7 March 2024 Langkawi Island: The Birds are All Around

 

Our flight back to Penang island was not until the afternoon so I booked my first Birding Tour ever.  The guide picked me up at 7:30 after I had gotten some breakfast.  She was all decked out like she was in the armed forces, cargo pants, floppy hat and extra gear hanging off of her.  She had a spotting scope, binoculares and the knowledge of where the birds were to be found.  We saw 22 different types of birds and 6 of them were lifebirds.  So now I have seen 49 new bords while in Malaysia.  One new bird for every day we have been here.  I got back at noon and finished packing just in time to get to the spa for a massage.  Then it was off to the airport to fly back to Penang

The sides of the roads were stabilized with concrete 

The black capped kingfisher is a rare bird to be sighted

Sitting on a mangrove branch

Wendy the bird lady

A foot long mudskipper

Beautiful bright blue spots in the smaller mudskipper

Little blue fiddler crabs 

Muddy mudskipper

Further away was the Greater Flameback Woodpecker

The back of the woodpecker is yellow

The tide was up in the mangroves

It looks like Christmas...these bulbs are to attract squids

Ashy Drongo Lifebird #3 for the day

A Common Kingfisher, not new

Not commonly stationary long enough to photograph

Greater Coucal 

Striated Heron

A common sandpiper and a white breaster water hen

Another heron

Paddyfield pipet

Scaly Breasted Munia

Tires as a road block

But the tires were punctured so they will not become a breeding ground for mosquitos

The Brown Winged Kingfisher #4

A very large beak on this beast

Driving the roads

Eastern Cattle Egret

Plaintive Cookoo #5

A female and a fine looking one too

An odd sight

The umbrellas were to shade the beehives from the sun

Got some stingless bee honey for Miss Polly

The bee-keeper cleans out the hives when gathering the honey and leaves the excess pollen out for other bees to eat

These bees make their hive sin trees

Stray dogs get fed by other folks that come to the park

Here they get rice to eat

A Oriental Pied Hornbill

The large green pigeon #6

This is a building with no windows.  They play the sound of swifts to encourage swifts to nest inside

The nests of the swifts are harvested and used for birds nests soup

Close up of the Large Green Pigeon

Boulder

Some time to waste waiting for our ride

The koi were big

Big and beautiful

A golden koi

I think they were looking for some food

But it was not dinner time for them

Flying back to Penang

It has been 1 year and 276 days since we began our Migration