The Brown Boobok formerly known as Brown Hawk-Owl

This pair of Brown Boobooks (formerly known as the Brown Hawk-owl) was snoozing away that late afternoon on this tree in one of the trails near a housing area in the State of Selangor. It's not easy to see owls nearby the city. Thanks to a birdwatching friend of mine from Malacca who kindly shared the accurate Google Map location with me, I was able to squeeze in some time to birdwatch a bit at the trails. Blue-winged Leafbirds, Crimson-breasted Flowerpecker were surprise finds that afternoon before I arrived at the roosting site of the owls. For purpose of avian study, that afternoon's finding was recorded in a checklist HERE for eBird Malaysia.

Half-asleep Brown Boobook (above pic) compared to fully asleep (below pic)

 

The second Boobook's head was really droopy and it stood out from the more vigilant one above it:) 

 

The vigilant one

Owls are not meant to be kept as pets. A friend of mine once took care of a lost baby owl. It was found in a car park of a golf course in Johor Bahru by her husband. I had strongly encouraged her to return the baby owl back to where it was found, since it could have just dropped out of a nest and its mother could be searching for it. She hesitated. It was not easy to convince my friend that owls were not meant to be kept as pets. The cuteness of this baby owl did not help its cause. My friend tried her best to take care of the baby owl which turned out to be a Sunda Scops Owl species. Its head tufts started to develop as it grew older. My friend did try to release it to a nearby patch of forest near her residence. Unfortunately, the owl did not take flight. Alas, it appeared to have grown attached to my human friend. The owl died a few days after. On hindsight, I should have persuaded my friend to handover the owl to PERHILITAN.
After seeing this pair of Brown Boobooks (formerly known as Brown Hawk-Owl) which can be considered to be living wild and free from human intervention, I am reminded of the sad outcome for the Sunda Scops Owlet in Johor Bahru. Sunda Scops Owl like all other owl species, should never be kept as pets no matter how cute they look. I came across a very informative website under the International Owl Center on how stewardship of owls remain with the US Fish & Wildlife Service, and that a license is required for a person to keep native owls on strict terms and conditions, the breach of which would result in USFW service taking over. Top ten reasons owls do not make good pets, can be read and viewed in this Centre’s website HERE. The non-stop cleaning should hopefully deter any person to consider keeping owls as a pet. I must remember to share this website whenever a cute owlet or owl "drops" into the residence of any of my friends. #OWLSARENOTPETS

Blue-winged Leafbird (Male) pictured as above and below

Blue-Winged Leafbird - Lessons from Seychelles

 

Blue-winged Leafbird - a flock were flying about and singing in the forest of Selangor/Pahang border that afternoon. One of the many species of leafbirds which are unique to the Asian region. However, due to its melodious calls, the leafbird species are facing a threat in being captured from the wild by poachers and heavily traded in the market, to be sold and kept as pets. It is heartening to read of rescue and conservation efforts in Indonesia such as the one reported HERE. Reading about declining numbers of songbirds and how many of these species are on the brink of extinctions can be disheartening. A silver lining in the dark clouds over such songbird species could be the possibility of saving these species by raising awareness and raising funds to save species from the brink of extinction. When the usual sources of income from Tourism declined, Seychelles turned to Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) to raise funds for a good cause - to save their critically endangered Seychelles Magpie Robin. Read about this initiative at World Economic Forum website HERE. 

Birdwatching within borders of Selangor - Black Eagle BINGO

The Black Eagle (Ictinaetus malaiensis) was an unexpected find that Saturday afternoon. There is a farm located off the old road from Batang Kali, Selangor to Genting Highlands, Pahang. Crossing State borders was still prohibited by the Malaysian Government. Luckily, this farm was within the Selangor borders. I was walking on a pebbled road which leads to the farm, when this magnificent raptor flew across and towards the valley beyond. I had less than 2 minutes to observe it before it disappeared from my view. Lady Luck was with me that day when this eagle made a second appearance later in the evening. It is described in eBird HERE as appearing dark from a distance, but on closer inspection has pale barrings on primaries, secondaries and undertails and bright yellow bill and feet. A map in Xeno-canto has a sound recording of a Black Eagle from Fraser Hill (Selangor-Pahang border) HERE. When I first saw the Black Eagle, it had an all-black appearance and was large, which reminded me of the official colour and huge players from the famous New Zealand rugby team. The All-Blacks of NZ perform their famous war dance before their matches which can be watched HERE. The full list of the birds seen or heard during that short walk at the farm in Batang Kali, Selangor is available HERE.     

