Weekend Birding at Lambir Hills

An obliging bulbul on a macaranga, and behind him the fruits many birds go for.

Not 4 weekends ago, while visiting Lambir with the kids, we met a birder with his father attempting some bird photography at Lambir Hills National Park with a 500m. His first question was : "Do we have a bird guide?". Short answer : "No, we haven't got one here in Miri unless you engage someone beforehand from tour outfits in Kuching or KL. Those guides in KK would be closest!"

Lambir Hills National Park is a big place. Birdwatching is probably manageable on your own if you know the birds and you are adventurous enough to venture into the trails alone. You'd still need a few days to do the place justice. The Lambir 2002 Birdlist (Shanahan & Debsky) boasts a comprehensive list of 200+ birds. There hasn't been any more complete work to date since then.

For bird photography, it's probably best if you are already aware of where the birds are going to be. This is where local knowledge, perhaps built over the years of birding the area or collective birding experience come into play. A bird photographer can quickly set-up in a designated place known to be having regular bird visits thus guaranteed results.

Over the years, many birders have been to and birdwatched at Lambir. Some of this additional information is added to the list maintained at the Park HQ Office. Occasional visits by Miri birders added some more valuable bird sightings to the list.

If you are visiting only for a day or two, some of the following locales within the Park complex might be useful to you. If you have more time, book yourself into one of the hilltop chalets and do your photography to your heart's content from your chalet windows within the confines of your comfortable temporary hide. If you feel lucky surely go lug your equipment along the Innoue-Pantu Loop trail, there are several choice spots along the way for very shy birds that do come out calling once in a while. Persistence and patience do pay off in these parts.

My favorite places has always been just around the HQ complex. I'm not looking for any rarities in particular, any bird photograph is an image worth making in my mind. Some of these pictures I have made while checked in at the Hilltop Chalet. One of these days I might just try to lug the 600mm, tripod with Wimberley head as well as other associated accessories into Innoue, it's not yet time for now.

One of my favorite spot is Chalet No. 3 just up the hill behind the temporary canteen just after you've passed the old park office. In between the chalets there are a few nice rhododenrons and macarangas. A few other fruiting plants I don't recognize. These are perfect spots for birdwatching and bird photography without having to lug heavy equipment too far into the trail. During furiting seasons, these spots are a hive of activities.

Dusky Munia are commonly seen flitting about the neighbourhood. These days, the park has put up several nesting poles at a few locations for this beautiful endemic. At least 3-4 kinds of bulbuls and sunbirds make their stops at the macarangas picking up juicy little ripe fruits. My personal favorites are Hairy-backed Bulbul and Purple-naped Sunbird. Another favorite, Spectacled Spiderhunter, the largest spiderhunter in these parts are regulars here.

Fruiting trees are all tell tale signs that the site could be your next productive site as far as birds are concerned.

Chalet No. 3 from across the wooden bridge. A fruiting macaranga in between Chalet 3 and 4 guarantees bulbuls, sunbirds, flowerpeckers and spiderhunters. A rhododendron is also nearby.

Another spot, the camera is pointing to a fruiting tree a favorite of bulbuls, barbets and leafbirds. Occasionally a squirrel or two would drop in.

Little orange fruit (unidentified) a favorite of several species of bulbuls, barbets and leafbirds.

If you are lucky you'll spot nesting Dusky Munia busy flitting back and forth tending or building nest for the season. Bornean Brown Barbet and Greater Leafbird are regularly seen picking up ripe fruits in this area.

Areas surrounding Hilltop Chalet is probably second only to Chalet No. 3. Here if you are early, you can point your lens towards babblers which are very active very early in the morning and late afternoon. There's also an unidentified fruting tree with little black berries and macaranga in front of the chalet. You can shoot all day from the comfort of your chalet living room.

Down the hill from the Hilltop Chalet is a small pond, quiet by the side with a little shelter on it's shore. Here Blue-eared Kingfisher, Stork-billed Kingfisher have been recorded. Black-naped Monarch stops by for a bath on hot days. Banded Kingfisher so far has been heard but has not yet been seen. You'll be probably be more lucky with the Rufous-backed Kingfisher in the same area.


This little pond is a confirmed favorite of at least three species of kingfisher as well as other birds. Occasionally a terrapin would pop it's head out of the water.

For the more stout at heart, a foray into the Innoue trail just behind the Hilltop Chalet could be just the thing to get you pumping. Other than the babblers, pittas and trogons regularly calls a short distance into the trail. Only a few birders have been privileged with photographs of both species. Further up towards Pantu shelter, sightings of Bornean Bristlehead has been made on numerous occasions. Near a small valley where a wooden bridge cross a little stream, there's a little pool of water on the right where a Banded Kingfisher regularly calls though he has yet to be sighted much more photographed by anyone.

