The Fraser's Hill Bird Race is held annually in June. We decided to give it a try this year, and we had a really fun weekend. There was a good crowd, probably the most people we had ever seen, in Fraser's. Each team consists of three persons and this year there were 25 entries, half the number of last year. Evidently this is a World Cup phenomenon that has been noticed previously.
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| Common Green Magpie (Cissa chinensis) |
At 1 pm on Saturday 21st June the race kicked off, and finished 24 hours later, when the log-books need to be submitted before 1 pm on Sunday. During the race, each log-book also had to be stamped by marshals at 4 checkpoints, to ensure you were in the locations where the species are seen at the time you recorded them.
Our team consisted of myself, my wife and her brother Tat. Our "race" was definitely laid-back and it really helped that we had a car to drive to the further locations.We were happy with 41 birds logged (and a White-thighed Leaf Monkey). Some "little brown jobs" were unidentifiable and missed getting into the count.
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| Large Niltava (Niltava grandis)-Juv |
After lunch on Sunday we attended the closing ceremony and could not believe it when our team "Funseekers" was announced as, the 2nd Runner-up in the Novice category. A bonus to our fun trip. This is an incentive to return for next year's Bird Race.
There were a number of exhibitors on hand, including Minox, Steiner and Swarovski, where you could get your hands on the latest Binos, Scopes ans other gadgets as well as information on other birding and nature locations in Malaysia.
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| Rufous-browed Flycatcher (Anthipes solitaris) |
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| Golden Babbler (Stachyridopsis chrysaea) |