Yellow feet of this Black Eagle is visible in this picture above

Five "fingers" on the right wing of this Black Eagle as pictured above

All-Black appearance above - reminding me of the official colour of the famous rugby team from New Zealand:)

The pale barrings on the secondaries of this Black Eagle are visible as pictured above

The Black Eagle was seen circling in the skies behind this patch of forest

 

 

 

 

Laughter is really the best medicine - ask the Kookaburra for example

Laughing is such an important outlet to release stress and tension. Laughing Kookaburra is one such species named to reflect its unique calls which sounds like a series of laughs which you can hear HERE. The Laughing Kookaburra is one of four species of Dacelo genus under the Subfamily Daceloninae together with the Rufous-Bellied Kookaburra, Aru Kookaburra and the Blue-winged Kookaburra - the above picture of the Laughing Kookaburra is from the "Kingfishers of the World" book by Leslie Knowles and James Nitchen (Times Editions, 1995). All four species are from the Australasian region, with the Aru Kookaburra being endemic to all mainland Guinea, the Aru Islands, the western islands of New Guinea, the islands of Sarera Bay, Sariba Island and Heath Island. There is even a famous children's song Down Under celebrating this Aussie avian speciality which is described as a common and very large kingfisher with a dark eye and brown cheek patch at eBIRD HERE.

Kookaburra sits in the old Gum Tree

Merry Merry King of the Bush is He 

Laugh Kookaburra Laugh Kookaburra Gay Your Life Must Be

Wizards of Waverly Place actress Selena Gomez has a very relatable laugh which you can view at this short Youtube video below or HERE. She is such a down to earth person with the media portraying her as a triple threat and the very public coverage by the American media over her controversial relationship with a very famous pop singer. It is not easy to face the media at such a young age. How she started to shift the media attention to her charitable work, as early as during her Disney days by highlighting the stray dogs issue in Puerto Rico, inspiring kids to believe in themselves and work hard to realize their dreams (through UNICEF, WE days), visiting sick kids in hospitals and lending her (famous) Instagram platform to Black Lives Matter cause reaffirms her message that she wants people to know her for her heart.     

 

I had blogged about the Kingfishers of the World Book when I wrote about the Oriental Dwarf (or is it Black-Backed?) Kingfisher HERE.

Vaccination Drive and that Flock of Migrating Geese in an episode of Wizards of Waverly Place

The Lesser Whistling Duck landing right into the grassy patch at the edge of  Lake in Paya Indah Wetlands. The flock of Cotton Pygmy Goose flew in later to swim in a quieter part of the lake. 

Birdwatching trips are now put on a backburner. The covid-19 cases statistics in Malaysia do not show any sign of improvements and I have lost count of how many waves we have had to face since we went into lockdown on 17 March 2020. The Government has set as one of the targets, 10% of the population to be vaccinated and in my personal opinion, this should have been done months ago. The Government registration portal which can be accessed HERE was a real challenge for me when the second phase of AstraZeneca vaccines opened for the elderly to register. I spent an entire Sunday morning, trying to register for both my parents, almost going mad jumping from the browser in my laptop to a different browser in my mobile phone, and a third different browser in my IPAD when the last step which was selecting the place and time for the AZ vaccine could not be completed. It turned out that there was a technical glitch in the registration portal itself, and that glitch was fixed within 1 hour AFTER complaints flooded the Government Portal Facebook. Why the telephone hotline service was not available that Sunday when it was already decided earlier that the registration portal would only be activated on that particular Sunday and at noontime, really baffles me. Despite all the frustrating attempts made via laptop, and 2 other devices, I managed to secure AZ vaccine registrations for my parents. Their first doses were received on 11 June 2021 at Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC), Kuala Lumpur and based on recent news, their second doses which were originally slated for 3 months later, would be expedited a month earlier. I myself got my first dose on 30 June 2021 at MITEC, Kuala Lumpur

