Changeable Hawk Eagle - Final Episode! Darth Vader Series (The End) :)

This is really the end of the Changeable Hawk Eagle series! There are thousands of pictures (on the CHE nesting alone) I have yet to go through. And I could almost hear the Red-bearded Bee-eater screaming at me  everynight " Pleaseeee.... Post Me On The Blog"!

The good news is access to the durian plantation is opened, and the bad news is both the adult Changeable Hawk-eagle and the juvenile are missing, according to the plantation's owner! Understandably CHEs always re-use its old nesting so I have asked the owner to preserve the nesting at all cost, which he gladly obliged!

So, hear we go, the Darth Vader Series!

Changeable Hawk Eagle (Spizaetus cirrhatus)

Helang Hindek * カワリクマタカ * Diều đầu nâu

Aigle huppé * orol viactvarý * Изменчивый Орел * เหยี่ยวต่างสี

Haubenadler * Águila-azor Variable * Lysbuget Høgeørn

Happy Ending! Ok, here is one more....the one I posted on my Facebook, The Imperial Walker!

Changeable Hawk Eagle nesting Part llI !

Three weeks of acquaintance with the CHE has made the adult dark morph more approachable  and friendly towards my presence. Now I am able to walk around the nesting site and shoot right below the perch without scaring it off. The CHE probably think I am the new owner of this durian plantation!


The dark morph's daily routine was the same on all my observations so far, perch on the nest or near the nest silently for hours between 3-7pm, by 6-7pm, it would call for the white morph to return.  I was touched to see on a few occasion that  when the harsh sunlight is hitting the chick in the afternoon, the adult would shelter the chicks for as long as the sunlight is out. 

Feeding so far is only by the dark morph. One interesting note is the carrion is always being carried to a nearby tree, tear into pieces before bringing back to feed both the chick and itself. Perhaps the adult do not want the blood to stain the nesting, or it needs a solid branch to tear the body apart hence without risking the structural rigidity of the nest.  

A short video recorded on the 30th of March

The pale morph on the other hand is still behaving cautious, and every time it shows up in late afternoon , I have to retreat to the hut/shelter or else it won't perch on the nest.  I begin to wonder now which morph is the male and which is the female On the physical size, the dark morph is slightly larger than the pale morph.

And the chick looked more like the serious Nikon-black now than the previously chubby Canon-white! So a welcoming sight of course! :)

Pic abv (taken with PnS on 90mm zoom) show my close range with the adult dark morph, ~25' away. 


And below are the pic taken in my last trip, the adult, surprisingly, was 10' below the nesting for almost two hours. 

There are more species occur in this 10-acre durian plantation than i had previously thought. And finally i managed to get the shot of the Banded Bay Cuckoo (lifer)! There are 4 of them here but unfortunately opportunity for a close and low perch shot was not given. Extremely responsive to play calls in the late afternoon or early morning. 


And last week, an experienced birder joined me for the shoot, said he heard the calls of Plaintiff Cuckoo! Now I hate him for telling me that because it looks like I will be busy visiting here after the fledging of the CHE's chick


And I ought to come often because two pairs of the White-collared Kingfishers have started nesting, at least 2 Spotted Wood Owl were seen in the last three weeks, ok I need better shot of the Black-naped Oriole......... 

Banded Bay Cuckoo

Asian Brown Flycatcher, 

 Collared Kingfisher

 Common Iora

 Pied Thriller

 Sunda Woodpecker

Zebra Dove

White-breasted Waterhen

female Pink-necked Green Pigeon

And I need help for this species, taken last week in the durian plantation.  I am still unable to ID from my sources. It was seen twice near the stream, perch like a flycatcher. and so far I have never heard its calls. 


Any suggestion will be appreciated!

The owner keeps an 'army' of 8 dogs here help keep the monkeys and uninvited guests away. This puppy was named "Southern Wings" by me, because he is the only dog that would stay by my side for hours..

Changeable Hawk Eagle nesting Part ll !

For some good reasons, I am holding back the posting of the closeup shots of Changeable Hawk Eagle's chick. It is growing real fast and fledging soon, and here are few shots taken last week. I was quite shocked to see its size almost as big as the adult just within a few days. 

And according to another worker I spoke to yesterday, the correct birth of the chick was 8th Feb (almost the same as mine!!), so if the 60-75days is the norm for fledging (according to the info i gathered in google), this chick could leave as early as next weekend!  

