Tuesday 8 December 2009

06/12/2009: Bandar PERDA & Kubang Semang (Penang)

I decided to hunt for more Aquila Eagles at the same locality taking into consideration the success of yesterday's search. At the paddy fields in Bandar PERDA, I was faced with the same dilemma as yesterday - the Greater Spotted Eagle was resting on a distance pylon with no way to reduce the distance.

While scanning the other pylons in the vicinity, I spotted a migratory Peregrine Falcon using the pylons as a place to rest as well.

Large-billed Crows are facing stiff competition from the highly successful House Crows here in Penang and I feel that their numbers are greatly reduced. This rather confiding individual was foraging at the edge of the paddy fields and I took full advantage of the situation to obtain more images of this species into my collection.

The Brown Shrikes were tame as usual like this lovely lady...

I decided to spend more time at Kubang Semang this morning as this is where I saw the Imperial Eagle yesterday. As it was still a little to early for the eagles to hunt, I concentrated my attention to a mixed flock of Black-winged Stilts and Grey-headed Lapwings. The stilts were rather confiding as usual...

And much to my delight, so were the lapwings this morning...

One of the fields had quite a number of foraging waders. I tried my luck to see if by chance the Temminck's Stint was around but the only stints here were the Long-toed Stints.

There were a couple of Curlew Sandpipers in the vicinity as well...

Snipes are notoriously difficult to identify and this shy individual was no exception. I can only guess it is a Common Snipe...

I came across a few Black Drongos hawking for insects just above the paddy fields. The low angle provided me with a good opportunity to obtain their images.

As the morning sun rose higher, I spotted a couple of Black Kites circling in the sky above. I took it as my cue to start my search for the eagles and true enough, I could make the shape of 2 large raptors circling at a far distance. I put my poor car through the "rally regime" again to reduce the distance and fired away my camera. One of the raptors turned out to be a juvenile Imperial Eagle and is most probably the same bird I saw here yesterday.

Unfortunately, it turned and soared away from me after a short while. The remaining raptor was a juvenile Greater Spotted Eagle and it, on the other hand, remained to provide me with a very good show indeed. Merry Christmas to you too!

6 comments:

Terence Ang said...

Based on the moustached, the Peregrine could possibly be the japonensis race. This mean there should be 2 peregrine. I got a juv with Choo Eng of the same subspecies.
I wander where are the calidus race?

Redzlan aka Tabib said...

Beautiful series as usual.
Love that in flight shoots.

Madibirder said...

Lovely series of photos. The Lapwings look gorgeous.

Choy Wai Mun said...

Thanks, Tabib & Madi

Tony nile life said...

Lovely shots of some lovely birds,
in your last blog I think the pond heron is a Squacco Heron(Ardeola ralloides) the same ones I have on my, only been birding a short time.
blog.http://birdinginegypt.blogspot.com

Choy Wai Mun said...

Hi Tony, the pond herons here in Malaysia are quite similar to the Squacco Heron but the latter does not occur in this region.

Thanks for the compliments.