Retired Teacher

Treeswifts are a family of birds closely related to the true swifts.  Unlike true swifts, they have a non reversible hind toe, which is used for perching on branches.  (True swifts cannot perch.)  Other differences from true swifts include softer plumage, crests or facial ornaments and long forked tails. Like true swifts, they feed on insects, although exact details of the prey taken is unknown. Ttreeswifts often forage in the air in the company of swallows and swiftlets.  They can also wait patiently perched on an exposed branch to hunt by sallying. Perched treeswifts have a very recognisable silhouette; the wing tips cross over the tail.   The gray-rumped treeswift is found in from Thailand to Indonesia and, due to its extensive range, is listed as an IUCN ‘least concern’ species.   However information about the population trend is limited.    Whereas the other   treeswift species are adapted to a particular type of forest, grey-rumped tree...

eBird reports that 236 species have been observed in the Sungai Congkak Recreational Forest.  ebird.org/hotspot/L3510944   Of those I saw about 20 species, fleetingly .   I only managed to get two photos, both poor quality.     A tit-babbler skulking. A leafbird, which is out of focus and by an accident of alignment seems to have a twig growing from its crown. Unfortunately, I am very poor at identifying bird calls.   This is a skill I am working to improve by listening to bird songs and calls on the  xeno-canto  website .   A related, but perhaps more difficult, problem is that I find it very difficult to pinpoint the bird.  I can definitely hear it calling, but I cannot narrow down the location.  Is it in the canopy? Or  mid-level?   To my right or my left?   I dream of rigging up some hardware (three microphones) and software (spherical trigonometry) to give me the bird’s coordinates. Once I have fou...

This was my first MNS outing since my retirement and since COVID.   For a long time we were restricted to trips of 10 km or less.  Now we can travel- so long as we remain within Selangor. Insiders refer to the Malaysian Nature Society as ‘makan non-stop.’   Hence, naturally, our meeting point was the Eng Soon Hoong coffee shop in Hulu Langat.   My review is here Five Stars for a Traditional Breakfast .   After breakfast we drove an additional 11 km to our destination.   Why didn’t we find a restaurant closer to our destination?    In the Islamic calendar it is the fasting month of Ramadan.   Accordingly, all the Malay restaurants are closed during sunlit hours; buka puasa begins at sunset. In Bahasa Malay (and on the Waze map) this location is Kem Latihan & Rekreasi Sungai Congkak.   For monolingual English readers ‘latihan’ is practice or training.   Also did you   notice that ‘ch’ is rendered as simply ‘c’ in Ma...

  Despite 'quail,'  these birds are only distantly related to true quail.  Genetic analysis tells us their closest relatives are actually the shorebirds- sandpipers and plovers.  Living up to its name- behind bars? Barred  buttonquail are found from India to the Philippines and from China to Indonesia.  Their conservation status is “least concern,” indicating that they are fairly common throughout their range. Nevertheless, they are “extremely difficult to detect, moving about invisibly in dense weedy vegetation.” ( eBird ) Gender roles are reversed in these birds. Females are larger and more colourful, initiate courtship and fight amongst themselves for males. A female  produces “a loud drumming drr-r-r-r-r as a challenge to rival hens and also to announce herself to a cock.”  ( Wikipedia  )  Males incubate the eggs and care for the precocial hatchlings.  Meanwhile the female has acquired a new ‘husband’ and has...

With short broad wings and a longish tail, the goshawk is a bird suited for manoeuvrability through thick foliage .  Now, however, it is increasingly common in cities.  Ecologists had believed that human activity, buildings, traffic and especially the highly fragmented nature of urban forest would prevent these hawks from thriving in the city.  What was left out of the analysis was the one offsetting positive factor of city life- an abundant food supply.  Cities around the world have a superabundance of sparrows, doves and squirrels as compared to the countryside.  Moreover, seasonal variation is less in the city; food is plentiful all year long.  This allows for an earlier nesting season and with it the possibility of re-nesting if the first clutch fails. Staring at the camera; Taman Tasik Menjalara Consequently some birds of prey have adapted to city life.   Researchers have found that sub-adult birds are more likely to gain a territory in the city...

The brown shrike migrates between its breeding grounds in Siberia and its winter home ( September to April)  in Malaysia.  They are excellent navigators, often returning to the same location year after year.  In both their summer and winter homes these shrikes maintain territories.   Open forests including parks and gardens are preferred.   As a consequence of territoriality, late arrivals are pushed into less favourable habitat. Shrikes apparently originated in Africa in close association with thorn trees and have spread worldwide.  They are often called ‘butcher birds’ because, in the breeding season , the males will skewer both food and non-food items on thorn trees or (adapting to modernity) barbed wire fences.  It is thought the males need to prove their hunting prowess to females. Of note: Apparently some females are fooled if males display non-food items.   Other males will raid these larders, either because they are hungry or b...

The Malay name,  Punai Gading,   can be translated as ivory green-pigeon.   This is a medium-sized bird, about 30 cm long and weighing about 150 grams.  Males are the same size as females, but more colourful.    However, both birds can be difficult to see in the tree canopy where they pass most of their time.  I often see spotted and zebra doves on the ground, but these green-pigeons only come down from the tree tops when they are thirsty or they need more grit for their gizzard.  As birds do not have teeth, mechanical digestion requires birds to swallow grit.  These small stones pass through the digestive tract and eventually would need to be replenished.  Note that, eventually could be a year or more ( US Dept of Agriculture BF Kaupp 1924 ).  Trees provide fruit for birds in the hope that their seeds will be dispersed.  Green-pigeons with grit in their gizzards could be considered to cheat the system.   T...