By Cynthia Lobato
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| Oriental Honey Buzzard(OHB) |
I went to the MNS Raptor watch event 2 years ago in March and since then I had been really fascinated by the many birds coming over from Sumatra to the Malay Peninsula. I wanted to go back. The birds fly onward, some to South China, and some further, as far as Japan and Polar Circle.
What is a Raptor - a question some friends asked me? They are birds of prey that hunt for their food using physical tools such as incredibly good eyesight, very sharp talons (sharp claws) and incredible agility in flight
They are called Raptors since they are direct descendants of the velociraptor dinosaurs. The largest species in Peninsular Malaysia is the Imperial Eagle and the smallest the Japanese Sparrowhawk. The number of migratory raptors visiting Malaysia is 25. Their prey is rodents, chicken, smaller raptors, bee or wasps’ wasps' larvae, insects, fish, and reptiles.
This year I decided to go as a birds counter since three MNS Members from the Selangor Bird group who came here last year to give a workshop convinced me to. I was a bit worried as I’m still a beginner and at that time I couldn’t see the difference yet between an Oriental Honey Buzzard (OHB) and a Black Baza (BB). However, there are also very experienced birders and counters we went the third week in March and stayed 5 days to help.
They start with counting on 19th February and finish on 3rd April this year. In February it was slow but the peak was in March with the biggest numbers around 9000. When I was there the numbers were reducing and end of the counting days very few with less than a 1000.
Every morning after breakfast we went there before 9 am to set up the scope, cameras and umbrella’s (for shade in the fierce sunlight). Our first task was taking wind speed, wind direction, temperature, barometer pressure, cloud cover, visibility and precipitation. This was repeated every hour until 5pm. Then wait to see when the first birds come. They start from an island called Pulau Rupat on the east coast of Sumatra and have to cross 38 km-wide Straits of Melaka before they reach coast of the Malay Peninsula near the lighthouse at Tanjung Tuan, the place we were standing. The birds wait for a hot day with strongly rising air above the land. They use these so-called thermals while soaring in circles to gain height. Then they glide and flap across the 38 km of open sea. Sometimes the weaker ones cannot make it to the shore, fall into the water and drown. Those that reach Tanjung Tuan sometimes come in very low above the water, while cooling themselves with an open beak. Others come in high and gain further height as soon as they are above the land for their onward journey.
Last year, 73 152 raptors were recorded by our raptor counters in 43 days. Five main species of migratory raptors will pass through Tanjung Tuan and these species are: the Oriental Honey-Buzzard, (Pernis ptilorhyncus), Black Baza (Aviceda leuphotes), Japanese Sparrowhawk (Accipiter gularis), Chinese Goshawk (Accipiter soloensis) and the Grey-faced Buzzard (Butastur indicus).
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| Oriental Honey Buzzard |
Our team of seven people on my first day took positions at different places since the birds can come from many directions.
Suddenly a yell and everyone was running with cameras, counters, binoculars and the first OHB came at around 12.30. These were not that difficult to count since they came in small groups. This is not always the case since there are days that they come by the thousands. I heard about the big event of 12 and 13 March 2011 when MNS hosted the 12th Raptor watch weekend celebration when they counted 9000 birds.
These OHB came in small flocks and on my first day we counted OHB 2035,BB 24, Japanese Sparrow hawk 7, Accipiters 3, Unidentified raptor 1. Weather was very hot at 33°C and you needed good sunscreen and a hat for protection and of course you need to drink lots of water.
Next day we had the most boring day. This day and next few days we were only with five (Ot, Carol, Poon, Hans and myself). It was hot and we could see it was raining across the sea and no sign of any bird. We waited and waited; chatted with a birder (Alan) from Sweden who had come hoping to see some Raptors, but not a single bird appeared that whole day. We promised him that next day would bring a lot of birds. The only bird that flew around was a resident raptor, the White-bellied Sea Eagle, and he was the most photographed bird that day. In the far distance we spotted a White-bellied Sea Eagle with two chicks on its nest. Later it got windy and we could see rain coming so left a bit earlier than 5 pm. We hoped for more luck next day.
That night it had been raining very heavily and we were a bit worried that we might not be lucky since Raptors depend on gaining height when hot air is rising. We were glad that the rain stopped in the morning and it was a cool morning at 27°C but later the temperature increased to 34°C.
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| Black Baza |
It was a slow start and Alan also came to join us . Suddenly a yell from the Lighthouse keeper at about 3.30 pm: a huge flock of BB between the clouds flew towards us. Carol shouted: how do we count? We were so overwhelmed with so many raptors above us; then we divided them in groups of 50 and counted 2094. I heard that this was one of the largest flocks ever.
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| Osprey |
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| Changable Hawk-Eagle |
Next day was my lucky day too since I managed to spot an Osprey and a Grey-faced Buzzard, 2 rare birds. Ospreys are so rare and only 4 individuals were sighted during the whole season.
Raptor counters closed final day of counting with a bang as 1207 raptors were recorded, bringing us to a total of 57128 for the year 2011of which the composition of main species is as below...
- OHB - 53040
- Black Baza - 2818
- Chinese Goshawk - 824
- Japanese Sparrowhawk - 152
- Grey-faced Buzzard - 118
I admit that this week was so enjoyable and learned a lot. Alan promised to help next year and I will be also there. However counters are always needed during the week since most people work. If you got some spare time why not sign up and be part of this very unique time.
Source http://www.raptorwatch.org/raptorwatch2010/about.htm
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| Picture taken by Poon |
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