My new hobby: Birding

Haha.. i guess i haven't been update my blog for ages. My apologies =) (I prolly have to left out some of the post because i know it's been very outdated). Oh well, now i would like to show off my new hobby: Birding. I guess lots of you will be wonder: "Why of all activities.. i picked up BIRDING?"

It started from:
When i first got my new toy: Nikon Monarch bins (just two days before Festival of Wing'08 organized by Malaysian Nature Society, MNS). I felt so happy to get this bins because now i get to see birds more clear.

With Monarch, i'm able to spot all my lifers. Definition of "lifer" means new birds. In my case, all the birds (have or have not seen) are my lifers. My first lifer was Brahminy Kite which i saw when i was in Kuala Selangor Nature Park (KSNP) back in 2005 with Ee Ling. I would recommend this place to all the birders and nature lovers.

Festival of Wing'08 (Kuala Selangor Nature Park) : That's when i started to pick up how to do birding. That's when my bird list started to expand or increase.

At this time, i haven't really feel the "craziness" over birding.

My so called "crazy over birding" journey started from :
January'09 - the one week biodiversity assessment with my two Xi Fu, Lim Kim Chye (KC) and Dave Bakewell at two of the "A" oil palm plantations at "A" company. One week with these two teachers were really AMAZING. They can ID birds by JUST listening to bird calls. I still remembered that i asked these two Xi Fu to slow down because so many birds' name came at the same time and at that time, i didn't know how to spell the birds' name. I still remembered Dave said he would like to see how i spelled "Bulbul", "Oriental Magpie Robin", "Drongo", "Red Junglefowl" and so forth. It's fun to recall these memories. With their guidance, i picked up a couple of bird calls (Now, i think i slowly forget the calls because haven't heard the calls for pretty long time. *whink*).

With this new hobby, i bought a couple new bird books: Field Guide to Birds of South East Asia, Field Guide to Birds of Thailand (given by my Boss) (By Craig Robson) , Raptors of the world and so on (I can see that i'm slowly building my Birding mini library).

Thanks to Raptor Watch 2009 with MNS birding group, now i'm volunteering to count raptors from Sumatra. Most of my weekend started from February to April, i'll be spending my time with birders aka my XI FUs at lighthouse, Tanjung Tuan to count raptors. Most of the raptors that i saw were Oriental Honey Buzzards (OHB). (Next post will be about my raptor count at Tanjung Tuan, Melaka).

I would recommend this hobby to everyone because it's fun (sometimes can be challenging..). Why challenging? For beginners like me, i found it difficult to differentiate bird calls due to lack of practice (haha.. thanks to my "lazy" genes). Now at least, i slowly pick up those common garden birds: Yellow-vented Bulbul, Oriental Magpie Robin (OMAR), Myna (Common and Javan). As for raptor, it's pretty easy to pick up Brahminy kite's call (I know.. i'm "not" trying to show off *blek*).

Here are some pictures:

Oriental Honey Buzzard (Lighthouse, Tanjung Tuan in 2007 with Ee ling)


Common Myna which i spotted at my recent trip to Tanjung Tuan, Malacca (Melaka).