With 200+ species of birds on it's list, those spending a few days at Lambir Hills NP would surely be rewarded with sightings of at least 1/3 of the birds there. A single half day trip maynot be enough for everyone, but it surely rakes up your chances of getting the less regularly seen quarries.

Nazeri Abghani/Nov 2011

PS:

Recently accomodation options at the Park have at least tripled with the addition of several new modern concrete chalets. Pick those closest to sites above for comfortable birding from the confines of your chalets.

Birding Merkang Nov 2011

Merkang's networked roads in the paddyfields.

Back to Merkang - a week off work just before the school break to send the kids back to Kelantan for their annual immersion of kampong life. Also the twice yearly visit to check-out and keep up the family home.

The kids are a year older, and with their eldest cousin Afif being 13 now, it's a bit easier to leave them at home for a couple of hours while I go check out the birds in the paddyfields of Merkang just at the back of the house. Normally by the time I get back home with the day's breakfast, they'd still be curled up in the living room, still asleep.

These annual trips has become something that I most look forward to every year since Mom's passing. It recharges, with plenty of time to reflect on past years events and look forward or plan for the upcoming new year. Dusting up the family home, packing away a bit of Mom's knick-knack are theraupatic.

The kids love the space to run around, watch tv or play games all day with their cousins. Roaming the paddyfields fishing and collecting siput sawah are probably some of the activities they most look forward to this time of year.

Merkang in my backyard is mostly actively worked on paddyfields in the area connecting Merkang proper, Padang Pak Amat, Jelor, Pauh Lima and several other villages in the area. Clumps of little hills scattered the landscape, for most parts they are flatlands planted with paddy with rows and rows or irrigation canals and good network of kampong roads, some surfaced and some not.

The birds you see here are the regulars you'd see in perhaps many of the paddyfields in Peninsular Malaysia. You've got the waterbirds : egrets, snipes, herons, bitterns, crake and the likes; you'll have raptors, the most common being the kites and harriers; and then you'd have the seed eating variety such as munias, grassland types of birds. Kingfishers are a personal favorite along some of the clear water canals that meander along the road network. One rare sighting was of the Crested Partridge a couple of years back, a sighting of a Watercock still remains unconfirmed.

I usually start off just after daylight, traverse the road network by car and shoot from the car window. The likes of Pond Heron, Egrets, Kingfishers are very skittish here, perhaps due to regular hunting for the pot by the locals (especially the pond herons and bitterns). The 400/5.6 and 600/4 are both attached to Canon 7D bodies respectively on the front passenger seats. The 400 for quick grabshots while the 600 are reserved for more slow work where the quarry if comfortable and unawares.

I hardly use flash because the attachment on the bracket would fit the car window, it's quite a challenge trying to maneuver the 600 in a car, much more with all sorts of accessories attached to it. Back in the boot, I have the Gitzo ever ready, so far it hasn't seen much use in the paddy fields. In fact I was thinking of just ditching it for any upcoming Merkang trips, replacing the Gitza instead with a beanbag.

The shots have been half-way decent half of the time. With not much traffic during the early morning hours, the birds get spooked less, so opportunity for good captures are rather high. So far other than the raptors, most other quarries have afforded some decent images.

Below is a selection of images captured in Nov 2011:

Black-shouldered Kite is probably the most successful and abundant raptor in the Merkang paddyfields.


Harriers are also sighted regularly and is the biggest raptor around these parts.

White-throated Kingfisher, the most common kingfisher species in paddyfields.

Pond Heron is another ubiquitous species near the water's edge. A very skittish quarry being regularly hunted by the locals for the pot.

Old friend Little Egret, it's always a grand sight to see them fly into the paddyfields in big flocks in the early of the morning and to see them off again in the evening.


A Common Kingfisher perched unawares nearby a clear water stream that branched off one of the irrigation canals. By the time the 600m was poised for a photo, it did a fast dissappearing act not to be traced again.

Chestnut Bee-eater on a dead branch in early morning light.

Another Pond Heron photographed with a 400mm from the car window as it was ready to fly off again.

The children also tried their hands at bird photography on this year. Afif finally got the hang of the 400mm and made a couple of decent shots before the week was over. Aisya and Irfan concluded that the lens and camera were far too heavy for them, Irfan got excited with the prospect of owning his own pair of binoculars one of these days.

Ali has a fair ways to go yet to be converted to a birder. Several more similar outings in the backyards of Merkang, I am sure we'll have a few more birdwatchers in the area.