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Leech…a blood sucking worm in the rainforest. Have you seen one or ever been bitten by one before?

There are 2 types of leeches - but luckily none is poisonous or carry disease.

Where can you find leech? wait…why do you want to find a leech…I assume everyone wanted to get away from the leech. So, let’s change the question a little bit to “Leech hunting grounds”

Leeches can be found near water or places that are wet. Forested areas or trails that are wet are most likely places that you will encounter the active blood sucker. Leeches can often be found in shady areas of ponds or in dark places under rocks, logs, leaves, etc.

So, each time, when you go into a forest (especially during wet season), just observe the trail and the side, i’m sure you will see them waving their body - sensing your body heat. If you intend to go to Taman Negara, you will surely get a souvenir home from the leech. If you are looking for protection from the leech, bring along some ointment. Previously, there are people spraying “Baygon” on their shoe and pants before going into the forest, while some wear long socks like the hockey / soccer players.

But for you and anybody who is reading this posting, I would recommend “Endemic Leech Proof Socks”

Email me to find out more about this sock and how you can purchase one.

Today we have a family from Sydney, Australia (Anthony, Alicia and Lachlan) and a couple from UK (John and Susan). I have Vincent with me as the driver for today. Both enjoyed the trip and John sure took a lot of video. You should see him with the deer and bear.
This is my first time bringing a small child to experience the elephant ride and feeding the deers. In my humble opinion, children at a very young age are very enthusiastic and full of curiosity. They really want to do something that they see on TV or books. But their attention will not last long and if the tour is too long, they could be very tired. My advice is to ensure that your children get enough rest prior to the visit or have them sleep during the journey in the morning. It is really worth getting your children on the elephant and visit the deerland. Bring along your camera to take home some memories.

From KL (Prince Hotel), after meeting up with Stacey and Brett, we headed towards Gombak Toll. In between the hotel and the toll, we stopped by at 7-eleven to get some snacks (just in case). As usual, the drive along the highway to Bukit Rengit / Lanchang takes around 1 hour 30 minutes.

Our first stop is Deerland. After registering at the counter, we walked to the first enclosure. Brett and Stacey’s first task is to feed the Indonesia deers. Sound simple, eh? well, sound simple and look simple. until the all the deers come close to you … really close and even jumped towards you for food. not to worry too much. they won’t eat you though. it’s the food they are after. if you have not try this, believe me, you gotta do it when you have the chance. all you need to do is put the food on your palm and hold it close to the deers. that’s it! voila…

we walked out from the deer enclosure and stopped by at the kancil’s enclosure. kancil…small and cute. kancil is an animal that represents intelligence and bravery - in my humble opinion. don’t believe it? read about the story how melaka started and where the state gets the name. also, read about the folk lores about sang kancil.

then, the next little cutie is a hedgehog. i’m sure you have seen one in cartoons but to see it live and hold it with your hand is another experience you never get by staring at the television. next to the hedgehod’s enclosure is a party of quails locally known as puyuh. more cute little animals (bird). stacey and brett’s next task is to feed these birds - well no big threat. all they needed to do is put the feed on their palm and hold it near the quails. the quails are very quick…in a matter of seconds, all the feed are finished!

They couldn’t hold the python though. not this time around. the python were recaptured a week ago after escaping from the ground for 6 months. it has to be reconditioned … that’s what i was told by the staff.

now, the first threat is to feed hitam, a 2-years old malayan sun bear. first, brett moved in and fed it with some biscuits then, stacey followed. after a while, they moved to the next stop to feed the ostrich. gotta becareful with the ostrich. these are strong birds with strong leg for running (and kicking). mind their pecking too.

after the ostrich, it is time for the next threat - papa bear, an adult malayan sun bear. though the smallest bear in the world, they are still very strong and powerful. just look at their claws. as usual brett when into the enclosure after being invited by the staff. he hug the bear while feeding it. stacey was convinced to try it after seeing brett successfully completed the task. for the final encounter in this “mini zoo”, they have the pig-tailed macaque. the macaque just jumped from brett’s shoulder to stacey’s.

a short visit but well worth it. a good experience before going into the elephant center. it was still early so we had a 1-hour lunch break inside the center and register for the activities. the video show starts at 1pm and lasted for 20 minutes. The next activity is elephant feeding. we have 5 elephants in the compound - Lokimala (India), Pyan (Myanmar), Abot (Johor), Mawar (Johor) and Lasah (Perak). Stacey and Brett selected Lasah and tried feeding it with Papaya. Lasah keeps dropping them after grabbing it from their hands. so, they tried feeding Mawar and managed to do it.

After the feeding session, they lined up from the short ride. next, it is the fun time in the river. everyone were lining up but stacey decided not to join. However, Brett takes up the final call for the session and ride on the elephant for a while before it “dumped” him into the water.

After Brett went out from the changing room, we make our way home to KL. it takes longer time as it is the rush hour in KL and raining along the highway.

Today, I am going to start to post and share a website that relates either to bird, bird watching, equipment and digiscoping. Hopefully, you can get a little information from here and click on the link to find out more. Without much delay, I am introducing the first website that I found through google search. The company is called “Optical Hardware”. Here is a summary of the website with text extracted from there. It seems that this company provides quite a range of budget for optical equipment. If you are staying in UK or Europe, perhaps you may want to consider giving more attention and consideration on this company. Start by visiting their website for binoculars, spotting scopes and adapters.

