September 2013

September is the second wettest month in our location. We have had periods of steady rain but also weeks at a time without rain.

It is a month that did not seem to register a lot of activity.  Nikki is heading to Okinawa soon during the term break. Dani is now in Spain and smiling Jack is in Chile. Dani has hit the ground running and seems content with her situation albeit it is only a week.

Helen has been busy teaching an increasing number of students and organizing events for the Women’s Association. We had an tour of one of the regular cruise boats that come to Penang. It was one of the boats owned by Genting, the Casino operators and it also has a heavy emphasis on gambling. The ship is 25 years old and the décor dates it to that period. I am not impressed with cruising and that sort of environment…..unless seabirds are flying close to the ship. The tour around the ship however was well done and entertaining.

Looking towards the Penang Bridge from the cruise ship

Looking towards Straits Quay

A rain shower passes over Penang Hill

Life boats on the cruise ship (they can hold over 100 persons)

The rather small swimming pool

The crew playing basketball

Most photography has been done on the computer as the weather is moist and bird activity is slow. I note that the migratory birds have started to arrive on the foreshore and I had a very nice encounter with the local Barn Owl around 6.30am in the morning this week.

The main event for me was that I went back to Merapoh (an entry to Taman Negara) for 5 nights with two friends from Singapore. They drove up and I drove down. As it is the wet season I expected a few disruptions but the weather generally behaved. The nearby jungle has many interesting citizens but they don’t hang about on deck chairs at the edge of the road. A local driver told us he spotted a tiger a week prior to our visit. Nick is into mammals and reptiles; Horst is a sound recorder and photographer and has excellent bush skills. Together it is a nice combination of skills and interests. I took a bar fridge in the back of the SUV and this was great to keep the beer cool for one thing…but butter, bread and meat lasts a lot longer. 

The bar fridge in place

Where tigers roam

There is not much food choice locally with a few family restaurants providing local fare only.  ie there are no listings on the Michelin Guide. You get used to Nasi Goreng and ordering things in Malay. The village of Meraphoh is 7km from the settlement where we stayed and on the way back we did some spotlighting in the ubiquitous palm plantations. 

Small-toothed Civet (photo by Nick Baker)

Palm Civet (photo by Nick Baker)

Leopard Cat (photo by Nick Baker)

Most nights we saw interesting things including Leopard cats and various Civet species. My main mission was to photograph some Banded Pittas. Pittas are generally colourful birds of the forest floor or mangroves. The target family had three chicks but only one had survived. They can be lured into a feed of mealworms by playing their calls. Noticeably other birds had adapted to this action and at least seven different species reacted to the ‘dinner gong’. The light in the forest floor can be very dim and only late generation cameras can handle these conditions without getting an image that is a grainy mess. It is best to sit in a hide but I found just by sitting still the birds took no notice of my presence. Sitting in a hide in a Malaysian jungle with mosquitos and leeches seeking a meal is not a lot of fun. 

I was happy to get both adults in one frame. As usual it is nice waking up to the calls of the Gibbons and several species of hornbills. I could do without the Asian squat toilet and cold showers.

Banded Pitta pair. Female on the left.

The surviving chick

We got a driver to take us 14km into the jungle to see if we could spot more of the Hairy-nosed Otters. Nick sat for three hours without a sighting. He later sighted, and photographed, one in the river behind our accommodation. It thus appears this otter species, which has not been sighted for decades in this area and reasonably well established  For bird photography ....other than using lures, you need a fruiting tree when various species will come from miles around to feast. There were no seriously fruiting trees on this trip......which is why we were intent on photographing butterflies puddling as an alternative. (Butterflies will puddle....associate in large numbers...... if there is a concentration of some nutrient or salt that they are partial to.). It has to be added that butterfly photographers sometimes pee to get this phenomena occurring. 

Nick waits patiently

Nick and Horst (he was at Flinders at the same time as me)

A Five-barred Swordtail

As usual I drove through the Cameron Highlands and took more shots of the random plastic development there. When the temperature rises with lower altitudes the bush is cleared for palm oil…..so the trees are generally on a hiding to nothing.

The plastic disease of Cameron Highlands (all plastic hot-houses and many mud slides

The beautiful forest is cleared randomly to grow fruit and vegetables in the cooler climate

At slightly lower altitudes the bush is cleared for palm oil plantations

We have had three sets of houseguests this month, so we are steady in that direction. We have had a German family book for 8 nights over Christmas. The son is working here for six months so came around to check things out.

