Malaysia « My Itchy Fingers

Maiden Drive into Malaysia

January 6, 2009 at 12:01 am | In itchy backside | Leave a Comment
Tags: Birdwatching, Malaysia, Nature

On Boxing Day, Itchyfingers followed a group of friends and made our first attempt at driving into Malaysia for a birding day trip.

As usual, we met up at about 5.30 am at the bus-stop opposite Beauty World Shopping Centre. Normally it would take us about half an hour to drive to the Woodlands Custom before passing through the Malaysia side. Then it would be another half an hour or so drive to Kota Tinggi town for brekky and loo break before heading to the Panti Forest to catch the birdies singing. It was quite some time since we last visited Panti together, and after a quick hello session and filling of the white cards, we made our way to the checkpoint at around 5.50 am.

We passed smoothly through the newly opened Malaysia Sultan Iskandar Sultan Ismail CIQ (New Johor Bahru Custom) using the Touch ‘n’ Go cards for payment. It was the first time we were using the new Malaysia Custom, and despite having an online GPS system on the leading car, we got lost eventually, driving along the side facing Indonesia instead of the usual straight forward road toward Kota Tinggi Town. Itchyfingers were especially lost since it was our maiden drive and nearly lost our friends at one turn when we were blocked by a lorry.

Eventually, we had to stop by the road and ask direction from the local and couldn’t believe our luck when he volunteered to drive and show us the way towards the Kota Tinggi town, cos he wasn’t too sure of some of the smaller road names. Dun think in Singapore we could find such helpful souls…hahah…:D

By the time we reached the town it was already quite bright at around 7.30 am…normally we would have to drive in the dark and reach before seven at the town for brekky. So we thought our friends would just drive straight to Panti. But they still stopped for brekky and loo break. :p

We reached Panti about one and half hour later than usual. Those of us who haven’t been there for a while were surprised by the changes made – there are now a visitor centre, car park and a viewing tower. The road had been paved, not too sure if they wanted to pave it all the way inside or not.

Pavilion in the middle of the pond…

Then suddenly from a distance I saw a doggy running towards us…What was this doggy doing here?!? Wow, she was so excited to see humans…either for the company or for the food. She followed us around, even when we started to drive in…and stopping when our cars stopped…

follow2
Persistent doggy followed our cars throughout the whole visit….

Not too long later, it started to drizzle heavily…:( What rotten luck. We did manage to see some birds, but with the rain, it was not ideal for taking photographs.

follow
Looked as if my friend was walking his doggy in the park huh? :p

frown
Doggy frowned a lot…must be tired and hungry after all the following and chasing
of cars…rain or shine…poor thing…

food
Some of the goodies we had for picnic in the forest….

We did not forget our loyal doggy companion who followed us all the way…it must be one of her happiest days…

rest
Doggy finally taking a break after having her full of Christmas turkey and biscuits…

We called it a day slightly after noon as it wasn’t a very fruitful birding trip, though we did get to see some nicer birdies. Quite sad to have to leave doggy alone again in the forest…although there were workers coming in to pave the road…hope to be able to see her the next trip…she was such a friendly doggy… :O

Lunch was at the usual Popular Restoran in the town. Getting back was much easier, maybe because it was day time. Usually by now I would be dozing off in the car all the way back to the custom, but since it was our first time driving, my eyes were wide open looking out for our friends’ car to follow closely…to help me keep awake, I took pictures of the many dramatic clouds…:p

car
We changed our ‘target’ and followed this friend’s car instead cos she was
slower….

Dramatic clouds kept me awake…:p

It took a while to clear the customs on both sides…By the time we reached Singapore, it was already late afternoon…So tired and sleepy…Tisu Boy complained of stiff shoulder muscles after that…but we were glad we made our maiden drive into Malaysia and look forward to more drives in the near future!

Life in the Mountain – Fraser’s Hill, Malaysia Trip #4

July 31, 2008 at 6:19 pm | In itchy backside | Leave a Comment
Tags: Bugs, Malaysia, Nature, Travel

As mentioned before, our last trip to Fraser’s Hill was not very fruitful in terms of the number of bird species seen. Many birds were not seen this time round for whatever reasons I do not know, even the team from Singapore that came out first for the bird race had only over 70 bird species on their list. Certainly hope it was not a sign of declining bird species due to global warming.

Anyway, walking and driving around looking for birds, I was hoping to be able to see my four legged shelled friend again. Years ago, when we weren’t driven up the hill by friends and had to walk around the whole Fraser’s Hill, we had a very surprise encounter. Tired from all the walking up and down with binoculars, spotting scope and my bag, I was lagging behind when Tisu Boy suddenly shouted to me, “or gui!” (hokkien for turtle) Immediately I ran towards him and I couldn’t believe my eyes! What a luck!

