Monday 22 November 2010

20/11/2010: Bukit Palong (Kedah)

While making our way this locality, we came across a Changeable Hawk-eagle perched rather comfortably on a tree just next to the main road. Lucky for us, traffic was still at a minimum and we took our time to capture a few images of this magnificent raptor.

It was rather confiding and practically ignored our presence and all the vehicles passing below it. Well, except when we got a little too close and it gave us the “stare”. If looks could kill, I’d be dead already.

One of the main reasons we decided to do our birding here was the recent sighting of a White-throated Rock-thrush - a rather scarce migrant. Unfortunately, we dipped out on the thrush but a few other migrants like this stunning Ferruginous Flycather provided the highlights and magic for this trip.

We also came across three rather confiding Dark-sided Flycatchers on different occasions throughout the trip. This is the first individual we encountered and it hawked for insects a little too high up in the canopy for any really great images.

The second individual had a much paler underside colouration and its choice of a vantage point to hunt was much more favourable for photography than the first bird.

I’m saving the best for last as the third individual gave us a most memorable performance. It frequently returned to the same few perches that were just in front of us. We just needed to position ourselves and wait for the little fellow to pose for us.

A flock of Scarlet Minivets foraging through the forest canopy is always a breathtaking sight but attempting to capture their images is never easy due to their active nature and their preference for the upper canopy levels. Anyway, this is my best effort of a young male taking a breather along a slightly lower level.

3 comments:

Ari said...

Great capture, Wai Mun, love the DS Flycather images! they look so cute...

Paul Wu said...

Beautiful series!

Choy Wai Mun said...

Thanks, Ari & Paul