20-24th April 2011 Taiping (Raintown) & Ipoh

Maxwell Hill-remembered

A visitor to Taiping will find the town “olde worlde” as many of the “colonial” buildings are very much in use.   This old town with modern traffic is surprisingly easy to get around in a car inspite of having to negotiate “roundabouts” and wait on traffic when turning into side roads.  We came to Taiping for Maxwell Hill (now known as Bukit Larut) and on our early morning up the hill we saw our “silver” bird nesting right in front of us as we walked up one of the tracks

 

In town we met “Leong” at the Tourist information who told us the information office was just reopened a week ago and he shared some old photographs showing the “old” and the “new” Taiping with little change except for the “vehicles” found on the roads.  For more information check his FB site “Raintown Taiping” which he hopes will bring more visitors to his hometown.  We found the Lake Garden and the vicinity around worth visiting especially the Perak Museum, the oldest museum in Malaysia.  Of course Maxwell Hill is a must go for some cool air and this is also the first hill station built by the British.  You can get a nice view of “Raintown” from the top station after a 25 minute ride in a jeep for which you need to get tickets at the base office.

 

Two days later we drove south to Ipoh on Good Friday.  There were a few places on our list to visit with a morning stop at the Kledang-Sayong Hill.  When we arrived at 9:30am we found people walking up while the early birds were coming down from their morning walk.  One of the walkers told us it takes 2 hours to walk to the summit.  We were a little late for the birds but checked out the road to the summit.  While we heard the bird calls we spotted only a few. 

We then visited a couple of the “Tong” (caves ), Ipoh is also known as “San Seng” meaning Hill City.  
In the late afternoon we visited the town (the old part and the new part).   We had been recommended to visit the “Kinta Nature Park” so on our 2nd day in Ipoh we drove early with the GPS coordinates to guide us.  

We found the park after a slow and bumpy drive on a dirt track next to a lake.  At the “park” we found lots of herons, storks and egrets among others, perched on trees in the islands in the lake.  Some people were fishing and nearby were several commercial duck farms and further on another track  some quarrying activity in operation.    In the late afternoon we drove to Kellie’s Castle and found a “Collared Falconet” perched on a bare tree, a lifer for us.   In the evening we went back to Ipoh town to check out the “Pasar Malam”, where we tried Ipoh’s  famous beansprout,  steam chicken and “Hor Fun” which was a tasty finish to our short holiday in the Kinta Valley.

A Quiet Morning in Panti

Saturday we made an early start for Panti and arrived at 6:50 am, just as the sky was beginning to lighten. Together with Jacky and Lioe, we spent the morning covering most of the bunker trail, but unfortunately it was not a very productive morning. It seems the vehicular traffic has again increased, after a recent lull. Also there was indication of poaching.

Fraser’s Hill 22-25 March 2011

As we were lucky on our previous trip, we thought we would push our luck with a quick follow up. As it turned out we hit the jackpot and got our first ever view of the Red-headed Trogon on our last morning, along the Jeriau Road.

Other birds seen on this 4 day trip.

The day before we had several interesting encounters, one of which was the very colourful Green Magpie.

Raptor Watch and more – Mar 13-15 2011

When we planned our trip to Port Dickson to experience the “Raptor Watch” organised by the Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) little did we expect the 3-day trip would be  more than a stay at PD.

Starting  early on Sunday 13th at 5.30am we drove to Yishun to pick up Lioe and Annie and as soon as we crossed the Causeway, the rain started.   The weather brightened up as we arrived at 10.30 am at Ilham Resort which was where the 12th Raptor Watch week-end event was held (http://www.raptorwatch.org/).  The Resort’s ground was full of activity with  exhibitor’s booths and a stage. There was information on the migratory raptors counted and announcements of the raptors sighted approaching Tanjung Tuan.  There were lots of visitors and we met a few birding acquaintances and went to explore the booths and did some “shopping” of bird watching equipment, books and souvenirs.

  Very soon we heard over the public address that raptors were coming in and over the next few hours we saw many Oriental Honey Buzzards (OHB) and other Accipters flying in, hovering above as they group up before flying on their way north.  We went up the hill to the Lighthouse and met more birding friends and also had better views of the birds coming in.   It is truly remarkable that these birds can be sighted at  this “Rachado” site on their way home from the south.    Last year the count was 73,152 raptors recorded for 43 days and this year, the organisers will continue to count their arrival until the 3rd of April 2011 so watch their website for updates.

Being new to the area we asked the MNS members for nearby birding spots and were given direction to “Telapak Buruk” an hour’s drive beyond Seremban.   This place proved difficult to locate and we failed on this first attempt on Monday, so we explored the kampongs nearby and got to see a Little Grebe and 2 Button Quails.

  


We returned in the afternoon to Tg. Tuan and birded on the trail on the hill which then led us to the Mangrove near the Rachado Resort. 

On Tuesday after checking out early, we went to look for Telapak Buruk again and found the entrance leading up to this hill for the submontane birds.   It was cool as we ascended the hill and we heard lots of birds calling and chirping in the forest on both sides.  We stopped at various heights and got out to look for birds. 

It was a surprise that it was so far up, as when nearing the top the GPS showed 1,200 metre.  Near the top a few Teleco masts are installed, with a military guard house at the top.  

Towards noon we descended and drove on to Muar for a late lunch and also to explore Parit Jawa.  We arrived Parit Jawa’s jetty at 3pm, and at low tide.  The flock of  Lesser Adjutants at the river mouth were feeding on the mud flats and terns were flying up and down with quite a few other shore birds around, but they were hard to ID from the jetty.

