A juvvy Oriental Pratincole, finally. Steve Dexter first suspected a nesting adult roundabouts the Kuala Baram vegetable farm back in March/April 2009. In May 2009, we confirmed the presence of a juvenile but only managed to photograph the 3 pairs of adult flying about hawking for insects after a juvvy made a quick dissappearing act. Good to see this guy even only 2 months later at a location not 1 km away from the first location Steve first sighted the bird. Our only other unrecorded sighting of Oriental Pratincole in the past was from 1998 near Tukau along the trunk road.
The Wandering Whistling Ducks did very well this year, from first sighting of swimming ducklings at Pujut 7 Lakes back in February 2009 by Musa Musbah, to more duckling sightings at the AWC Workshop Fieldtrip at the same location. Musa Musbah's dilligent exploring revealed another site nearby within the same area. By May a mixed group of 60-70 adults and young birds were spotted in the area. They are all looking gregarious in the lake by now. To think that when we first proposed the idea that we might have ducks in Miri, we ourselves weren't sure we would be seeing any. They've proven to be no pipe dream ... breeding none the less!
From a single sighting February 2008, to an almost regular presence on it's favorite perch. The highest number confirmed so far was 6 Oriental Darters at the lakes. There was other unconfirmed sightings of a higher number back in Aug 2008, flying across the skies of Kuala Baram. Another location where a sighting was made was at a river near Buri by Musa Musbah in early July, a single bird hunting in the waters. Our first introduction to this bird was at Loagan Bunut where there was once (1998) a high number of individuals sighted, none was recorded in our 2009 Asian Waterbirds Census back in January.
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