Peninsular Malaysia: A Hard Slog with Scant Rewards

Aug 8

1 min read

Close to 40 degree C and 90+ % humidity (and only one hotel with a pool) weren’t exactly the greatest of selling points and add to this the many hours spent sitting in mosquito hotspots waiting for hours for a bird to appear, and you can see why I had my reservations! The long-haul flight was a real drag, too, one compounded by the last-minute diversion to Istanbul following the latest attacks on Qatar, the original stopover location. Anyway, the prospect of seeing and snapping some photogenic birds and adding to my world life list remained a significant draw for me, and I managed to put aside all the negatives. I was lucky, too, to be assigned a driver (Sharool) and guide (Irshad) who were good company for the most part. We had a few laughs along the way, and the trip had its moments in terms of birdlife as well, but on the whole, I was left feeling a little short-changed as many of the star attractions failed to show. Quite a few of the mouth-watering bucket-list stars didn’t show (Rail-Babbler, Green Magpie, Garnet Pitta, the Partridges…), and those that did were often hard to photograph either because of the light or the obstructing vegetation. Just 217 species in total, incl. 125 lifers; just 1 endemic and 2 near endemics. Still, I did get some nice shots and there were some spectacular species:

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