It was really an ‘or gui’ ! And not any ‘or gui’ but a real ’sua gu’!
(hokkien for “mountain tortoise”, a term used to describe a country
pumpkin or ignorant person):-D In this case, it was a ’sua gu’ cos
it stayed in the mountain! Hahah…:-D

Crawling in the shallow drain at the side of the road

I know I shouldn’t be touching wild life…but being a tortoise and turtle
fanatic, I couldn’t help it…:P This cutie should be the Asian Brown Tortoise

There was something on top of his head, and I thought it was just a fruit that landed and stayed there. So when I petted him, I tried to flick it away. But the soft ‘fruit’ didn’t move. It was only now that Tisu Boy, through his camera lens, noticed that the ‘fruit’ had legs on it! :O

Oh my goodness! The ‘fruit’ turned out to be a humongous tick! Or maybe it was bloated after its blood meal? The poor turtle had such difficulty trying to withdraw his head into the shell! Wonder if it was painful or itchy? I wanted to remove the tick by force, but was not sure if it would hurt Brownie or not; or if he would continue to bleed like in the case of a leech bite.

See the legs of the tick? Evil looking fella…

He was crawling in the middle of the road where cars often passed by, so definitely it was not a good idea to leave him there. As he was not really alarmed by our presence, we took some time observing and taking pictures of him. We didn’t notice at that point of time, but upon scrutinising the photos later back home, we were shocked to find more ticks on poor Brownie’s foreleg!!

Can you spot those blood suckers from the photo above?

A total of five evil ticks just from this angle! I wonder if other parts of
the body had more?

In the end, we decided not to pull out the evil tick and hoped it would, like a leech, drop off after it had its fill. But I couldn’t just leave Brownie behind and decided to move him back to where he should belong.

Tisu Girl to the rescue…wow, Brownie was heavy…As if he understood
my intention, he didn’t struggle

And back to where he came from, down the valley into the woods…

Tick, Twitch and Snap! – Fraser’s Hill, Malaysia Trip #3

July 31, 2008 at 12:14 am | In itchy backside | Leave a Comment
Tags: Birdwatching, Malaysia, Nature, Travel

Birdwatching is an activity where one ‘watches’, or rather, observes birds and their behaviours. There are a few types of birdwatchers. The first type is a ‘Ticker’‘ where one is satisfied just seeing as many birds as possible and putting a tick on his bird list. Often, a Ticker may not be interested to see birds that he has seen before. Many times, Tickers may ‘progress’ into ‘Twitchers‘. ‘Twitching‘ is a British term, meaning the observation of a previously located rare bird. Thus a Twitcher is one that is obsessed with accumulating species on his bird list that he may go all the way to chase or wait for rare birds. Then there are the group of birdwatchers who take photographs or video as record purposes. Birdwatchers learn and appreciate more about the feathered friends. Often, there will be a certain degree of twitching in every birdwatcher in the quest to see more bird species, otherwise we won’t be travelling to places looking for birds liao. Hahaha….

One of the most unlikely places for birdwatching must be this rubbish
tip at Fraser’s, where birders often endured the rotting smells to wait
for a glimpse of the Blyth’s Hawk Eagle. This pile seen here was considered
small and smell ‘mild’ compared to some times back…:p

There are also many jargons in birdwatching. A ‘trash bird’ is a bird that can be commonly seen everywhere. It’s almost guaranteed that you will see these birds. Our local thrash birds include the House Crows, Mynas and Sparrows etc. In Fraser’s Hill, their ‘trash birds’ are far more beautiful…

The Silver-eared Mesia, a commonly seen bird….wow! Their ‘thrash bird’
so colourful! :O

The Chestnut-capped Laughingthrush with its mouthful of worms for brekky…

The cute little Mountain Fulvetta

The less colourful but still elegant Long-tailed Sibia. These birds are
often among the first to arrive in a ‘bird wave’, where flocks of different
species of birds come together to feast on insects

The Lesser Racquet-tailed Drongo, a montane species. This one lost its racquet.
Under good lighting condition and you would be able to see its glossy
blue hues, which otherwise looked dark and dull

One of the happiest moments in birding must be seeing a ‘lifer’, a term used to describe the new bird seen for the first time.

The Blue Nuthatch, one of my lifers for the last trip

Seeing something new is always exciting, but sometimes seeing the whole family together made my day too!

The male Large Niltava with a fat meal for junior…Females have duller
coat of browns

The juvenile Large Niltava resembles mummy but has more spots

If you are lucky, you can find nests. These are the Glossy Swiftlets

This trip might not be our best trip for bird photography, but photo opportunities were abundant in Fraser’s Hill. Besides the many birds, there were also many different species of moths, insects and beautiful flowers. Gibbons were often heard and sometime seen too!

Behind the scene…No lah, Tisu Girl can’t lug this monster around the
mountain, it’s Tisu Boy…hahaha