All pics (cropped 60%) above were taken with Kenko TC2 

on the 500mmF4, which gives an EFL of 1000mm on

 my DSLR.

I measured the height of the nesting, and it's sitting at 43' from the the ground and a quick survey of the surrounding i realized indeed the nesting was build close to a stream, in line with some of the findings for CHE's nesting. Other similar finding was fresh leaves were laid on the nest, probably to keep the chick warm at night as well as cushioning effect.

The stream is right behind the row of banana trees, as shown in the dotted line.

Feeding was mostly by the pale morph and the dark morph spent much of the time guarding its chick nearby. 

One interesting observation was if the female adult did not return by dawn, the male adult would make repetitive loud calls presumably yelling for her return. And if the female did not return with food, the male would hunt for lizard or rat nearby to feed for itself as well as the chick.  

I have no where to tell which is the male/female so I am assuming the pale morph as the female and the dark morph as the male here, unless someone tell me otherwise.

There are quite a few species occurred here such as the Pink-necked Pigeon, Black-naped Oriole, White-collared Kingfisher as well as Brown Shrike, besides the usual Mynah, Dove and Crows. But the biggest surprise was the Banded Bay Cuckoo. Its calls were heard frequently around 6pm but unfortunately I have not sighted it yet.

So when I heard the BB Cuckoo calls on the 26th, I was excited and immediately scanned the whole 10acres of durian plantation on foot but instead I saw an Indian Cuckoo!!

It looks like I will be visiting this durian plantation more often soon that I had thought earlier!

Indian Cuckoo (Cuculus micropterus)

Sewah India * 四声杜鹃 * セグロカッコウ * Bắt cô trói cột

 Coucou à ailes courtes *  kukucka krátkokrídla * Индийская кукушка * นกคัคคูพันธุ์อินเดีย

Changeable Hawk Eagle nesting! :))))

It was the subject of "Who owns the best tasting durian farm in Kulai?" that lead me to the Changeable Hawk Eagle's nesting! After poking my nose for two days eventually I came to know, by words of mouth, that the location was just 10km from my home! 

According to the plantation's owner Mr.XXX, the chick was born 15days ago and one "black eagle" was seen by him building the nest two months earlier, which mostly make up of sticks nicely packed on a Y-branch just 40' above ground, on a durian tree of course!!  So you could imagine the grin on my face and my excitement because both the CHE nestings I had observed last year in Panti were 90% blocked by the thick foliage of Panti hence resulted no useable shots.

Changeable Hawk Eagle (Spizaetus cirrhatus)

Helang Hindek * カワリクマタカ * Diều đầu nâu

Aigle huppé * orol viactvarý * Изменчивый Орел * เหยี่ยวต่างสี

Haubenadler * Águila-azor Variable * Lysbuget Høgeørn

This was shot just 60' away from the 40' ht nesting, so do your 

calculation on the dist! 

Although I could go nearer but the nesting is deep-dished, hence

the situation forces me back up the slope for a clearer view of 

the chick.

Only the Pale morph (presumably the female) was seen feeding with a lizard once out of the three days' observation all done between 3-7pm. And the dark morph, presumably the male, always seen perched 30 feet away safeguarding its chick. Crows that came too near to the nesting tree were fiercely chase away.

I spent much time walking around the nesting tree just to see how the CHEs react to my presence and obviously, both the adults were more worried of other birds of prey than an old man looking for some fallen durians below. They must have got used to the workers here I guess.

The two previous nesting sites in Panti did not give me a chance to see both the adults together so I was extremely thrilled this time when both perched on the same branch for more than an hour for me, the only regret was the strong backlight resulting the imgs with very low contrast, but like i always said, I am not complaining!

And finally, could someone PLEASE teach me how to climb a durian tree! The chick is waiting!! :(

"Paul, are you serious of climbing???"

Tanjung Tuan Raptor Watch, Port Dickson

27th - 28th Feb 2011

We arrived Tj Tuan at around 7:00am on Saturday's morning. The 900m walk up the slope was  challenging for me as much as the OHBs crossing the seas. Half the time I was thinking I should have just brought my panasonic LX5 to shoot video handheld instead of full bazooka setup that seemingly weigh more than a ton!

