LaughingDove Goes Travelling - SE Asia and Australia

There's a perfectly good photo of the marbled cat (albeit horribly taxidermied and possibly demonically possessed) from the Melbourne Museum in the gallery. You marbled cat mob are never satisfied...

 

I'm generally ok with my glasses and humidity (apart from going from somewhere air conditioned to going outside where it's really annoying, especially coming out of a taxi). It's normally just a problem when it's actually raining and the glasses get covered in water.

I did that with the dorm this morning too, with my bag and clothes ready to go by the door. Although the same can't be said for the person this morning who had to get a crack of dawn flight and left an alarm going for ages while they had gone to the bathroom until someone else turned it off. People are annoying sometimes.

 

Kites and Kingfishers: Kuala Selangor


I started early and got to the bus hub in good time with the very efficient monorail and rapid transport. The Selangor buses had moved slightly from where wikitravel says, but I saw them from the rapid transport as it came up anyway so that was no problem. When I got to the stop, I was then told that there was no bus until 9:30. That was a two and a half hour wait and there were definitely no buses to Selangor until then, all the other buses with ‘Selangor’ written on them were going somewhere else.

Well, I had no choice but to wait so I went to get some proper breakfast, having just grabbed a quick breakfast on the way. I happened to wander back around the bus station at 8:30 and the person that had changed his mind and decided that the bus would not be leaving at 9:30 but actually 8:30 and it was going right then and there that second. So I just got the bus, which was only RM7.30 for the whole 2+ hour journey to Kuala Selangor and we headed off. Actually, we drove around the nearby streets for a bit picking up people until the bus was completely full before we actually left. I was of course the only Orang Asing, or foreigner, on the bus. I should also note that I checked beforehand what time the return bus was and was told that there was only one bus coming back that day (not true in the end) and it was at the very specific time of ‘5 or 6 PM around’ so I had to make sure to get that bus and not end up stranded in Kuala Selangor.

It took about two hours and 10 minutes to get to Kuala Selangor Bus Station and from there was a short 5 ringgit taxi to Kuala Selangor Taman Alam (Nature Park). The nature park itself was really, really nice with a mixture of secondary forest, streams, open mangroves and mud flats, and closed mangrove forest. I saw quite a few different bird species there, highlights being the woodpeckers and cuckoos as well as Cinerous Tit, split from the Great Tit in Europe with slight but clearly noticeable differences and a very different habitat being closed mangrove forest. It also opens up the possibility of lots of crude jokes, having seen Great Tits in both Europe and Asia. I won’t go over everything I saw, just look at the species list. I missed Mangrove Pitta and Smooth-coated Otter that I was hoping for, but saw a few unexpected things like the mongoose. There were also lots of Sundaic Silvered langurs, including some with the bright orange babies.

In the middle of the day, I had a quick look up the nearby Bukit Melawati which is a hill with various historical/touristy things on it like some cannons and a lighthouse and things with a couple of tour groups on it. There was also a fantastic view over the Taman Alam/Nature Park and the sea and river mouth beyond. Also loads and loads of habituated silvered langurs that were extremely tame and used to being fed by tourists. There were even a couple of people selling ‘monkey food’ on the hill too.

I decided not to go back to the town for lunch and just eat the food I had with me which was good because I spent longer at the nature reserve which really is very nice. There is actually accommodation available at the HQ and it would probably be nice to spend a few nights and do some spotlighting. There’s a place called the ‘pangolin trail’ in the reserve for example, and I think I’d have a good chance for otters. I left the reserve at 4:30 to be sure I could get back for the ‘5 or 6 PM around’ o’clock bus and I had taken the taxi driver who dropped me off’s phone number and asked him to pick me up around 4:30. Well, he wasn’t there and the number didn’t work. At this point there was also no one at the HQ to ask to call a taxi. So I just had to head out roughly in the direction of the buses (although I hadn’t looked carefully enough to see where to go because I was planning to get a taxi) and hope to find a taxi. I asked around at various people in shops etc. if they knew a taxi number but no one did. While I was walking around looking for a taxi I also stood on a rusty drain which collapsed with me on it which was dramatic but only cut me slightly. This whole bit was quite stressful, but after 45 minutes I did get a taxi who took me to the bus station. I had missed the ‘5 or 6’ bus, but luckily there was one final bus of the day leaving at 6:45 which I was able to get. It actually left at 7:15 and got me back to KL just gone 9. The rain had held off until now, although it was cloudy most of the day, and as the bus was speeding at an excessive speed in the rain and the dark back towards KL, I realised that today had been a fantastic day. Lots of wildlife, lots of adventurous travelling, and almost major problems that all turned out fine.

I was planning to go to KL Sentral to check the train for Kuala Kubu Bahru tomorrow, but a local who I befriended on the bus who seemed to know what he was talking about said not to and I could just show up whenever and there would be a train every half an hour. I didn’t need to book or confirm anything, just show up at KL Sentral tomorrow morning. So being very late and tired, that’s what I’ve done. I’m pretty confident it will be fine. I had to get a few things from the 7/11, get some cash, and get some dinner and eventually I got back to the hostel, done for the day, at about 10:30/11 ish. Very late for me. It was a long day indeed, but a good one. I don’t think I’ll leave too early for Bukit Fraser (relatively) because I feel a bit short on sleep and I will miss the morning birds anyway whenever I leave. I’m just waffling now and am too tired to think of a witty of clever ending so that’s it. Kuala Selangor is great, but just on the edge of what could be a day trip.


