The founder of Nature2pixel have been travelling to the north on frequent basis recently. Each time, he passes through Rawang in the morning, he will surely see egrets flying over the highway. Here is a short posting by the founder himself.

It’s getting more common to see the egrets next to the highway nowadays, ever since the herons and egrets left the rawang heronry. Well, I would still call this the rawang heronry since it is also located in Rawang. The number is not as high as the previous heronry and the obvious birds are the egrets and herons (exclude purple heron). I didn’t spent too much time out here today, as the weather is getting too hot in the late afternoon. I was curious and wanted to find out where the egrets come from, each time I travel along the highway. Few weeks ago, the enforcement officer from the Wildlife Department caught several Vietnamese collecting the herons eggs from the nest. This place is not too difficult to find, though. If you are interested, make it a point to explore this mini heronry.

Perhaps, you will also be interested to visit the old rawang heronry, yong peng heronry or putrajaya heronry.

Omicron. Hardly heard of before and not the usual scope you will see used by bird watchers or digiscopers in Malaysia. However, after seeing this scope for the first time, I must say at the price range, this must be one of the most value for money scope in Malaysian market. I have tried Kowa, swarovski, Zeiss, and Nikon before, although the optical quality may not match the superior quality of these high end brands, it is still pretty good for general birding and record photography. I am looking forward to write a short review of this scope once I get one to add to my birding gears. If you are interested, try clicking HERE to check it out from trifid-optics.

The first month of the year is extremely busy for us and we consider it as one of the best month for our survey assignments. Again, our team went into the forest for flora and fauna surveys which we manage a long list of flora and fauna after a long trip around peninsular Malaysia for bird watching. Most wildlife were sighted although some are recognized by calls and even tracks. We recorded the prints of adult tiger with cub(s) and as usual, elephants droppings are everywhere in our 2 survey sites. This is the first sign of tiger’s presence in all our works thus far. It means from now onwards, we should be more alert in the future for other assignments. Nevertheless, we are hoping to conduct more flora and fauna surveys.

Due to the recent health and personal matters, the founder of the website has decided to temporarily handing over the management and services of nature2pixel to a colleague. From this period of time until further notice, the founder will not be actively involved in any field works to concentrate on his health and other matters.Emails still filling up the mailbox and he regretted for not able to reply most of them. He would like to apologize to those who wrote into this website and not enjoying the services provided.

Thus, this website is will going through minor revamp soon. For those who had given the support, thank you very much. The founder hope to get back into action after full recovery and solving current problems.

For the month of November, our team had to endure the heavy rain to carry out our wildlife survey at sites. At each site, the common big mammal in the country is evident through discovery of dung and calls at close range. Although the bad weather created various risk and danger for us while doing our job, we are fortunate that no injury or accident occur. Due to our commitment to complete the jobs assigned to us by the client, we will try our best to deliver - still we took every precaution and consider all possible risk. From this month survey, we managed to observe variety of birds and other wildlife.

I remember seeing the bird photographs taken by the late Laurence Poh for the first time. Bee-eater, Kingfisher, Little Grebe, Herons and many more. Even at low light condition, he made it so easy to take great bird photographs. I did my own research over the internet looking for a combination of gears that I can afford. At the same time, I wrote emails and corresponded with the father of digiscoping. I appreciated his advice greatly. Thereafter, I bought my first set of digiscoping equipment. Then, I met up with a few local digiscopers. One of them, a veteran in the bird watching scene in Malaysia., Anthony Lau more famously known as Uncle Tony. Together with a few others, we explored some of the fascinating birding sites in Malaysia not merely for digiscoping but to enjoy the scenery, taste great local food, while sharing our birding stories.

Let us just keep it simple. Digiscoping is a method to take photographs using a camera through a spotting scope. Just a few years ago, when digital camera is still considered unpopular and slightly expensive than it is right now, birders will use this method to record their findings during field trips. Ever since the price of a DSLR camera has dropped, many digiscopers have migrated to the DSLR camp. However, there are still some who still remain in the digiscoping community - just like me. Below are some of the photographs taken through digiscoping.

A medium sized bird of prey with a prominent crest like the baza, Blyth’s Hawk Eagle (Spizaetus alboniger) must be the most famous raptor of Fraser’s Hill.

Although most of our sightings were recorded from Fraser’s Hill - hill station and the Gap area, this raptor can also be spotted in the lowland forest to the highlands at 1,980m above sea level. Our past records showed that this species was sighted in Slim River (Perak), Genting Highlands (Pahang) and Pasir Puteh (Kelantan). The picture of the left was taken from Slim River while on a recee trip years ago. It flew above us for a while to enable us to observe this raptor carefully. While some of us were observing it through the binoculars, I reached for my camera and took the opportunity to snap a few photographs.

More photographs of the Blyth’s Hawk-Eagle are attached at the bottom of this post. The last photograph were taken during a birding trip to Genting Highlands.

This raptor from the Accipitridae family is fairly easy to identify by its crest, black streak on chest, and black barring on the belly. It often perches in tall trees and soars over forest.It is found in Peninsular Malaysia, Borneo and Sumatra. It feeds on smaller animals. October - April is the common nesting season for this species and usually 1 egg per nest. Under the Wildlife Act 76/72, this is a totally protected species.

Asiatic Golden Cat (Felis temmincki)- probably one of the less popular wildcat in the region. We have heard about tiger, panther, leopard cat, and clouded leopard but have you ever heard about Asiatic Golden Cat? Since it is less popular or not easily found, not much is known about their behavior but we believe it hunts primarily at night. Our team had stumbled upon this cat while driving early in the morning and camping in Taman Negara, IUCN listed this cat as a Near Threatened species. Legend says the burning of its fur and eating its flesh will drive tigers away. Meanwhile, the indigenous people believe this is a fierce wildcat but while in captivity, it is known to be docile and tranquil.

Last month, near our base in northern state of Peninsular Malaysia, we found a fresh roadkill late in the afternoon. It was a juvenile Asiatic Golden Cat. It is common to see roadkill every now and then, but this is the first time we got this poorly known wildcat species and sadly, it had to be a juvenile.

The recent find over the weekend at Fraser’s Hill was a real surprise. We were searching for the nightjars when one of the birders spotted an animal. It was a Slow Loris or popularly known as kongkang. Its scientific name is Nycticerus coucang. This slow moving primate is moving on the electrical wire above the road. Since it was really an exciting find, all of us got out from the car and tried to have a good look at it.

This animal is an opportunistic carnivores - feeding on insects, bird eggs and small vertebrates.

If you are heading to Fraser’s Hill, try to spend some time driving or walking around at night near your hotel or bungalow. Good luck.