   As Lioe knew the direction to the padi fields at Sungei Balang which was nearby we left to check out this spot.   At 4.30 pm we arrived and saw a Black Shouldered Kite and many birds out for their evening forage.  We had never seen so many Baya Weavers among the scrub land next to the padi fields and the Blue tailed Bee-eaters perched on the bare trees. Two Black-capped Kingfishers were close by, as we drove along the bunds we also saw White Breasted Waterhens, Chinese Pond Herons and a Purple Swamphen busy feeding.   It seemed too soon and it was time to leave as the sun went down.   It was a long day driving but worthwhile discovering these 2 new locations for future birding trips.

More Photos

Tg. Tuan Lighthouse    Tg. Tuan Mangrove    Kg.  Ulu Bendo    Telapak Buruk    Sg. Balang    Parit Jawa

Monday 7th March 2011- Morning Walk at SBG & Portsdown Road

Quick Trip to Panti –1 March 2011

An SMS from Lioe had us up early to Panti to meet up with his group.  We were the only 2 cars in the Bunker Trail that Tuesday 7 am.  While the weather was cool and overcast the bird population seems to be late in arousing from their slumber.   Early on the track Lioe spotted a dead Malayan civet which had a small graze wound on its front right leg.  On the ground there was only a tiny spot of blood on the soil so it was a mystery how it came to its end as it appeared young.

Lioe moved it off the track to avoid it being run over and sure enough we were soon disturbed by the rumble of 2 truckloads of lumber coming out, which surprised us as we thought logging had stopped. 

After 2 hours with little success on the main track we decided to move into the shrine track ahead of our friends which was a mistake.   We had missed the Scarlet-rumped Trogon which we would have love to see, it flew across in front of their car.   That means we must try Panti again.

Panti Album

Fraser’s Hill 21-24 Feb 2011

An even earlier wake-up call on Monday as we drove off from home at 5.50 am for the highlands.  There was almost no traffic towards the 2nd link and we cleared Malaysian Immigration at 6.20 am!  It was then an uneventful ride which brought us to the Gap at 12 noon.  We were the 2nd car in line.  Since we had an hour on hand we walked up to the hill side to check on the trees for birds.  Another birder was already there and we greeted each other but before we got to the introduction, a pretty bird caught our attention, it was the Crimson Breasted Flowerpecker.  We resumed our introduction and found that Mark is from MNS and was on his way to a workshop that MNS and the Tourism Office were conducting for the hotel staff on Conservation and the importance of birds to the tourist economy of Fraser’s Hill.  He was also expecting some other MNS members to attend the 2-day workshop.  We spotted a few more birds while waiting and Mark mentioned some places and birds to watch for.

He said he was going to look for the endemic Malayan Whistling Thrush near where we will be staying but he emphasised we must be early before dawn and we will need to use a hide or stay in our car.   No sooner it was 1.00 pm and the barrier was lifted for the up traffic (On this old one-lane road, odd hours reserved for the ascend and even hours to descend).   It was a 20 minute drive up the winding road and we arrived at Richmond House where we found we were the only occupants for the period.  The temperature was a nice cool 22 deg C perfect weather for walking about.  Although we heard that the week before it had rained heavily with some hill-slopes washed down, we were lucky there was only a drizzle early in the morning of Wednesday which did not stop us and other visitors from birding.   On this first late afternoon, a walk at Jelai Highland Resort was rewarded with  the Black-throated Sunbird, this being the only Sunbird found here.

  The Streaked Spiderhunter was also easily seen feeding on the flowers.  We were thrilled to see a large blue bird and it was the Large Niltava on this first walk.   We saw a few Mountain Bulbuls that afternoon and on other days as well.  Next morning at 6.30 am we were out on the road and in the dark we saw another car coming down from the Selangor side, we recognised it was Mark driving.  As he approached we asked if we could follow him and he indicated for us pull up on one of the lay-bys.  We waited for the Malayan Whistling Thrush that he said was extremely hard to see but would forage on Jalan Mager before daylight.  As we waited past 7.00 am we left Mark and headed for Jelai since the house-keeper had told us to come at 7.00 am for the birds in the car park.  We were not disappointed as there were many birds feeding on the seeds of the trees and also the dead insects on the ground.

   We went back again the next morning this time earlier and as dawn broke the birds were flying in.   In one of our walks along near the Methodist House we saw both the Greater and Lesser Yellow-nape Woodpecker and the Lesser Racket-tailed Drongo in the tall dense trees so images taken were not so clear.   At the various places we birded we would encounter the rather noisy Long-tailed Sibia and the Chestnut-capped Laughing Thrush and got to know their calls.  Even the lesser seen but more colourful Chestnut-crowned Laughing Thrush would also announce its presence.  We were lucky to see 9 new birds this trip.  For a couple of birds that we could not check from the guide book we had, we got their ID’s very quickly after posting the photo on the Bird Forum so thanks to quick response from the birding community we got all our photographs ID’d.   The lifers were : Siberian Thrush – male & female, Streaked Wren Babbler, White Browed Shrike Babbler – male & female, Mugimaki Flycatcher, Golden Babbler, Blue-winged Minla – male & female, Brown Shrike, Green Magpie and the Large Niltava – male & female.

  This is our 6th visit to Fraser’s Hill since our first trip in 2009 and is our most rewarding trip having seen such beautiful birds on our own.  While it was quiet and not many visitors around we also have Mark to thank who gave us clues where to go.  Durei   was  also helpful telling us where certain species can be found.  On our last morning as we were driving out, the Siberian Thrush both male and female were right there on the ground of the car park so we had some good parting shots of our visit.

  There are a couple of spots that we have no time to visit which we will check out on our next visit in 4 weeks time.

Fraser's Hill Album