Birding with Ram Gopalakrishnan: A bird's eye view of peninsular Malaysia

Hornbills, huge birds with majestic casques, are my favourite birds: when I realised that I could see up to ten new species on a single trip, I wasted no time in signing up for a birding tour of peninsular Malaysia. Flipping through the bird guide to South East Asia was much like browsing through a bird guide of the Indian subcontinent with several species in common, said one of our group. Rich tropical rainforests with the Titiwangsa mountain range running north to south was the habitat to some 720 odd species which we hoped to see and photograph over the next week.

Hulu Langat, a reserve forest close to Kuala Lumpur was our first stop directly from the airport. The hot, humid rainforest and the profusion of species even at mid day was the perfect antidote to any lingering jet lag from our overnight flight. Three malkoha species (Red-billed, Chestnut-bellied and Raffles) were frustratingly difficult to photograph as they hopped and hid their faces in the canopy. A stream served as the perfect photo studio for a Rufous backed kingfisher’s iridescent plumage and the Dusky broadbill’s nest around which this distinctive black and white bird hovered. Speaking of broadbills, they look straight out of a cartoon strip, with their wide gaping bills admirably suited to an insect menu. No real life cartoon character could match up to the stunning Black and red broadbill, one of seven broadbills found in peninsular Malaysia: the Black and yellow broadbill at the nearby Gunung Nuang reserve forest gave it close competition though. We admired the impossibly long and curved bill of the Long billed spiderhunter, and it’s carefully woven nest beneath a banana leaf even more so. A sharp tropical downpour brought our day to an end, but not before we got some excellent shots of Malaysia’s tiniest raptor, the Black-thighed falconet, atop a pole. The next few days promised much!

We drove east to Bukit Tinggi, a hill developed into a resort with a chateau on top! The verdant forest on the property served as the setting for a rendezvous with several rare birds. The famously skittish Malaysian endemic Mountain peacock pheasant, wandered out cautiously in search of strategically scattered worms despite the crowd of photographers around! Next up was the Ferruginous partridge, whose bright rust coloured breast almost corroded our camera lens till it was chased away by the larger peacock pheasant. The calls of the White rumped shama were momentarily drowned out by the loud wing beats of a majestic Great Hornbill that flew just overhead. This spot had been caringly developed over a period of nine months by a couple of bird guides eleven years ago: the Mountain peacock pheasant is reliably seen in only couple of places in Malaysia. Sunlight plus fruiting trees equals barbets: we spotted all five on offer here (Blue eared, Gold-whiskered, Black-browed, Sooty and Yellow crowned) busily gobbling up their morning quota of berries. Both birds and birders made hay while the sun shone! A pair of Wreathed hornbills would distract us now and then with their aerial sorties from tree to tree. A Whiskered tree swift looked almost ridiculous with its long white whiskers seemingly plastered on its face like streamers.

Lanchang Krau reserve forest was the setting of our next photo-op: an ingeniously constructed hide opposite a log (called super-log for the number of rare birds it attracts) facilitated close up watching of a procession of babblers (Short tailed, Black capped and Ferruginous) and bulbuls (Hairy backed, Grey cheeked and Yellow bellied). The harsh squawk and slow drumming of the world's largest woodpecker, the Great slaty, duly gave away it’s presence. The literal and figurative jewel in the crown however was that green emerald of the forest, the Green broadbill. The obligatory evening shower was preceded this time by a dozen Oriental pied hornbills as we underpassed their evening flyway on the way further east to Jerantut . A near perfect day was rounded off with hot dosas, chutney and sambar at the only Indian restaurant in Jerantut!

A boat ride across the Tahan river took us into Kuala Tahan National Park, a tropical evergreen forest full of invaluable trees like the agarwood (used in perfumery), bamboo (used in virtially everything) and the mengkundur which had buttresses which stretched several feet along the ground. Morning pheasant appointment dutifully followed with the unbelievably spectacular Crested fireback: between its blazing orange back and blue face, this one was straight out of a fantasy show. As we burnt up our camera batteries and memory cards, the male and female approached close enough to nearly pet them, forcing us to switch from our long lens to cell phone cameras! Alas, the endemic Malaysian peacock pheasant did not show up: apparently the larger fireback bullies it out of its territory at the first glimpse. Most visitors get one or the other, not both: we were lucky indeed to get such a detailed audience of at least the fireback said our guide James, as nowhere else in Malaysia can these two be seen reliably. The Chestnut winged babbler kept up a continuous whoop disproportionate to its small size but the rest of the birds seemed to have a off day with only a couple of forest babblers (Abbott’s and Chestnut-winged) and the Buff necked woodpecker the significant additions to our list.

