In mid-February 2014, Eileen found ourselves in Kuala Lumpur for a few days. Thanks to my friend (and crack birder) Mark Ng, i was able to spend one of these days (March 19, 2014) chasing down what, under normal circumstances, is one of the shyest and hardest-too-see birds on the peninsula. Our destination was a forest trail on Bukit Tinggi, about an hour northeast of the city, where a pair of Mountain Peacock-Pheasants (Polyplectron inopinatum) had become habituated to birders (with, I gather, the help of a generous supply of mealworms).
Mark and I parked above the Japanese Village (a feature of the mountain) and walked up into the forest...
...until we reached a broad, leafy trail through the trees, where we settled down to watch and wait.
Apparently birds weren't the only animals to associate the arrival of birders with the prospect of largesse (unfortunately for them, we had forgotten to bring anything). This Common Treeshrew (Tupaia glis) ventured out onto the path a few times, probing about on a fallen log (and possible mealworm depository).
Whether this Mugimaki Flycatcher (Ficedula mugimaki) was also looking for a handout I cannot say.
I suspect that this Orange-headed Thrush (Zoothera citrina) was expecting us to provide something. This was a life bird for me so I cannot say much about its typical behaviour, but Zoothera thrushes in general are notorious skulkers. I have never seen one as tame as this.
The longer we sat, in fact, the closer the bird came. I was delighted by this, of course, but surprised all the same - not just because this is a Zoothera, as I mentioned above, but because this is a bird that is particularly popular among bird trappers. In fact, the only ones I had seen before this were in cages in bird markets. Perhaps that sort of trapping isn't going on at Bukit Tinggi, but you'd think that this was one species that would give us a wide berth.
Anyway, I am very glad that this particular bird didn't feel that way. This is a beautiful creature, and (like most other animals) is far lovelier in nature that behind the bars of a cage.
Here, to reinforce that last statement, is a bit of video.
The star attraction, of course, was the Mountain Peacock-Pheasant - one, by the way, of only a handful of birds confined to the Malay Peninsula. Finally, the male strode out of the undergrowth almost at our feet. Clearly he was in search of a handout, and when we didn't provide one he stalked off again before I had a chance to snap more than a couple of quick photos, without flash. Still - what a moment!
After drinking in, however briefly, the pheasant (and, at more leisure, the thrush), we headed back down the hill to what is billed as "the world's first Japanese tea house in tropical forest". Whether or not that's true (and we didn't actually go into the teahouse). It was certainly surrounded by forest, and set in a very attractive garden.
Here, on a slope lined with vine-covered trellises, we were visited by a confiding juvenile Tiger Shrike (Lanius tigrinus).
Perhaps it, too, was looking for a handout - or perhaps it was merely curious about us.
High above us we spotted a Cream-coloured Giant Squirrel (Ratufa affinis), the same species that we see in Borneo (there is another species, the Black Giant Squirrel (R. bicolor), that also occurs on the Peninsula). Note the truly spectacular tail.
Here is the squirrel again, this time on video.
Other items of interest in the garden included this Giant Golden Orb Weaver (Nephila pilipes)...
And this peculiar object growing out of (or attached to) a tree trunk overhead. What it is I can't imagine. Is it a fungus? Some sort of insect nest? Any guesses (or, by preference, actual knowledge)?
As we scouted the area, this stockily-built bird of prey flew into the top of a tall tree. With a bit of work, we identified it as a juvenile Rufous-Bellied Eagle (Lophotriorchis kienerii), an uncommon species that I have seen only a few times before.
I'm afraid that, in negotiating for a position to get a good shot, I may have scared it off before Mark could get his own photo - a failure of birding etiquette I still feel badly about.
I'm glad to say, though, that we both had superb look at this Orange-breasted Trogon (Harpactes oreskios). The greenish breast marks it as a female.
From the teahouse we shifted ground to the Tanglir Falls area, where a mountain stream debouches in a series of handsome cascades.
Here we picked up a few common birds, including this Stripe-throated Bulbul (Pycnonotus finlaysoni), photographed out our car window as it sat in a Norfolk Island Pine (Auracaria heterophylla)...
...and a Blue-tailed Bee-eater (Merops philippinus) perched on a thin strand of bamboo.
It was getting a bit warm for birds, though, and my interest in the area (other than scenery) was mostly entomological. Streams like this one are always good places for damselflies: this is a male Neurobasis chinensis.
Rhinocypha (or Aristocypha) fenestrella is common on clear forest streams, but this male was a new one for me.
The only dragonfly I found in the area was this female Rhodothemis rufa.
Butterflies were also in evidence; wet soils near streams are good places to find Common Mapwings (Cyrestis maenalis).
This Common Red Forester (Lethe mekara gopaka), a widespread Southeast Asian butterfly but another new species for me, is a female (the male lacks the white band on the forewing). Why it is called "Red" I cannot imagine; there isn't a jot of red on it. A pretty butterfly, though!
Introducing exotic species to places where they do not occur naturally is rarely a good idea, but sometimes it may carry unexpected benefits. Now and then a species is so heavily persecuted in its home range that introduced populations elsewhere may have a better chance of long-term survival. That may be true, for example, for Java Sparrows (Padda orizyvora) on Hawaii. Just possibly, it might also be true for the small colony of forty or fifty Blue-naped Parrots (Tanygnathus lucionensis) at Tanjung Aru beach in Kota Kinabalu. Anyway, I had never seen one, so in the late afternoon of February 6, 2014, my friend Hezekiah Asim drove me out to remedy the situation.
Before we found our first parrot, though, we came across another unlikely urban bird - this time, a bona fide native.
Oriental Pied Hornbills (Anthracoceros albirostris) apparently come down to Tanjung Aru during the fruiting season (though they certainly aren't after the dry, conelike fruits of the casuarina tree this bird is sitting in - a few fruiting figs in the area provide a much more likely source of nutrition).
Fruiting trees also, presumably, brought in this Green Imperial-Pigeon (Ducula aenea), which I found preening in the fading afternoon light just as we were leaving.
By late afternoon, the parrots seemed to be resorting to the tops of the casuarinas, perhaps to catch the last rays of the setting sun. The Blue-naped is a medium-sized parrot, with (like other is its genus) an enormous red beak. The blue nape is more obvious on some subspecies than others (according to Clive Mann's The Birds of Borneo (British Ornithologists' Union, 2008), the birds at Tanjung Aru belong to the race salvadorii, but that race is not universally recognized).
The wild range of the Blue-naped Parrot is in the Philippines, and on the Talaud Islands northeast of Sulawesi; there are also populations, presumably introduced, on a few tiny Malaysian islands off the northeast coast of Sabah. It has already disappeared from a number of small islands in its range. Birdlife International lists the species as Near Threatened, noting that " is suspected to be in decline owing to trapping for the cagebird trade
and habitat degradation from agricultural expansion and logging
pressures".
The birds at Tanjung Aru seem relatively safe, but trapping of wildlife for the pet trade is a particular problem on the Philippine island of Palawan, which may hold the largest population of this parrot. Recently authorities confiscated a shipment of smuggled Palawan Forest Turtles (Siebenrockiella leytensis) that contained more animals than the entire known population of the species!
On our way out of the parking lot I found one of the parrots still feeding, just above eye level, and was able to take some flash photos at much closer range. You can see a bit of the blue nape in the bottom photo.
Tanjung Aru is a very attractive beach, and perhaps its popularity with people who come there for other reasons than to watch birds (such people do exist) may inadvertently provide enough protection from trappers to give the parrots a chance to survive. it would be nice to thinjk that they will survive in their native range with the same ease.
