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.....