Tioman Island: 17 November 2012

After a quick change, we met up in the homestay garden, overlooked by a Green Imperial-pigeon. Rafi had been on the island recently for the raptor survey and told me these were common. Nevertheless, I took a few ‘insurance shots’ and as it turned out, this was the best view I had the whole week. Better safe than sorry!

Later in the day we saw several flying in and out of a fruiting fig on the Berjaya Golf course. The ‘green’ on these birds is a unique colour – I can’t think of any other species which shares it.

As we walked north through Kampung Tekek, we passed under several trees full of large, noisy colonies of Large Flying-fox Pteropus vampyrus. We wondered what, if anything preys on these beasts, and were told later in our stay that White-bellied Sea-eagles are occasionally known to take them. I think I’d stick to fish!

This juvenile Purple Heron standing incongruously in the police station compound was the first suggestion that there might be some migrants about, despite the settled weather.

Just north of Tekek we wandered into a half-finished housing project, and were immediately attracted to a damp corner where several Little Egrets were hunting. A walk through this produced a couple of Red-throated Pipits, which flew up uttering their distinctive, high-pitched teezzz call, and then landed on the rooftops of the new houses.

These small, streaky pipits are superficially similar to Pechora Pipits (which I saw on Mantanani Island last month). The most obvious differences are habitat preference (wet areas for RTP, coastal scrub for PP) and call (PP rarely calls on migration). Plumage-wise, RTP tertials entirely cover the primaries, whereas PP’s shorter tertials leave the primary tips exposed on the closed wing. PP is more heavily streaked above, and has very obvious whitish tramlines down the mantle (these are present but much less obvious on RTP). These RTPs had a much more defined ‘face’ pattern than PPs – a more obvious supercilium and eyestripe. Compare the pics above with this one of Pechora.

The same little swampy corner produced 4 Yellow Bitterns as well as a few Little Egrets and pond-herons. We nicknamed it ‘Magic Swamp’.

In late afternoon we headed south toward Berjaya Hotel and jetty.

Though Water Monitors were present in the larger ponds and streams, Clouded Monitors seemed more abundant. These were remarkably tame and approachable. Clouded Monitors can be distinguished by the crescent-shaped nostril midway between the eye and tip of the nose. On Water Monitor, it is circular and right at the end of the snout.

There were plenty of Hill Mynas about. Rafi told me that the name ‘Tioman’ is derived from ‘Tiong Man’ – which translates from the local dialect to ‘My Hill Myna”.

The view looking north along the west coast of Tioman from Berjaya Jetty. Very scenic, but not the kind of weather we were wishing for! The largely cloudless sky meant that the frigatebirds, which roost nightly on Pulau Renggis, just off the jetty, kept high and distant until well after dusk, rendering specific identification impossible. I had been banking on getting Christmas Island Frigatebird as my 566th species for Peninsular Malaysia on this trip, but suddenly it was looking far from being a certainty!

When we arrived at the jetty, a constant stream of Pied Imperial-pigeons was already in progress, heading out to roost on Pulau Renggis. We counted 589 birds, but the actual total must have been several hundred higher. Once it gets 1000+ frigatebirds on it as well, that island must be pretty busy at night! Amazingly, considering the generations over which the birds have roosted there, the trees seem unaffected by the volume of guano which must be deposited there.

As dusk fell, we nabbed a few other good birds – an Osprey soaring with the frigates, 2 Pacific Swifts flying through, a Red-rumped Swallow among the many hundreds of Pacific and Barn Swallows swarming the place at dusk, and a silhouetted assassin of a Japanese Sparrowhawk which suddenly appeared among the swallows.

A rivermouth after sunset on the walk back to the chalets. We could see the stars as we went to bed praying for rain!

Pulau Mantanani: 8 – 12 Oct 2012: Pipits and Wagtails

Shortly after arrival on 8th Oct, I took my first walk along the coastal path from the resort to see what I could find. Within a few hundred metres, I flushed a passerine off the path, and it landed just a foot or so off the ground on a dead branch, enabling me to get the bins then camera on to it as it watched me nervously.

Not the best pic, but a record shot of a species I last saw in 1986 at Beidaihe, China – a Pechora Pipit. After a pause, the bird hopped back to the ground and scurried off into the undergrowth. Despite waiting there for over an hour, it never showed itself openly again, though I did see it creeping along with its eye on me a couple of times – a very skulking bird!

Pechoras are distinctive pipits – very boldy marked, and most similar to Red-throated (see here). The easiest way to identify them is by the fact that, uniquely among pipits, Pechora’s primaries are visible beyond the rather short tertials. You can see this, even on this poor photo.

Other than that, they have very bold white wingbars and pale mantle braces, are heavily streaked, and the malar stripe doesn’t reach the bill.

Perhaps the biggest giveaway though, is the habitat and behaviour – sneaking around on the ground in thick cover right next to the beach.

On 10th Oct I flushed another in similar habitat at the other end of the island, just inland of the north beach. This one didn’t reappear at all despite a lengthy wait.

The same afternoon, in yet another area, and in the midst of prolonged rain, as I was walking along a coastal path, I flushed another. This time the bird walked out onto the path and remained motionless for a good five minutes, looking wet and miserable. I had put the camera away because of the rain, but I was able to slowly get it out and fire off a series of shots in very poor light.

I was dearly hoping to find a Richard’s Pipit on the island, but I was probably too early. The only other pipits I saw were a pair of familiar Paddyfield Pipits on the football field.Eastern Yellow Wagtails were an abundant migrant, with at least 40 birds on 9th Oct. They favoured the beach and sandy grass in Kg Siring Bukit. How many can you see here?You should have found four. But there were inevitably more than I could see when the birds took flight.

Watching these birds, I realized that it is possible to identify juveniles to race rather easily, or at least, that’s how it seemed to me.This is a juvenile macronyx, with almost no supercilium and a rather dark grey crown and ear coverts.

I took these birds, with a broad, long supercilium, to be juvenile taivana.The commonest variant was this one, with a thin supercilium, sometimes broken in front of the eye, which I took be to be tschutschensis. The extent of marking on the breast was very variable, from virtually none to quite heavy and distinct.

These juv Eastern Yellow Wagtails exhibit several supposedly strong features of Citrine Wagtail – white vent, dusky rear flanks, lack of olive tones, even a dark lateral crown stripe on some. None, however, showed the broad white wingbars and pale ear covert surrounds of Citrine.There was quite an influx of Grey Wagtails in my few days. I recorded none on my first day but at least 8 birds on the 10th, with another 6 on the morning of 12th Oct.