July 2014

July will go down in history for the infamous act of the shooting down of MH17 on the Ukraine /Russian border. Malaysian Airlines had enough on their plate with the still missing MH370 and huge losses without having to deal with another major incident. Wether the plane was safe to be in that location or not is a matter for debate but the shooting down of a passenger plane is a criminal act, whoever did it and I hope they get their just reward.
The two downed Malaysian Airline planes have had a devastating effect on a company that was already in financial trouble. Currently many passengers are opting to travel with different airlines and some crew have developed a fear of flying. The shooting down of MH17 was shockingly bad luck for the particular plane. 100 planes a day flew that corridor and a Singapore airlines plane was 24km away at the time....just 2 minutes flying time.

July started with Nikki returning from her trip to Hong Kong and then departing back to NZ a few days later. Coincidence caught up with her in that she ended up ………not only on the same plane as David and Lyn but in the same row.

Our weather has not been are dire as predicted and it appears the monsoon-driven weather pattern has overcome the El Nino interference. Although the weather is difficult for photography it produces some interesting cloud patterns with huge cloud-heads that can be full of electricity.

Helen continues her busy schedule teaching her students and keeping the in-house guests and our little furry friend happy.

One of the things we are a little short of in our micro-environment is good produce. We have two supermarkets in walking distance but the produce available is variable, even on a good day. There is another merchant opening soon in the Strait Quay building, which has suffered somewhat by a number of shops going out of business. There is an organic/natural food restaurant there that is promoting a Farmer's Market. Helen and I visited on one Sunday. Although small at the present time this will hopefully gather some momentum in the months to come.

On the photography front the Bee-eaters are in the final throes of their nesting cycle. The adults start to look a bit shabby…spending a lot of time inside a dirt tunnel.  On my penultimate trip to the motocross track I attracted the interest of the local law. The policeman would not have passed many fitness tests and could have got a role in a Zorro film but we parted good friends.

The chunky chappie in the 4th image with the green head is a newly fledged chick

The Lesser Flameback woodpecker nest I was photographing also had a happy ending as at least 2 chicks reached maturity and I saw one fledge.  The fledging was interesting tactics by the parent….the juvenile was leaning out of the hole summoning food while the adults sat in a nearby tree and called to him. In a while the adult male came to the nest without food and the chick became quite annoyed with him and pecked at him. The adult flew off and the enraged chick followed……a successful tactic to get him out of the nest. While I was observing I noticed a pair of Common Iora flying to a branch nearby…..they were building a neat little nest that was under a huge leaf that would shelter the chicks against any tropical downpour.

I really like the early morning atmosphere of this place; you get a sunrise, a chat with the barn owl and witness a mass fly-over of about 500 Open-billed Storks......even before you start photographing.

I went to another location nearby where a family group of Barred Eagle Owls had been reported. I went there in the early morning relying on my GPS for navigation. It was an interesting morning. Even with GPS it is hard to find some places in the dark. I found the small hill that is a recreation area near Bukit Mertajam...less than 20km from home. There is a small zig zag pathway up a tree covered hill. There are rubber trees and some fruit trees as well as a few larger trees. There is a covered area where several groups did back to back workouts to somewhat loud music.

I was told to ask the joggers where the owls were because they knew.....the first two would not know the difference between and owl and a kumquat. Anyhow I walked with my binoculars and soon several people asked if I was looking for the owls. They said they were not seen this morning so far. Later one of the kind samaritans called out and he had spotted one. It was an adult and quite close but obscured by twigs. It later flew to a nearby taller tree and then further up the tree. It later returned and I saw it had caught a lizard (like a small monitor). It was eating it but not in a good location. It shifted a bit closer then an old Chinese lady with lumpy bottom and cross country ski poles pointed out the juvenile. Interestingly it was sitting in a fish-tail palm just above where my camera was. It too was not in a good shooting position. The adult flew over with the lizard and offered it to the offspring......always being hidden by leaves or branches. I was drenched in perspiration by 10am...so came home. I was the centre of attraction for a while and I heard whispers of 'he is from New Zealand'....I was even honoured when given some green rambutans some old boys had retrieved by half massacring the donor tree.

While I was watching the woodpeckers finally fledge I noticed a pair of industrious Common Ioras building a nest. Iota are birds around the size of a sparrow and they weave in and out of vegetation after insects. They are quite chirpy little bird and glimpses of them are often caught but images are harder to come by. I returned to try and get shots of the parents bringing food to the nest but I found the nest had gone. A search found it in the long grass below the previously observed nest location. The nest is very neat and well-constructed with a strength afforded by a liberal coating of spider's web on the outside (white threads on the outside of the nest). Later I managed to take a photo of one of the same adults gathering spider webs are they replaced the fallen structure.

I guess it is not an issue that many people discuss but I remember having a discussion with Dani at one point when we lived in Preston Road in Singapore....the topic: squirrel errors!!! This was prompted by watching squirrels chase each other at 150mph around the trees adjacent to our house. We wondered if they made errors of judgement and fell. We compared notes some time later and we had both seen squirrels bouncing onto the ground. I was observing birds feeding on a fruiting tree in Air Hitam Dalam this month when an object, I assumed was part of a tree branch, landed with a loud thunk 15 feet in front of me...on the hard asphalt. The object was a Plantain Squirrel and I wondered if it was a fatal fall. It stood motionless for about a minute and then ran up a tree. I managed a parting shot and close examination shows a cut on its back just behind the shoulder. They are one tough species.

I spent a couple of days at Fraser's Hill late in the month with friends from Singapore. It was not very productive due to excessive haze and squally showers. I had a pick-up in KL and slipped across the road to the shopping centre inside the base of the Petronas Towers to capture some of the Raya spirit (the end of Ramadan was celebrated on Monday 28th).

I saw in the papers than a mass exodus of 1.5 Million people was expected from KL for the Raya celebration. Bearing this in mind I hit the highway about 7.30am but it was already full and a four hour journey back to Penang took six hours as there was a number of compression points where the traffic was reduced to a crawl or a standstill.

The house has been busy for several weeks and Helen has done her usual solid job keeping things in order. 

As the rugby viewing diminishes we have had a good coverage of the Commonwealth Games with the NZ team doing well