Lighthouse of Tj Tuan

We reached the lighthouse 35mins later, with our mouth half-open grasping for air, like the OHBs, but we soon forget the physical exhaustion for the view of Staits of Melacca was simply spectacular, something uncommon on this part of the world. 


With our gear fully setup, we met a visiting birder from UK by the name Brian who had accompanied us for two days at the lighthouse, and Mark & Jasmine of MNS Selangor, together with two other colleagues, had came weeks earlier for the annual raptor count (Feb-March). 

Mark on left and Brain on right, who once asked why a restaurant in 

Malaysia was named "Soon Fart (Fatt) Eating House"

Wei Luen on left and Ming on right

Our gear were setup along the narrow passage against the Lighthouse perimeter wall, or, inches from hell as there was basically nothing to grab should we slipped and make the historic 80m plunge in 2 sec, maybe that could explain why the meat-eating juvenile White-bellied Sea-eagles was grinning and making frequent coastal passing through out our stay.

Brian not only cracked jokes to entertain us but helped monitoring the 

appearance of sharks and sea turtles at all time before the OHBs arrive......

and besides the Green Turtles that often surface to breathe briskly, 

sharks of 3-4' long were often seen too swimming around the turtles.

White-bellied Sea-Eagle (Haliaeetus leucogaster)

Helang Siput * 白腹海雕 *  シロハラウミワシ * Đại bàng bụng trắng

Pygargue blagre * orliak bielobruchý * Белобрюхий орлан * นกออก

9:00 am, lots of boats packed with tourists were arriving down the bay and stop for mins gave me the feeling that we were the subjects of their photography interest instead,  I still have no idea why they were brought here by the tour operator except many were seen snapping pics of us, oh, must be the Lighthouse i guess!

By 10:00am, nothing really exciting happened though except tourists keep arriving by boats and a couple of Van Hassett Sunbirds came on and off the dried tree, and a pale morph CHE which made an sudden appearance just 30' down the cliff. It perched quietly for almost 30mins and when Brian suggested that it looked like a Northern Goshawk immediately sent us into frenzy shooting mode, hoping a good full-body shot would make us famous for the sighting in Malaysia!

Changeable Hawk Eagle (Spizaetus cirrhatus)

Helang Hindek * カワリクマタカ * 

Aigle huppé * orol viactvarý * Изменчивый Орел * เหยี่ยวต่างสี

And by 10:30am, the migratory OHBs started to arrive in small quantity, and we were thankful that the Sun was rising on the East, right behind us, meaning we were sheltered by the wall until about 11.45 noon. 

"Ok, we have two male OHBs at 10 o'oclock 500m away, one female at 2 o'oclock 600m away" said Mark, who's announcement was heard clearly as the MNS has set up the tent right above us. And Brian did not help either by saying "Its quite normal to see a few birds for the day if the condition was not favorable"

And Mark was trying to keep us awake by telling us that more than a 1000 were sighted a day earlier, and he together with his colleaques, were constantly monitoring the sea with bino and scope, "They will come," said Mark in confidence, "....ok, onother two just flew over the oil-rig one km away on the right.." and I was about to fall asleep upon hearing that......Zzz...z. 


"What about the 1000 OHBs you had just mentioned!!" - I screamed loud in my heart! 


By 11:30, all out of sudden, Mark asked us to get ready as he saw something BIG coming, but our sleepy eyes couldn't see a thing as we  had drove up to Tj Tuan from JB at 4am and none of us had any sleep the day earlier. 


"30 @ 10 o'oclock, 20 @ 11 o'clock, another 50.......all coming our way" Must a a joke right I told myself.


But a moment later, our eyes started popping and our jaws dropped, as hundreds of OHBs started to appear in the misty sky across the horizon, in slow motion as there were still very far. We rushed into position and getting ready to fire as if the OHBs were about to attack us.


The scene reminded me of rolling credits in the Star Wars movies, except now we watch it upside down and in reverse, i.e. the spread of birds become wider and wider and bigger each second past. 


The raptors came in flocks of 20-30 and truly a spectacular sight for all of us. Imagine 45mins later, 702 were recorded which equates to a raptor every 4 sec arriving! In fact the 45mins shooting frenzy was exhausting, but with full excitement and satisfaction. 

