Nesting Southern Jungle Crow

Southern Jungle Crow or formerly known as Large Billed Crow is formerly a common resident on Penang island. Nowadays it has become quite uncommon. In USM, this large black bird can be seen flying over or calling on high trees.

I've seen an attempt from this bird to sit on a nest before at the museum. I was not sure back then whether it was really nesting or just trying to attack the nest. But recently, i manage to locate a nest which is actually quite noticeable. Quite surprising for such a wary species...

The nest is high up, about 10 metres. Here are some shot of it..

Hmmm...now only i noticed that i didn't take a shot of the whole tree...sigh! Nevermind, i'll add it up later..

Wader survey along Kedah coast

The chinese new year break gives me some chance to do some wader survey along the Kedah coast. Its been so long since i visited the area. Lucky it was more or less the same...just that the variety of wader is a bit low. Maybe it is still early. Here are some shots taken from the area...

Whiskered Tern

 Terns hunting at the rivermouth

 Terns roost, there were few hundreds of them, mainly whiskered and white winged tern,

Great egret with a mudskipper..

 Whiskered in breeding plumage..

 Pacific golden plover is the most tame among all..

 A group consist of some godwit, greenshank and others..

 I do hope this is Nordmann's Greenshank but i think its just common...

 Curlew Sandpiper in partial breeding plumage,

Some view of the area. It has a very extensive mudflats but pity there were not so many places to roost while the tide is high. Maybe that's the factor why this area has less wader...

I'll need to come back here and come early morning or evening to get a better light...

Kamunting and Bukit Merah

After hearing from friends that there's a Little cormorant at Kamunting, and many people have seen it, i can't help myself but to plan a trip there. I contacted Choo Eng who later contacted Kimchye to conform whether the bird is still around or not. Luckily i got an sms from Choo Eng saying that the bird is still there. We headed down south late noon.
As we were on the highway, i can see dark clouds over Maxwell's  hill, i can only hope that it won't be raining when we arrive at the mining pool.
Indeed we are lucky, that it was just a slight drizzle when we first arrive. Without wasting more time, i set up my Nikon digiscoping set and head up to the lake. Choo Eng used his binocular and poited to me where the bird is. I took some shot but it was quite far and the Nikon Coolpix P5100 is not good under low light. Anyway here are some of the shot using Nikon P5100+Nikon ED 82 fieldscope+Manfrotto tripod with video head.

 The little cormorant was later flew and perched closer to the lakeside permitting us to get a better shot.

 Showing its movable upper mandible...

 Some other bird that we saw was Cotton Pygmy Goose, Purple Swamphen and many other commoner..

After a while, we decided to drive up and stop at Bukit Merah. It was only a while before the rain starts to pour heavily. I manage to get few shots of the grey headed fish eagle.

Some other bird seen was the usual osprey and oriental pied hornbill. Better luck next time.

Langkawi Expedition 15-21 january 2011

Been lagging behind with my write up...lots of thing missed out coz by my busy schedule and lack of laptop/computer with proper editing software. Anyway, i went to Langkawi representing USM for small mammal and bird survey. I also joined Dr Norhayati from UKM who is a herpetologist. Here are some of the highlight although most of the time i'm busy with small mammals...


We drove up  Gunung Raya on the last day. It was second after i told my friend that if he saw any bird,please stop the car,that he saw this pair of wreathed hornbill

I saw two Grey Faced Buzzard on top of Gunung Raya. What a lucky day..

This is a Rufous Bellied Swallow from Wat Wanaram. I was there trying to find a lizard that me n friends described in 2008 but it was nowhere to be found..

Some herpetofauna highlight,

Leptobrachium smithi. For Malaysia this species is endemic to the island of Langkawi.

 Though resembles Leptobrachium hendriksonii in general appearance, the yellowish iris in contrast to orange quickly distinguished it...

I hope i can post more photos but this desktop is way too slow to handle the software...maybe next time..