather. After the burial ceremony, i decided to do a short check at the coast, which i called Kedah Coast, for the early waders. I did manage to see some lesser sand plover, terek sandpiper, redshank and greenshank. Only the lesser sand plover can be seen still wearing their breeding coat. Here are some of the shots but they were very far and heavily cropped...it might even be wrongly identified..

Greenshank and redshank...thanks to Dave for the id,

Redshank..

The lesser sand plover...

As i was photographing these birds, i heard a  a rumbling calls in the air. When i looked up, i saw 3 tern, which i assume to be little, fighting...

On my way back, i saw lots of swiftlets flying over a river besides the paddyfield. I stopped for a while to try some flying shots. This is the best i could get,

  Is it a Germain's swiftlet? Anyway, i'm quite satisfied with this shot. As usual, do correct me if the identifications are wrong. Thanks.