We drove next to Fraser's Hill, which at 1200 meters was a cool respite from the shirt soaking humidity of the low altitude rainforests we had been in so far. Replaced as a preferred tourist destination by the Genting and Cameron Highlands, it’s relatively less touristy nature and smaller visitor footfall were a blessing for us birders. This neat and manicured hill station with the traditional small lake and golf course, reminded me of what our Indian hill stations must have looked like in colonial times before they became crowded and noisy. Signboards depicting the bird life of the area left no one in doubt what tourists were advised to spend their time doing. Keeping up its reputation as an Important Bird Area, a variety of customers awaited: the spectacular Red headed trogon left the photographers struggling to keep up as it hopped from tree to tree, while the Blue nuthatch’s name did no justice to this bespectacled tree crawler. A sprinkling of worms on a twig enticed a Large niltava, a Streaked wren babbler and a Rufous browed flycatcher. A strategically placed sliced melon attracted a whole bunch of birds: the abundant, aggressive and “gangster like” Chestnut capped laughingthrush muscled other birds out of the way but ultimately the Fire-tufted barbet got to display it’s “painted nose hair” and the Silver eared mesia got a few scraps. The shier ones like the Malayan laughingthrush and the Pygmy wren babbler offered glimpses only in the background undergrowth. A Maroon woodpecker kept up its distinctive call before showing itself. A troop of endangered monkeys, the White-thighed surili, drew some frantic whistles from some Green magpies: we would have preferred to see the latter! We did get a sighting of the green magpie early the next morning though, before embarking along a neatly demarcated trail into the rainforest. The musical tweeting of the Lesser shortwing preceded a fleeting appearance and Golden babblers buzzed in the undergrowth. The “dopey-like" Long tailed broadbill kept up a vigil around it’s neatly constructed hanging nest. Fraser’s Hill is a must do on any bucket list for Malaysia: hats off to the country for doing such a beautiful job of preserving this colonial heritage spot and promoting it as a birding destination.

Sungai Relau National Park, Merapoh, was next on our itinerary. This lowland tropical rainforest, glistening after daily sharp showers, virtually overflowed with tropical beauties. The spiderhunter clan all marked their attendance (Streaked, Spectacled, Grey-bellied, Yellow-eared, Thick-billed). The lurid red on the nape of the Red naped trogon contrasting with the maroon on its back and left us faintly dizzy. A rare Yellow-vented flowerpecker was seen, and the malkoha count went up to four with the Black-bellied malkoha. The continuous whooping of the siamang ape was the background for bird calls: the ascending hierarchy of opportunities in rainforest birding is hearing, seeing and photographing, each roughly ten times less frequent than the previous. So it was that while calls of such to-die-for exotics like the Malayan peacock pheasant, the Garnet pitta, the Scarlet-rumped trogon, Great Slaty woodpecker and the Green broadbill boomed out from the thick canopy virtually next to the trail, we did not see them, especially as we followed a strict no bird call playback policy.

We stopped at Kek Lok Tong cave, Ipoh on our way to Taiping and the west coast: the limestone cliff’s small crevices and holes provide one of the best places to see the Javan sparrow. Most fortuitously introduced here in the 1950s, poaching of these most photogenic birds for the caged bird market has rendered them extinct in their native Bali! A Banded woodpecker and the Blue whistling thrush endemic subspecies completed a most refreshing break.

Birding around Taiping town was relaxed and in varied habitats: at the lake we spotted several Milky storks- basically imagine a whitewashed painted stork- and Pink-breasted green pigeons. The rainforest around Bukit Larut (formerly Campbell Hill) yielded our fifth malkoha species (Chestnut-breasted), the Blue-winged leafbird and the Sultan tit, a bird you can never get enough of. A filled in tin mine was now an open grassland which yielded typical species: Blue-throated bee-eater, Pied fantail, White and Black headed munias and a Yellow bellied prinia. We went owling that night: a long straight road with palm plantations and an electricity line on either side afforded the perfect spot for owls looking to feast on the toads which were out in numbers after the evening shower. All we had to do was drive with the headlights in high beam and hey presto, owls popped out. I had never seen a Barn owl and spent a while photographing the first one we saw: we subsequently encountered ten more individuals were perched at intervals along the road till a Spotted wood owl finally broke their monopoly! As they say, you buy one and get ten free.

The loud call of the Collared kingfisher rang out, alternating with the strident notes of the Ashy tailorbird. We were in the 40,000 acre Matang mangrove eco-system, a protected area from as far back as 1903. The tall mangrove trees were dotted with woodpecker holes, and an elegant boardwalk allowed us to bird deep into the mangoves. A variety of species adapted to this unique habitat were on display: Brown throated sunbird, the unobtrusive Mangrove whistler and the Olive winged bulbul. Two male Copper throated sunbirds put up quite a show to woo the attention of a female: we reluctantly dragged ourselves out of this magical mangrove world onto the highway back to Kuala Lumpur.

We headed back to Hulu Langat and Perdik on the last day: the loud chung-chung-chung rythmic call of the tiny Pin striped tit-babbler was the background music for more tropical gems. Two flowerpeckers (Orange-bellied and Yellow-breasted) and a dusky beauty, the Grey-bellied bulbul, were photographed in sunlight. The Rufous backed kingfisher (formerly Oriental dwarf) was still fishing at the same spot as a week ago. The single bell chime of the shy black magpie heralded the arrival of this huge bird, you can mistake it for a crow were it not for the call and the white side stripe. The Checker-throated woodpecker's prominent yellow nape made us hold our breaths. And to top it all, the prettiest and only coloured member of the forktail clan, the Chestnut-naped forktail, chose to visit a puddle in front of our car!

Much of Malaysia’s oldest forests have been cleared, in the past for timber and rubber plantations and in more modern times for palm oil and construction, similar to the situation in Borneo. We saw vast swathes of countryside full of glistening palm trees, where once verdant forest and ideal bird habitat must have existed. Poaching, especially from across the Thai border is a problem and has driven iconic birds like the Helmeted hornbill and the Garnet pitta to the endangered list. Recent laws to curb cutting of primary forests and increasing poaching penalties are most welcome, but will they help curtail Malaysia’s slowly declining bird wealth?

Head there and find out for yourself!