The hirsute little girl is going well. She is in good health and is as inquisitive as ever. Her latest trick is to lie wrapped around your neck when you are watching TV….like those fox stoles women used to wear……in the olde dayes.

Friends

On the sports front; The America’s Cup was strange….it appears there were as many Kiwis on the Oracle side and if it was horse racing there would be an appearance before the stewards. I have just watched both of the Rugby Championship games and can sum things up in two statements;

(              The Aussies owe Robbie Deans an apology

(              The scrums are a total shambles.

August 2013

August is a slow month with nature photography as the migrant birds are sunning themselves in Europe and the bee-eaters are done with their nesting cycle.

It is a good time to catch up with work on the computer and I have additionally been asked to edit a monthly newsletter for the digital division of the Australian Photographic Society. I have put out two editions already but there are a lot of dinosaurs in that society and they are not forthcoming with articles when asked.

I have also been approached by a printing company/bookstore chain to write a book on Nature Photography. I expect it will be quite a lot of work for minimal return.

On the family front the Incas are back in NZ after a good look at central America. Al had her purse snatched in Chile and Doug had his appendage bitten by a shortsighted sea lion in the Galapagos.

Nikki is coming to terms with kids under the poverty line and shortsighted Government funding agencies. Dani has been the most challenged of all. Last month Jack had a near fatal accident when he was knocked from his bicycle. He was airlifted to Addenbrooke’s Hospital with broken ribs, teeth and bleeding from the brain. He fortunately recovered quickly but his mother was also in an out of hospital at the same time with acute pancreatitis. Dani was nurse, morale-lifter and general organizer. Both she and Jack were supposed to be in Spain and Chile, respectively. Both have delayed their departure while Jack has profound and expensive dentistry.

The other unfortunate occurrence was I am now a year older…..just as I was hoping to forget birthdays too many people reminded me. Helen and I took a couple of days out and stayed at a 5 star hotel on Langkawi, which was undergoing renovation. It was nice in parts. Our room had a great bathroom but the aircon tried its best to mimic arctic conditions (there were enough penguins around as it was) and refused to shut off at the set temperature. The pool and surrounds was really nice and better still it was an adults only pool. There were other family pools.

Reception area is behind the men and there are copious fish ponds (good for Jack)

A salt-water swimming pool

Adults only pool

Dawn on the beach. A glimpse of a Thai island on the right.

Common Butterfly Lizard. This species live in sand holes at the edge of the beach.

The cook is making a fancy roti for breakfast.

I only took a relatively small lens with me and did not shoot much. We went on a boat trip into the mangroves and there were only two of us on the boat. Unfortunately there are too many cowboy tour operators who speed through the mangroves and feed the kites and eagles with things they don’t need. We also saw the people on one boat has given the macaques a large packet of peanuts. We had fairly heavy rain descend on us and we hastened back to base. Our guide Zoher was pretty good and explained how the different plants in the mangrove forest propagated. The mangrove area is quite substantial on either side of the waterway but in the past the authorities foolishly allowed a charcoal industry to occur with fairly strict quotas. As often happens one operator got greedy and cut a lot of mangroves down behind a facade of healthy plants. They were then all closed down.

About to embark on the mangrove trip

Crab netting. The motor is a modified grass-cutter

Zoher explaining how seed-pod from a mangrove tree is constructed.

Remnants of a charcoal kiln

An immature Brahminy Kite flies past the mangrove forest.

An immature Sea-eagle dives from a tall tree

An immature Brahminy kite with rain on the hills behind

It seemed to be a month of Jacks. A medium sized Monitor Lizard the staff called Jack would come across the road from the mangroves help himself to a few fish from the decorative pond and swim in the adults only pool. At least I did not see him ordering a Pina Colada at the bar.

I  had always wonder what dug the holes in the sand at the top of the beaches. Lower down I had seen crabs scuttle to safety but I observed it was a lizard that turned out to be a Common Butterfly Lizard......a blanket term for around 8 different species. The Malayan Butterfly Lizard only consists of females and breeds by parthenogenesis. This species is not found on Penang or Langkawi but is located on the adjacent mainland.

One curly haired resident was sad to see bags out before Langkawi and parked herself in mine for about 15minutes.