“one of the best sources in the UK for binoculars, telescopes, optical equipment and accessories”

Optical Hardware are manufacturers and distributors of a wide range of optical products including binoculars, telescopes, monoculars, magnifiers, eyepieces, tripods and supports, optical instruments and accessories.

They have this brand called Olivon. I don’t think I have come across this brand in Malaysia before. So, I cannot comment much about it. But I still feel there is no harm to get to know more about it. When I guided a birder from Sweden last year, he was using a binocular from Swift. Never heard of it either but he told me it is commonly use in Sweden and it is made in Japan. If I am not mistaken, it should be something of Nikon standard. Well, the optics quality of Swift is quite good. So, let me remind you again, if you see an unknown brand, you should still give it a try and get more information. No harm done.

I attended Ding Li’s first bird talk in Malaysia. It was held in Petaling Jaya inside Schimdt Marketing building. Schimdt is tehe distributor for Leica and Minox in Malaysia. You can see the buntings all over the room. This is also Ding Li’s first time coming to Petaling Jaya. It was a great and informative exposure on the birds of Moluccas, Sulawesi, Flores and Komodo. As usual, his knowledge about birds and geography is incredible.

I met Connie at Prince Hotel and Residence and I guessed she (with her husband) has been waiting for me. I put on my binocular with the harness strap so that they can recognize me easily. Immediately, we make our way to Bukit Rengit. We did not see many birds along the way because it was too dark to see any bird.

Upon arrival at the tol exit, we stopped near the toilet facility and I heard the coppersmith barbet calling. I scanned around the trees canopy and there it was perching high up on a tree. From the same area, we managed to spot the peaceful dove, spotted dove, brown shrike, oriental magpie robin, Eurasian tree sparrow, yellow-vented bulbul, and a flying long-tailed parakeet. In addition to that, I got a glimpse of the black-thighed falconet and heard the black-naped oriole calling. Then we continue the drive into the forested area and along the way, we spotted the jungle myna, large-billed crow, long-tailed parakeet and heard a few flowerpecker’s calling from the road side.

Driving along the Malay houses, we saw white-throated kingfisher, striped-throated bulbul and more oriental magpie robin. Before reaching a T-junction, an emerald dove just landed right in front of the car and walking on the road. A scorpion was seen on the road just next to the dove. That is the first time I saw a scorpion in this area. As soon as I got out from the car to take a photo, Connie was so excited when she spotted a bird landed on the tree right above where I parked the car. It was a beautiful chestnut-breasted malkoha. We continued our drive and along the way, we stopped briefly whenever we spotted a bird by the roadside. At the open area, a motionless lesser coucal was perching on a stump to give us a full view, more striped-throated bulbul was sighted, a black-thighed falconet perching on the tip of the branch, gold-whiskered barbet well hidden on a fruiting tree, greater racket-tailed drongo flying across the road above us numerous times, and a yellow-eared spiderhunter was together with the drongo on the same tree. On the spot, I heard 2 banded pitta calling – one on each side of the road. Unfortunately, we were not able to see it.

A report with the bird list and some short video will be uploaded in the next few days after coming back from the island in south china sea. stay tune….

Well, it is not exactly the same place I usually visited in the past. This part of FRIM is still new and only a few uses this area for recreation exercise. I went over to this place after being told by a friend who is working inside FRIM. This place is known for black-and-red as well as black-and-yellow broadbill, and blue-eared kingfisher.

While I was there, the only sighting were javan munia, eurasian tree sparrow, yellow-vented bulbul, blue-tailed bee-eater, banded bay cuckoo, asian glossy starling, spotted dove, pacific swallow and white-headed munia.

The rain in mid-day eventually halted my birding recee. I took shelter under a common gazebo nearby. It rained very heavily so I had to called my friend to pick me up from the shelter. I hope to check out this place more often because I believe there are a few more surprises that await me here.

I took a video of the banded bay cuckoo with the digiscoping unit (swarovski scope and nikon coolpix 4500). Click here.

Bob enquired if I would be available to do bird watching with him a month ago and I quickly responded to him by offering my assistance to show him around. Initially, he was supposed to come a week earlier but changes his schedule. The trip was postponed a week later. I met Bob in KLIA and took him to a hotel in KL which he stayed for a night before we start our birding trip.

During the 6 days birding tour, covering the 3 key sites (traditional birding route) in peninsular malaysia, our combined bird list has a total of 140 species including the heard only species. I am glad that I found a new bird for myself which is the bar-bellied cuckooshrike in taman negara.

In kuala selangor, we covered the mangrove, secondary forest, mudflat, fisherman jetty, canal, peat swamp, rice field and an open land. Meanwhile in fraser’s hill, we covered the gap and hill station. Our focus in taman negara is restricted to the jungle trails and boardwalk as well as the kampung tahan area. On our last day, we explored the forest in krau.

For a full report, download this file.

Below are links to some of the videos taken through digiscoping. Check out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh5A2pUHQ-w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJpaN_OA12g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hoU9Yije