My Saturday at Pulau Burung

Last two weeks, I visit this site to look for Garganey and Little Stint, I'd seen both birds plus Booted Eagle and White Wagtail as the bonus. Checking BIW (http://www.worldbirds.org/v3/malaysia.php?a=lo). It is reported that Lesser Adjutant and Pectoral Sandpiper occur there. Thus I plan to go there to have a good view of Garganey and Little Stint plus considering to get other uncommon/rare birds that might occur there since I haven't seen Lesser Adjutant in my beloved Penang state yet.

I hit out at 0700 to Pulau Burung which situated about 30km from my home. I ride my Lagenda and stop at a 24 hour grocery shop near my area. After I left the shop I seen a Peregrine Falcon perched on a nearby electric pylon, without leaving second thought, I photograph it.

This Peregrine Falcon is the migrant japonicus/calidus race. In my observation for this area, this race is more common than resident ernestii race.

I reach Pulau Burung at 0745 and before I enter the main birding ground I stopped at nearby palm oil plantation as a Black-shouldered Kite perched nicely on a pylon.

An adult Black-shouldered Kite perched on a pole - a good welcome sign

When I enter the main area, I met fellow birder from Selangor, Khor Swee Seng, Carol and one of their friend. They look eager to look for Little Stint, so as I left them to look for the ducks at the pool of Pulau Burung. The first duck highlighted for this trip is Garganey. I spent a good time watching this duck and took notes on it. So my first objective accomplish.

Star bird of the area - Garganey, two of  them, an eclipse male and a female.

Both Garganey stay until a motorbike past nearby their perch point and flew toward a couple of Lesser Whistling Duck and a Common Moorhen in the further middle of the pond as show on photo below:

Picturesque sighting of waterfowls: Lesser Whistling Duck, Garganey and Common Moorhen

The pond in Pulau Burung is famous for the Lesser Whistling Duck. This waterfowl is so common in this area where people can see adult duck swim with duckling and immature duck. 

Lesser Whistling Duck. In Malay known as 'Belibis'

Another waterfowl that common to this area is Little Grebe. Regards their always swimming behavior, Pulau Buung serve as a decent home for them.

Little Grebe - Fascinating bird, swim and dive is among their magnificent behavior

Beside ducks and waterfowl, Pulau Burung is a good habitat for other bird such as waders, herons and egrets, raptors, kingfishers,terns and passerines such as Acrocephalus warbler and wagtails.My second objective today is to spend time watching Little Stint, however my second objective was not accomplish as I only seen the Little Stint for least than 10 second and I don't seen that stint after that. Maybe next time. However I spend a decent time watching Little-ringed Plover and Wood Sandpiper.

Little-ringed Plover - flank view

Little-ringed Plover - view from behind

Wood sandpiper on a piece of wood

Wood Sandpiper

Wood Sandpiper

4 Resident raptor species were seen at Pulau Burung today and all were resident species namely Black-shouldered Kite, Crested Serpent Eagle, Brahminy Kite and White-bellied Sea Eagle. 

Who's on perched

Crested Serpent Eagle - handsomely perched on a cable pylon

Another individual perched on a palm oil tree, calling

Passerines:

Paddyfield Pipit - Open area in Pulau Burung seem a good habitat for Pipit

Yellow wagtail - foraging at the grassy area near the pond

After the sun getting high and my bike fuel only enough for my way to nearby petrol station I decide to go back despite I only get one objective accomplish for my targeted three. So no Lesser adjutant, no Pectoral Sandpiper nor any other rare/uncommon bird but I still satisfied with this trip as I seen more than 40 bird species on this visit.

I saw this sign after I come out from the landfill area - In English it was 'Attention. Scavenger allowed to enter the site from 8.00 am to 5.00pm. Only Registered scavenger allowed to enter. I'm not a registered scavenger after all.

After I left Pulau Burung and had my lunch I head straight to Kampung permatang Nibong Ricefield. I saw a sub-adult Imperial Eagle and manage to photograph it to call it a day

Eastern Imperial Eagle - A rare winter visitor to Malaysia, perched on its favorite pylon for the third consecutive December

Golden head and white patch at the back indicate this is the adult individual - I'm questioning myself: Is this the last year adult or last year sub-adult turning adult this year or new individual? A lot thing to do in studying this raptor in Malaysia.

I wait until it took off for the afternoon feeding session to obtained this shot - To me Imperial Eagle is the most elegant raptor occur in Malaysia considering its' size, gothic and fierce look. A sentence in my head to for this bird and it come in Kelantanese malay sound 'Hok ni burung hele' hok jahak skali, garhe molek'

So for today's birding I must call it a day. Until the next post. Cheers

Permatang Nibong, 29/11/2011

Permatang Nibong, this ricefield habitat is my main playground for birding. Although the extent of this ricefield is not as big as the ricefield area in other state such as Kedah and Perak, it had been a sanitarium for migrant birds. Rare record for Malaysia such as Asian Openbill, Greater-spotted Eagle and Eastern Imperial Eagle had been recorded here in previous years.

Overview of the area with Bukit Mertajam as background. In this picture: A flock of Grey-headed Lapwing in flight.

This year, the paddy planting season had start early and areas nearby had same level of growth with this area. At this moment, generally paddy had grow to 1 feet high. The paddy was planted densely in most of plot. This growing stage also is the most crucial stage for ricefield farmer as the paddy plant become vulnerable to pest, hardly survive large amount of rain and easily affected to short of nutrient. Thus, farmers are actively seen at their ricefield plot at this stage of growth applying pesticide, fertilizer and control the water level  to ensure their crops survive to provide good yield for this season.

Dense growth of paddy. In this photo: Brown shrike perched on a pole.

My main aim for this visit is the Aquila eagle. To my surprise, the Greater Spotted Eagle had been missing in last few days and Eastern Imperial Eagle is nowhere to seen since I came back home. Other migrant raptors such as Black Kite, Eastern Marsh and Pied Harrier also nowhere to seen. So I started at 1000, in my justification, excellent time for raptor and 2 Greater Spotted Eagle was the first raptor of the day.

An adult Greater spotted Eagle

This followed by a single Black Kite and 2 more Greater Spotted Eagle in same location. All raptors split toward various different direction after about 5 minutes of action. I decide to go to the TNB pylon as 2 of GSE flew toward that direction. Before reaching the pylon, I saw a large raptor flying overhead, I stop my bike immediately to look at the raptor and it was an immature Imperial Eagle....finally, it come. In my head, I thought that I might not see this raptor this year and I was wrong. However, no good photo obtained. After the eagle flying up too high, I went to the pylon area. An immature Black-shouldered Kite and a Peregrine Falcon were among the raptor present at the pylon area. No harrier yet.

Immature Black-shouldered Kite on the pylon

Other migrant seen and photographed in my locality are:

Yellow wagtail - common migrant in this area, in its prefer the exposed mud on ricefield but this one one linger on  the road for about 10 minutes

Pond Heron - at this month, the races (Chinese, Javan, Indian) of all 3 pond heron species occur in this area cannot be determined as all came in same plumage

Barn Swallow - occur in high number

Blue-tailed Bee-eater - Common migrant occur in this area

Flock of Grey Head Lapwing - common when the ricefield area is wet.

Highlight for resident bird during this visit is Paddyfield pipit. Paddyfield Pipit is common to this area where it always forage in any vegetation present at ricefield. Below show some Paddyfield Pipit actions I manage to obtained.

The weather turn out to be very hot at in the afternoon and raptor activities began to slow down. Then I grab my lunch at Kubang Semang hawker stall before I went back home.

That's all for today visit, more to come in next post.