The rest of April and June 2015

There was still another fortnight to April apart from our trip to Australia.

April has provided some strange, wet and stormy weather. Normally January and February are the dry month...last year March was as well.....and during this time the Penang Hill caught on fire. We were told that this March would also be unusually dry but it wasn't. April is usually the nest month for bird activity as most species nest around this time. The Blue-tailed Bee-eaters have again arrived at Penanti in large numbers and I have spent some time there

We have also had some bird activity around our property. One of the trees out the front has small red berries and the birds seem to like these.....such as the Koel, Black-naped Orioles and Yellow-vented Bulbuls.

The YV Bulbuls are found in every niche is Singapore and Peninsular Malaysia. They are amazingly successful at nesting and raising chicks and they appear to do this throughout the year. The cooperation between the male and female is phenomenal...they do a lot together and you can hear them communicating with each other. We have had then nesting on the property several times and we have seen them checking out potential nesting sites months before they start building. Currently we have them sitting on two eggs at the front of the house.

Nearby is Coco's favourite beach. I was down there recently and was summonsed by a fisherman who showed me what looked like a small dolphin with a back fin. I referred it to an expert and she said it was in fact a species of finless dolphin  (only the dorsal fin is missing)

Elsewhere after running two half marathons Dani decided to run the London marathon. We are all proud of her and she raised a smile at the end of the race.

May 2015

May was not a great month for us. Helen had a dose of Dengue fever and spent most of a week in bed and the next week getting back to normal. There seems to have been a number of people in the area who have had it but as with other things here it is rather unofficial. We know enough people to draw some conclusions. As we know Dengue is transmitted to humans by mosquitos and for you to get infected you must be bitten by a mosquito that has recently penetrated an infected person. The range of individual mosquitos is a few hundred yards. The incubation period is 4-7 days and the onset of the fever is rapid. In the first two days you should seek medical advice but you generally don’t want to be moved. By the time you are relatively mobile you may or may not test positive. The thing to watch is that platelet counts drop and present complications if there is any internal bleeding. I have had Dengue and researched it enough…to keep an eye on Helen’s condition and to get her to keep fluid levels and to eat sensibly when she could.  Helen is back to her normal teaching load but will have to stall ambitions to run a 10km race with Dani when we are in the UK.

The other downside of May has been the inclement weather. We have had a lot of rain and dull mornings….which don’t lend themselves to good photography. I had a paying client for 3 days during the month and was extremely worried that we would get rained out. There was a sort of mini miracle in that we had three fine mornings and we were both happy. At the start of the month the Blue-throated Bee-eaters were incubating eggs…which takes 28 days. There was not a lot of action during this time and a few frustrated mornings. I spent some time with Praneeth, my Indian student who has now gone back to India for a break before he starts the next phase of his business studies degree in the US.

We have attended a few social events in between Dengue outbreaks and thunderstorms. We have had a good run in the Monday night pub quiz with current form of 2-1-2-2 (we actually prefer the second prize which is bottled beer over the first prize which is a bottle of vodka that nobody drinks). The vodka holder was a ring-in that filled-in for Helen when she was laid low

Helen and I will be off on the 12^th of June for Dani’s graduation. We have a two week trip planned. From KL to Amsterdam where we will stay with Maureen, our housemate from Birmingham. From Amsterdam we will fly to Glasgow and stay with Ann, Helen’s sister for 3 nights.  We then pick up a rental car and drive down to Cambridge. We have booked 2 nights at Seahouses on the Northumberland Coast from where you access the Farne Islands…..and nesting Puffins. We have nowhere else booked and will go where we fancy for several night. After the festivities at Cambridge we will stay at night with nephew Craig and Eve before heading back to KL and Penang. As I write this Dani has one exam to complete.

The photography has suffered somewhat with the bad weather but I have still managed to pick up the odd action shot. The Kingfisher (below) is one of the chicks that was being fed earlier in the year.