Birdwatching from an armchair has been my experience for the past few weeks. I noticed a flock of honking geese at the 17th minute 38 second clip of this episode 6 Season 1 of Wizards of Waverly Place entitled "You can't always get what you carpet" where Justin teaches Alex how to ride the magic carpet and they stop their carpet ride at a red light above skies of New York City. It was quite funny watching them wait patiently for a flock of migrating geese to fly pass before continuing their "carpet flight" lessons. It really left me wondering what this species of migrating geese was. You can watch that episode HERE . I read an article about migrating snow geese which during springtime can be found flying in flocks around New York harbour. The snow geese are migrating northwards towards their Arctic nesting grounds. A snow goose can live up to 8 years, which is a very short lifespan compared to a human being. I read this in a blog by NY Harbor Nature HERE. I found more information about Snow Goose and its likely confusion with the Ross Goose in eBird which you can read HERE. Snow Goose adult blue morph pictured HERE and the adult intermediate morph pictured HERE, looked identical to the flying flock from the Wizards episode. Snow Goose adult blue morph with (a much bigger sized) Canada Goose in the background is also pictured HERE.  There is a picture of a HUGE flock of Snow Geese in Missouri, USA at a place called Loess Bluffs HERE. There are vocal recordings of the Snow Goose in the eBird website, with the honking loud calls of the Geese in California, USA which were exactly what that flying flock in Wizards episode, sounded like:) Birdwatching is a hobby to me and discovering a whole new species (although not as exciting as the experience of seeing a new species for myself) through a Disney channel series during a raging pandemic, whilst staying at home is good enough for now. If only there was an elf that loves birdwatching as much as it loves chocolates. The chocolate-loving elf had bitten the character Alex Russo in one of the episodes of Wizards of Waverly Place and she ended up craving for anything chocolate. The elf who loves birdwatching would have had a calmer effect on humans. The Snow Goose reminds me of our Cotton Pygmy Goose species which can be found here in Malaysia. According to eBird's description of Cotton Pygmy Goose HERE it is a tiny duck. The word "Pygmy" is in the name of this Goose species and it is a relatively small size goose like the Snow Goose. The Goose-related adage What's Sauce for Goose is Sauce for Gander comes to mind. So What's Sauce for Pygmy Goose is Sauce for Pygmy Gander, I suppose. There's also a species of elephants known as Borneon Pgymy Elephants and many more flora and fauna species which has the word "Pygmy" in their names but I digress. I had observed a delightful flock of Cotton Pygmy Goose, and Lesser Whistling Ducks in Paya Indah Wetlands way back in 2017, which I had blogged about HERE. The journey to get vaccinated, is the first step towards the promise of more birdwatching and memorable travel adventures to come.

eBird - my journey to go pass 400 in Malaysia

 

A fantastic world map feature in eBird with my species number – the world is my (birdwatching) oyster 

I am an eBird user. I have been a birdwatcher before eBird was around. I joined my friend during her survey in Fraser Hill back in 1998 when the World Wildlife Fund of Malaysia was about to establish a Nature Centre in the famous “Little England” of Malaysia. The Fraser Hill Survey was a defining moment in my birdwatching life, as it re-ignited my interest in birds, with the Silver-Eared Mesia being the most beautiful montane bird species I have ever seen in Malaysia. “BIRDS - A Photographic Guide to the Birds of Peninsular Malaysia & Singapore” by Morten Strange and Allen J (1999, reprinted version) was my first bird book. Reading it and seeing all 290 species illustrated in pictures mesmerized me and made me want to learn more about the avifauna of Malaysia and Singapore. I went birdwatching with my friends from Malacca and Negeri Sembilan, whom I had met during the first Raptor Watch event in Tanjung Tuan, Port Dickson. Like birds of a feather that flock together, my friends visited me in Johor a few times to explore the marshlands and rivers of Segamat. It was common to see White-Bellied Eagles, Crested Goshawks, Long-tailed Parakeets, Black Hornbills, Black and Red Broadbills, White-Bellied Woodpeckers, Sooty Barbets (formerly known as Brown Barbets) back then. Still, with the encroaching activities of human beings, including sand-mining, construction of a restaurant by the riverside, an abandoned building and logging, it was getting more difficult to see these once-common species. I wished eBird had been around for me to enter the checklists of the lowland birds seen during those visits. I registered my free account with eBird in 2015. eBird Malaysia, a regional portal to engage local birders and grow the eBird community throughout Malaysia, was launched in November 2016. You can read more about that initiative HERE.

 

 Screenshot from eBird Malaysia web portal once I logged into my page

I learned how eBird as a tool helps me track the number of bird species I’ve recorded and entered into my checklists for Malaysia and beyond. Bird sightings contribute to hundreds of conservation decisions and peer-reviewed papers, student projects and help inform bird research worldwide according to eBird science. There are 834 bird species in Malaysia, including Sabah and Sarawak, according to WIKIPEDIA HERE. 16 bird species are endemic, 19 bird species are introduced by humans and a staggering 63 species of which are globally threatened. Gallus gallus  (Red Junglefowl) is one of the bird species introduced from Asia to the world, leading to domesticated chickens – is that a good or bad or even ugly introduction? That question deserves a separate debate altogether.  Since my tally is only 397, I have only seen less than 50% of the total number of bird species in Malaysia, according to eBird. I have gone on a birdwatching trip to Sabah before creating my eBird account. The scribbled notes in my pocketbook of the Birds of Borneo of birds seen during pre-eBird days remain unrecorded in this tool. Sabah is one of my go-to birding destinations once borders in Peninsular Malaysia re-open, which I hope will help me pass 400 species in eBird. In some small way, I hope to contribute towards science and conservation, whilst chasing my birdwatching goal.