Merry Christmas

" For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the Government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." Isaiah 9:6

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." John 3:16-17

Byram - Penang

Byram is still my favorite place to shoot bird images..... At the moment, it was so filled with birds' activities that there was no rest period. When I am at the end pond, I would be wondering what would be happening at pond #1...and so forth...Kiasu....haha!..Maybe it is the season, maybe it is not always like this! Except on the first trip in August which I took a wrong turn, away from the marshland - my recent three trips in Nov & Dec have been great.

My first trip to Byram in Aug 2010 was a birdless trip because I took the turn away from the marshland...I was following the GPS direction which was set for the mangroves. Only noticed the marshland upon my exit and on further checks with friends, finally made a few fruitful trips here. Nevertheless, I was blessed with the sighting of a group of oriental small-clawed otters on my first trip.



There were a lot of macaques too - as it was a hot day, many of the macaques were taking turns jumping from the top of the oil palm trees into the river below. I couldnt get a shot of the action - too fast for my lens that was rested on a beanbag. I wouldnt dare to step out of my car either - I was surrounded by more than 30 macaques,.

What could this guy be thinking about, staring at me like that?

The macaque below was sighted biting the bark off the tree. You can see lots of signs of the bite marks....Not sure why it was doing it. After the elder one left, the younger one tried to do the same.....

Sharing a few other images in my recent trips for my recording.

White browed crake
Caught this image of the white browed crake on my 2nd trip - had to revert to the fieldguide for its identity.

White-browed crake hidden deep in the reeds

Was thrilled to catch the above sight already as it was a lifer for me. On my 3rd trip, I was again enticed with a brief sight of the crake before it went hiding.....so you can imagine my excitement when on my 4th visit there, I saw this crake out in the open....it walked up and down the log for many minutes, so i had opportunity to make numerous shots.

White-browed crake doing its "catwalk"

My 4th trip was on 6th Dec 2010. It was a glorious morning - the morning sun gave out such a beautiful warm glow that was so lovely to behold. Only sadness to me was the glow only lasted for very few minutes and there were too many subjects to shoot....

A monitor lizard in the morning glow

Common Sandpiper

Catching the last of glow on the little grebe

Subjects are pretty friendly in Byram - particularly the woodsandpipers.

Wood Sandpiper

A Common Sandpiper staring back at my setup

Black-winged Stilt near the landfill

Plenty of blue-tailed bee-eaters as well

More images from my Nov & Dec trips can be viewed in my photo gallery... Click these links for Nov & Dec images.

Greater Spotted Eagle @ Permatang Nibong, Penang, Malaysia

Was really fortunate to have the opportunity to travel to Penang for a church training last week and able to tie the start and end part of my trip with birding. For this entry, I just want to concentrate on a lifer that I saw - a greater spotted eagle.

I left home at 4.30am on 3rd Dec 2010 and headed to Byram, Penang - a 3 hours drive. Although I had a great shooting in Byram, I was disappointed because I didnt spot the red-necked phalarope. My next stop was the paddyfields of Permatang Nibong where it was reported recently of a sighting of a black headed ibis. Armed with the gps coordinates, I could find the place easily but not the bird. Another disappointment.

Not knowing where to go next, I drove to a larger paddyfield on the right side of the Permatang Nibong road. After an hour or so, feeling really tired, I just stopped my car along the bund and started to feel sorry for myself (haha). Anyway, I did pick up my binoculars and scanned the horizon, and my heart missed a bit as my eyes came to rest on a dark 'spot' in the paddyfields some way ahead. "Eagle!" I shouted. All of a sudden, all my tiredness were forgotten as the feeling of excitement filled me.

A snapshot of what I saw with a 500mm lens x 1.4TC - this image was not cropped

My eyes were trained on the eagle...and lucky for me, it decided to add some action for me to shoot. :-)

I couldnt see what had excited the eagle or whether it was hunting, but it leaped into the air twice.
As it rested, it began to sense that it was being watched....
And so, it decided it was time to leave for the sky.

The take-off with a splash.
Up, up and away.....to the safety of the sky

Was fortunate to have the eagle flew nearer to me before it went soaring up high in the sky.

Would have done better if I got my exposure on the bird correctly! Had to do a bit of recovery in the post processing - although I could recover more shadows since I shoot in RAW, the digital noise appearing on the shadow areas would be rather unsightly. I knew in my head then that I had to compensate the exposure, since the background had changed from the green paddyfields to the bright sky but the eagle flew so fast that I couldn't pry my fingers off the shutter release! Sigh!!! Anyway, I was already very happy for the opportunity to sight and shoot this eagle for the first time. Now, I could wrap the day with a big smile. Later, upon checking my bird field guide, I found out that this eagle was a juvenile Greater Spotted Eagle, a globally threatened specie.

Images in larger sizes can be viewed in here