Day 3, Monday 21st July 2014:
On the flight from Helsinki
to Bankok, Mum and I both managed to get some sleep, not having to worry about
food, since there were no vegetarian meals on board for us. In Thailand, we did not have time to leave
the airport, so we did a lot of sitting around reading, grabbing some Thai soup
for breakfast, sleeping and doing our Finnish list. Next up: Kuala Lumpur (known
as KL), Malaysia.
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| Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig multi-tasking in Bankok Photograph taken by and copyright Helena Craig |
As we had a bit of sleep, we
entered KL immigration feeling slightly refreshed. That feeling quickly evaporated during the
hour wait to get through. I think most
of the immigration officers were taking time off because of Ramadan, the month
of fasting.
After that we went to
collect our bags, thinking that they would have been out for ages by then. However, we were wrong. The status said that they had only jut
started putting bags out. So, after
another hour of waiting with some other people who also didn’t have their bags
either, we gave up and went to report that they were both missing.
Once we had filled in lots
of forms and described our bags, we went to meet our guide for the next two
days, Andrew Sebastian. It was 4 pm by
then and we were supposed to meet him at 2 pm.
Andrew was quite tall and looked Indian but with a load of heritages as
well including Portuguese and Chinese.
It was the start of my understanding that Malaysia is a melting pot of
cultures.
As we turned up so late, our afternoon of birding had to be cancelled and all we had time to do was quickly go to Bukit Melawati, Kuala Salangor and bird there for half an hour. There were two species of monkeys on the side of the road and on the lamp posts. There were the cute and friendly Silver-leafed Monkeys and the more vicious looking Long-tailed Macaques, both of which were being fed by tourists. Even though we only had a short time, we still managed to see Pink-necked Green Pigeon, Oriental Pied Hornbill and Pacific Swift.
We then checked into our hotel,
had a quick Indian meal before going out for the evening owling, to try and see
Buffy Fish Owl. We tried for 2 hours in
all the usual haunts with no luck, but heard a distant Oriental Scops
Owl. At one point, we saw something run
into some long grass. We all ran to
where the “something” had been and Andrew pointed to some scat on the path.
Andrew, who knows a lot about mammals, snakes as other reptiles, immediately
called “Leopard Cat”. We all turned to
look in the direction that the animal had gone, in the long grass. Andrew and the ranger who had come with us, both pointed their
heavy duty torches in the direction of the cat, following it as it moved
through. Then, suddenly, and a bit
expectantly we saw a Leopard Cat run out of the grass and across a path, giving
us all fantastic views. All thoughts of
the owl were momentarily forgotten!
We then tried one last place
and heard the owl calling. Andrew went
into the mangroves to try and call it in, when 10 minutes later the ranger saw it whilst
standing a couple of metres away from us.
We were so frustrated that Mum and I surprised Andrew, by following him
into the mangrove forest. However, we still had
no luck and eventually made it to bed at 11.00 pm, which in retrospect didn’t
help our jetlag.
Day 4, Tuesday 22nd July 2014:
Our first full day of
birding was a later start than we would have liked, but general lack of sleep
had caught up with us. We went to straight
to Kuala Selangor Nature Reserve, to do some mangrove forest birding. We climbed a couple of platforms for birding
from, which Mum held onto tight, as they swayed a little. I told myself that was the design and not a
building flaw. Despite getting there at
8.00 am, we still saw a load of birds including Sunda Pygmy and Laced Woodpeckers, Mangrove Blue Flycatcher and Brown-throated Sunbird which were all new for me. Andrew was really good company and really
looked after us, which was a lovely start to our trip.
Our next destination was to
meet a local guide, Durai, in Bukit Fraser, a hill station great for
birding, two hours from KL. However,
Andrew called him and said we were going to be late. He then took us on a detour to Bukit
Tinggi, another hill station, for a very special bird. He explained that the Mountain
Peacock-pheasant used to be an impossible to see bird, one of only four birds
endemic to Peninsular Malaysia. Then
about six months ago, some photographers started feeding them mealworm in the
same location. I told him that the same
thing had happened in South America with Antpittas and worked well.
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| Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig birding at Bukit Tinggy, Malaysian Peninsular Photograph taken by and copyright Helena Craig |
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Andrew then took us to the top of a trail and poured
water onto the ground to make it sound like he was spreading food. We then sat on some well positioned logs and waited
for only 10 minutes, before they came in.
We saw a pair briefly cross the path before two young birds wandered
about for some time, just in front of us.
I even managed to get a couple of photographs on my I-pod.
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| Mountain Peacock-pheasant, Bukit Tinggy, Malaysian Peninsular Photograph taken by and copyright Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig |
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On a high from our first
endemic of the trip, Andrew took us to Bukit Fraser, for the next part of our
trip.