At the beginning of the month Ramadan finished with Hari Raya celebrations. We had two groups staying at the house with 4 from a church group, all very nice ladies and then another two young ladies who were at an Indian product fair. They were here 5 nights and we did not see a lot of them but they were very nice people as well.

Back to nature photography I also had an article published on the website ‘Naturescapes’. It was about the benefits of working a local subject.

Another sad event happened during the month. I was told by friends at IMCB that one of the previous board members and a very nice man had passed away at the age of 60. I worked in an area close to Tony Pawson and had a number of discussions with him on our shared work area. He was touted as a likely Nobel Prize winner. 

In the last few month Malaysia has become like the Wild West. There have been a number of shootings in Penang on the streets during the day. This has been gang-related apparently as they fight for turf. The locals are becoming scared to go about their daily activities. Guns are apparently readily available and Singapore has given it's citizens a warning about going into Malaysia. The police raided a gang headquarters in a Condo in Penang and shot dead 5 gang members. These things do not happen suddenly it is like a volcano erupting, there are both reasons and signs of problems that have been ignored like the many traffic violations.

To end the month I had two nights in Singapore on an academically-related visit. It was good to be back in organised and tidy Singapore for a while. I also had my camera serviced by Canon as I don't trust the system here. The hotel room had a nice view of the centre of Singapore. The other shots are across the waters to Sentosa, an island I used to shoot bee-eaters and now you shoot  craps in the Casino. The final shot is a nice wall mural on the ground floor of the Canon offices.

Back to Malaysia yesterday and straight into traffic jams as it was National day and a holiday.

July 2013

July 2013 has now come to a close and it was a varied month with a number of visitors coming by Penang.

Dani and Jack were here for the best part of three weeks. They spent some time in Southern, Thailand, which entailed an arduous bus journey. They had a pretty good look around Penang before going back to the UK before Jack goes to Chile and Dani to Spain as part of their studies. 

Unfortunately Jack met with a bad accident when back in the UK when he was knocked off his bicycle. He was airlifted to Addenbrook Hospital in Cambridge and due to the resilience of youth was discharged several days later. He had broken ribs and a punctured lung and requires restorative dental work. He was perhaps lucky but it demonstrates the tightrope of life we all walk.

 Eldest son Paul also visited for a weekend during the middle of an Asian-based business trip. Ex-IMCB colleague Anand also visited Penang and we had some time together. It seems to be obligatory for visitors staying on a Sunday that they have to join the celebrated TRD team in the local pub quiz at Healy Macs. We have managed 2 thirds a second and 2 firsts to date. Jack needs to study more on Musicals while Paul’s knowledge on German golfers was rather lacking.

Photo shooting has trailed off as the birds complete their nesting and the wet season approaches. I spent some time with the bee-eaters that remain at Penanti. I discovered that some are having a second breeding and the chicks from the first batch assist with the feeding of their siblings. I have also searched further afield in the Botanic Gardens and Ulu Paip for more subjects. The Bee-eater chicks at Penanti had to survive a number of insults, including track renovations and snake, before they were able to fledge. I published a blog on these observations as well as indicating the mindless ‘upgrading’ on the birding site at Byram. I have been contacted by the press regarding the latter blog.

This poor Bee-eater arrived at its nest to find it covered with soil. It dug frantically to reach the chicks

A young chick has a look at the world for the first time

A Little Heron with breakfast

The stream running through Ulu Paip

Active rubber tree tapping near Ulu Paip

The magazine ‘Australian Photography’ ran a feature on my photography and I managed to win the nature section of the Australian Photographic Society’s annual competition.

Sadly my exhibition at the G-Hotel was deconstructed yesterday after an extra month on display. I was reasonably pleased with the result and learnt quite a bit from various comments.

I have been asked to produce a monthly newsletter for the Digital Division of the Australian Photographic Society. I had to upgrade my computers operating system and learn the intricacies of Mac’s ‘Pages’ program but things are progressing well as long as members provide material on time.

Friends of ours have just purchased an apartment in the same estate that we live. They are currently selling their house in Dallas, and John asked me to take some pictures during an official inspection. The views are certainly worth the investment alone. The landscaping is also very well done.

The Super rugby competition reaches its conclusion this weekend with the Chiefs defending their title against the Brumbies. I will miss the regular weekend diet until next season. Unfortunately my picks were generally along the same level as the Highlanders although I did manage one possible score. We have upgraded our TV during the month and can now view sport (and crap) in HD.