New birds seen:

Dusky Crag martin

White-throated Kingfisher

Purple Heron

Black-naped Oriole

Oriental Honey Buzzard

Brahminy Kite

Spectacled Bulbul

Ashy Tailorbird

Rufous-tailed Tailorbird

Little Bronze Cuckoo

Purple-throated Sunbird

Ashy Bulbul

Golden-bellied Gerygone

Mangrove Whistler

Black-winged Flycatcher Shrike

Collared Kingfisher

Sunda Pygmy Woodpecker

Blue-eared Kingfisher

Cinereous Tit (Great Tit split)

Copper-throated Sunbird

Cinnamon-headed Green-pigeon

Crested Serpent-eagle

Common Tailorbird

Lesser Adjutant

Germain’s Swiftlet

Rusty-breasted Cuckoo

Common Flameback Woodpecker

Pacific Swallow

Laced Woodpecker


Mammals:

Sundaic Silvered Langur

Short-tailed Mongoose

 

Some very nice mammal finds! How good was the viewing of the Mongoose?

 

I probably didn't convey very well in the previous post how exciting the mongoose sighting was. I was just slowly walking along a path, eating a granola bar, and it trotted out and crossed the path about 10 metres in front of me. So I got a really good view for a couple of seconds and I tried to look for it on the other side but it had disappeared into really thick vegetation. If I had my camera in my hand ready and wasn't having a snack, I would possibly have gotten a picture. Great sighting, my first mongoose outside Africa, and I'm very pleased that it wasn't just a flash running across the path because I wouldn't have been able to be confident in the ID if it had been.

 

I'm a glasses wearer, and whilst this can very occasionally be an issue it's not really worth worrying about. I would only consider putting in my contacts on the kind of day where you are expecting a fleeting glimpse of something extraordinary.

I once spoke to a dutch girl who told me how she had been woken up in a dorm by some boys coming in in the morning from a night out. When she asked them to be more considerate they replied quite rudely, so she spent the next day waking them up every half hour as they tried to recover. Apparently their behaviour improved quite dramatically after that!

 

I think the avatar picture shows a gibbon, not a spectacled langur.

 

That's normally not a problem with glasses because they're always on your face so are already warmed up to body heat. Sometimes if you press them with binoculars and you have sweat on your face you end up with sweat on your glasses - the joys of birding in the tropics - but condensation is normally only a problem transitioning from air conditioning to heat (or when it's raining and they actually just get covered in water from rain) .

 

Bukit Fraser: Arrival Day


I had a slightly later start this morning having gone to bed late last night and I got to KL Sentral just after 9 and got the train to Kuala Kubu Bahru leaving at 9:48. They’re quite frequent trains on the KTM Komuter line and very easy to get, but extremely slow with the train having to stop for signal clearance for long period of time a couple of times. The scenery did get interesting though as we left KL and started to get into forest.

At Kuala Kubu Bahru station I got a taxi with the standard official fee of RM100 to go to Bukit Fraser from KKB station with no negotiating or anything, that’s the fee currently. It’s a fair amount of money but I doesn’t seem to be a rip off despite the fact that they could probably get away with charging more because there is no other option other than a car. It’s quite a long drive too up windy mountain roads to get to Bukit Fraser and the scenery is absolutely stunning all the way up. A really nice drive. I did find out some annoying news from the taxi driver though (that it’s very good that I know) which is that the road from Bukit Fraser to KKB will be completely closed from the 30th (day after tomorrow) until the 5th. I’m leaving on the 1st, so that’s a bit of a problem for me and the road is completely closed to be resurfaced so there’s no way to get back to Kuala Kubu Bahru. The only option is to take the other road out of Bukit Fraser to Raub which is the exact opposite way from KL. From Raub apparently I can get a bus to KL (I’ll probably have to look into this more or just work it out when I get there) which will probably be extremely long and much more inconvenient than the train from KKB but there’s nothing I can do about it. The taxi from Bukit Fraser to Raub though is an official price of 80RM rather than 100 to KKB so depending on the bus price compared to the train, this alternative route may work out cheaper. It will probably take up the full day though. Oh well, that’s not so bad and a problem for later. The taxi driver did ask if I was going to Taman Negara though and when I said yes, he suggested he could take me to Kuala Tembling (where you get the boat for the final leg of the journey to Taman Negara) for RM350 from Bukit Fraser. Considering transport via KL would probably cost almost RM150 anyway and it would save a whole night it’s almost tempting, but I think it’s too much and I’m better off trying to get back to KL by bus from Raub.

