This locality is one of the last few remaining swamp forest and it has been a few years since my last visit. This used to be one of my favourite haunts but my last visit was not a happy one. There was a new road cutting through the forest reserve and I could not even locate the forest trail that I used to bird along.
Anyway, together with Choo Eng and Muin, we decided to try out this locality and see if there is still hope left for this once excellent birding site.
Parts of the old road can still be seen as we drove along the new one and it brought back memories of another time where I spend hours in the leech infested forest trail observing fascinating species like the Rufous-tailed Shama and Grey-chested Jungle-flycatcher. I really regretted not being able to capture any of the images as I was still with my digiscoping set-up at the time.
This road always had its share of road kills in the past and today was no different. The unfortunate casualties this time was a Collared Scops-owl and a Banded Krait. What an undeserving end to such fine specimens.
We also found a few logging trails in the area and that is not a good sign. 
The highlight of the trip was this handsome Pig-tailed Macaque and he really put on a show for us. All the shots were taken from the safety of our vehicle…
And those fangs are the reason why…
We recorded almost 40 species of birds but most only provided glimpses and sound. With my telephoto lens still at the service centre (Come on Sigma. It’s been a month. You’re killing me here), it is no surprise that I did not have a shot worth showing except for this female Whiskered Treeswift taken at the Batu Siputih Forest Reserve. This locality is about 20 km away from Pondok Tanjung which looks quite promising and I can foresee a full day’s trip in the near future.
1 comment:
nice trip, Sorry I can't provide any more accurate position of the site as I can't picture it myself clearly. Perhaps one day I can join you guys for another day trip.
I'm more interested on the Jerai site.
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