Oriental Honey-buzzard (Pernis ptilorhyncus)

Helang Lebah * 東方蜂鷹 * ハチクマ * Diều ăn ong
Bondrée orientale * vcelár chochlatý * Осоед хохлатый * เหยี่ยวผึ้ง

The OHB species exists a few different morph and according to Mark, 7 different patterns of feathers have been recorded previously although i did not ask if that related to different morphs.

This poor OHB almost could not make it as it was descending fast on 

approaching the lighthouse...... 

While many arrived effortlessly across the 40km stretch judging from their speed and height, many were struggling obviously in absence of thermals across the Straits. As they fly towards the forested cape of Tj Tuan,  many were with their mouth open, flapping their wings vigorously in the last minute. 

I saw at least 6 that were flying in few feet above water as they head towards the shoreline, and two were seen dive almost vertically into the forest after soaring a brief height over the land. And it's sad to learn that some were seen before drowning in the sea, barely 100m from the shore. 


Understandably Tj Tuan was chosen by the raptors for their fly path because at 40km wide, it is the shortest route between Island of Sumatra and Malaysia. But not all the 700+ raptors counted heading to the Lighhouse though. Some were seen heading further south and some were further North.

The two WBSEs were making frequent low pass directly above us as hundreds of OHBs were circling  high up over the Lighthouse. WBSE is awfully huge compare to the OHB but when it's outnumbered by the hundreds, there is nothing the WBSEs could do except to retreatr silently after a while. 


Sunday, however was not that exciting as by 12:00noon, only 42 were sighted and we had to leave by then to check out Eagle Ranch by 1:00pm. 


Many thanks To Mark and Brian as well for their company and grateful that we did not fall off the cliff due to hunger as Mark has helped buy lunch for all of us, spicy and hot "mee-goreng" (fried noodles with chili), and it was the first time we see a British eating the spicy mee-goreng too, amazing!

The location where we shot the OHBs also gave us the opportunity to shoot a variety of species that came perch around, Red-eyed bulbul, Yellow-vented Bulbul, Blue-earred Barbet (calls was heard but no show), and Purple-throated Sunbirds make frequent visit to a dried tree 20' down the cliff. Other than that, resident raptors (WBSE, BK, and CHE) were making frequent passes at low level  

Black-winged Flycatcher-shrike...

Black-naped Oriole

CHE pale morph

Brahminy Kite

Pig-tailed Monkey taken while we were walking down the 900m slope

And this is not funny!

Unless you visit Tj Tuan on RW Day which is scheduled on March 12th and 13th this year, the lighthouse is out of bound to the public, hence you are likely to set up your gear along the narrow passage facing the sea for the panoramic view. 

But a lot of local visitors and tourist from overseas are passing thru the passage for a glimpse of the Melacca Straits.  Use spikes on your tripod to minimize slip as passerby tend to grab your tripod as support as they walk around your setup, so move the setup in and grab your tripod firmly, meaning stop shooting despite seeing a giant big-foot flying across the sea, so to allow passerby walk pass safely in confidence.

 once you stand behind the setup and getting into position to shoot, your 

tripod legs are just 3-4" from the edge, unless you desperately wanting 
to get rid of your old gear....

Eagle Ranch!

Many resort and apartment hotels around the Tj Tuan areas were fully booked since two weeks ago but thank to Terrence Ang's assistance, we managed to book our rooms with Eagle Ranch, a resort located 10km from Tj Tuan, There are lots of activities available for the adventurous souls such as horse riding, obstacle course, go-cart racing. fun games etc. 

If I were to take this course, I am not surprise it would take days to complete!

 Double room for this Kampong Style House @ RM250-00 per night 

inclusive of breakfast, lots of Swallows around to test your BIF skill.

 RM150-00 per night for this.

 view from our balcony.

Breakfast at D Barrel hall.....serves the usual local spicy food and 

scramble eggs, hot-dog , and porridge.

And you must try this.....

While on our way home via the old road leading to Melacca, we decided to stop at a roadside stall for food after seeing row of customer cars were parked there. Something must be good was what Wei Luen said and we concurred, Never mind the lack of facility and proper flooring, the Nasi Arab got to be the best I have ever tasted.  I will be back for more for sure!

5-Star from me on the Nasi Arab, ignoring everything else that is!

If you are keen to go for the raptor watch, here is the useful link;

Raptor Watch