The path taken on the beach this morning, 2kms to end of trek about half-way to intended destination. The actual location of the Grey-headed Fish Eagle's nest has to be along this part of the beach as one individual was sighted nearby. The nest tree can no longer be seen from the Kpg Masjid road, cause unknown for now. It could've been destroyed by natural causes or felled.
Went to checkout Kpg Masjid Beach this morning to see how much walking was required to get to a suitable site close enough to the edge of the SY Prawn Farm for a campout.
Originally intended to drive from one of the access road but discovered the ground to be too soft with woodchips mixed up with sand. Decided to walk instead. Distance walked was almost 2kms along the beach ... mostly swampy on the beach side with pandanus, casuarinas and nipah palms. According to locals there used to be an old sandy path which was used as the main thoroughfare in the older days before tarmac was the norm. From Google this could be the now barely visible trace of tree less path , but appeared covered with tall grass. Definitely would be an efford to trudge through those.
On the way back to the car, saw a Grey-headed Fish Eagle enjoying it's meal on one of the branches of a very tall and old casuarina. Also sighted a couple of Collared Kingfishers, Yellow-bellied Prinia, and several Common Sandpiper foraging on the beach ay separate locations. Several swifts were hawking for insects on the open tall grass section.
We saw a bunch of Wandering Whistling Duck and quite a number of egrets (mixed flock) during the recent AWC at SY Prawn Farm, it'd be great to get closer to the actual site to photograph this area and perhaps locate a few other waterbirds that might not have been recorded here before.
A juvenile White-breasted Waterhen spotted along the tall grasses towards Kpg Masjid on the way back from the beachwalk.
View in the opposite direction (East).
The view towards the Kuala Baram lighthouse (West).
From the recce and map, it can be concluded that the walk to a suitable site to spy on the ducks (and other possible waterbirds) would be about 4-5kms (45mins leisurely walk one way) with one very small stream crossing. The stream might not even be there during the dryer months. The distance from the beach to the tarmac is approximately 500-600m covered with tall grass, some sections could be wet and interestingly enough several patches of forests. So far there isn't any flat open space suitable for camping other than the beach itself, so for a campout a low tide day would be the best option.
It would be interesting to see what else could be lurking in a swampy site like these which does not actually see much human presence especially after recent development of the peatswamp between Sg Baram and the tarmac (cleared and already planted with palm oil).
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