Anyway, I got to Bukit Fraser after a nice drive just before 2 and checked into my room. The number of 50 ringgit notes I had to hand over for this 4 night stay was quite high but there’s no dorms or anything in Bukit Fraser and I am staying in the cheapest room in the town. I then had lunch in the hotel restaurant. It felt a bit odd going into a proper sit down table service restaurant on my own – I had avoided doing that in KL and just stuck to street food and food courts – but you get used to it. The prices weren’t as high as I thought they might be either at RM11.50 for fried rice and a coke. It seems to be about as cheap as anything in Bukit Fraser food wise. It’s nice and cool in Bukit Fraser though since it’s mostly at about 1200m up to over 1500m on some trails and really pleasant weather for walking. Which is good because I’ll be doing a lot of that these next few days. The place is mainly set up for cars with long walks to go anywhere, but the whole area is forested with lots of birds so that’s no problem.

The town itself is really cute too. It’s an old British Hill Station and the whole place looks really cool with great views and great birds. I really like it here so far. After lunch, I went around a place called the Telekom Loop, so called because it has some big telecoms towers at the highest altitude point around. I didn’t do the whole loop, just about a third around a back maybe 3kms each way, because I spent too long stopping to identify birds. There are loads of bird waves and sometimes they’re just overwhelming with bird numbers and there’s no way to keep track of everything. One particularly large bird wave had loads of species as well as squirrels and a Hawk-eagle flew over and startled the whole lot and the forest exploded in alarm calls. Really cool. It’s an unusual problem for a birder, too many birds, but at times you just don’t know where to look in bird waves. Then the forest goes dead until the next wave. I also found a disused garage thing which was full of swiftlets which was interesting. As well as the squirrels, I saw a few White-thighed Langurs and heard some Siamangs, though not seen the latter yet. I did also get leeched once despite staying on the road, but I don’t think it’s worth wearing the leech socks unless I’m on the trails off the road and I don’t think there are any nasty diseases from leeches.

I got back to the town just after dark and got some supplies from the convencience store before having dinner at the restaurant again. After lunch I went back to my room to do some internety things and rest a bit (and write this) and now that it’s nearly 9 I’ll be going out for a bit of spotlighting back up the telecom loop.

I stayed out spotlighting for longer than I was expecting and got back to the hotel room just after 11:30. There goes the idea of catching up on sleep at Bukit Fraser, yeah right what was I thinking. Catch up on sleep in a forest with nocturnal animals and dawn birds? Not happening (there are quite a few possible nocturnal species actually). The problem with spotlighting is that you never know what might be around the next corner and I’ve got no one to tell me to turn back like a usually would. I’ll head out earlier for spotlighting tomorrow evening anyway (I’ll be having dinner earlier so that should happen naturally). I saw a fair bit though (more so later in the evening which suggests that going out earlier and coming back earlier would not have produced the same result) including loads of microbats which will probably mostly have to be unidentified but I think I can count Cave Nectar Bat because there were bats with audible sonar that were feeding off flowers and I think that description leaves that as the only species. If anyone knows otherwise please correct me though. Also seen were excellent views of a Common Palm Civet quite close up, some kind of large frog with a stripe down its back that I haven’t identified yet, and quite a few flying squirrels: mostly Red Giant Flying Squirrels, but also a Lesser Giant Flying Squirrel (great name; lesser giant) and a small flying squirrel that I couldn’t identify. There was something largeish moving in the undergrowth too that I also couldn’t see properly.

I’m planning to do quite a bit of walking tomorrow and do a walk down into the lower altitudes and back up to see a range of birds. The walking itself will be fine, I can do that distance even on hills, but I may not manage it in time if there are too many birds to stop and identify! (if I haven’t got nearly half way by the time I stop for lunch, I’ll just go back the way I came rather than walk). Anyway, I should go to bed now as I’ll be getting up before sunrise to maximise the morning birding.


New Birds Seen:

Blue-throated Bee-eater

Chestnut-capped Laughingthrush (probably the bird of the day – really common and cool looking)

Spectacled Spiderhunter

Striated Swallow

Mountain Tailorbird (super cute!)

Blue-winged Minla

White-throated Fantail

Long-tailed Sibia

Dark-necked Tailorbird

Streaked Spiderhunter

Mountain Fulvetta

Bronzed Drongo

Yellow-bellied Warbler

Black Laughingthrush

White-bellied Yuhnia

Blyth’s Hawk-eagle

Lesser Yellownape Woodpecker

Black-and-crimson Oriole

Mountain Bulbul

Blue-winged Minla

Sultan Tit

Glossy Swiftlet

Pygmy Wren-babbler

Mountain Imperial-pigeon

Silver-breasted Broadbill

Fire-tufted Barbet



Mammals:

White-thighed Langur

Pallas’ Squirrel

Western Striped Squirrel

Cave Nectar Bat

Common Palm Civet

Red Giant Flying Squirrel

Lesser Giant Flying Squirrel

Heard only: Siamang

 

There's more than a few excellent species in that list! I've actually been to Bukit Fraser (and Taman Negara) a few times in my youth, so it's very interesting to read about a place from a birders' perspective. Also a bit frustrating, since now I know what all I could have seen if I got into birding earlier

I've been enjoying this thread a lot!