Silver-breasted Broadbill - Bird Icon of Bukit Tinggi, Pahang

Finally, I got my dream bird captured digitally, after failed attempted during the last Chinese New Year because of rain.
This morning the weather was perfect for bird photography. That place was very quiet with only me and Adrian Lim a.k.a. wmw998 (expert bird photographer from K. Lumpur) .
If Silver-eared Mesia is the bird icon of Fraser's Hill, this Silver-breasted Broadbill surely an icon for Bukit Tinggi.

Silver-breasted Broadbill (Serilophus lunatus) - female

There are so many of this bird at the Botanical Garden area. Not afraid of human during this breeding season. I was in a hurry for Friday Prayer, so I didn't have a time to find their nest.
This bird landed about 3 meters from my head, on a wooden beam of a nursery house there, the full frame photo with a very little crop.
Tomorrow I will show another Lifer that I got there.

I submitted this bird picture to the Bird Photography Weekly at Birdfreak.com
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Common Myna in flight

Ok this is birds SkyWatch! - five Common Myna (Acridotheres tristis) in flight, never mind not so blue sky.

Firework at Chinese New Year - SkyWatch Friday

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Bug - Longhorn Beetles

This Longhorn Beetles lost it way and end up inside my house. Stay motionless on the wall above the toilet door, enough for me to fired a few shoots.

Sunbird poking the Coconut leave

Not so sharp photo, but I like to show the tongue of this male Brown-throated Sunbird (Anthreptes malaccensis). Poking in between the coconut leaves looking for insect.

No birds pictures but Malay wedding - That's My World

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No birds photo today, because I was at my aunt's house for her daughter's wedding on Sunday.
A simple traditional Malay wedding was held at my aunty's (the bride’s house)
I arrived there at 11.30am, just after the 'Akad Nikah' (marriage solemnization), which was held at the Mosque.

The groom (wearing the green traditional Malay costume), and his bestman arrive accompanied by his friends and family members.
Shade with gold coloured wedding umbrella, and with a pair of 'bunga manggar' (colourful decoration made of paper) ,hold by two young girls.
He walks slowly to the bride’s house.

The bride steps out of the house and waits for the groom. With her face cover with hand fan, family members start teasing her and the groom, who also have his face covered.

Both of them meet, and the bride welcome the groom and kiss his hands.

The couple then walk for the 'Bersanding' ceremony at the beautiful decorated 'pelamin' (dais) set up at the living room of the bride's house.

Best man and bridesmaid constantly fans the 'Raja Sehari' (King for one day) with the special embroidered hand fan. Pray for them to live happily ever after! (amin!)

Cactus Flowers - Today's Flower

Unknown cactus flowers - grown at the road side - 'Jalan Bukit Raub', taken with handphone camera (N70)

Pond Heron in flight - Old and New

Recent pictures - taken in February 2009

The above image was filtered/ denoised with Noiseware Community Edition. For original unfiltered image click this small picture.

Pond-Heron (Ardeola sp.)

old pictures - taken in February 2008

Inflight Little Egret - SkyWatch Friday

I have a dream of taking inflight shot of this Little Egret for quite some time. A flock of 3 to 5 egrets usually fly around my backyard at around 8.00 to 9.00am, especially if there was raining the night before.

My 400mm lenses always attached to the 1.4x Tc (Teleconverter with 3 pins patched) for better reach (560mm). With that TC, only one peripheral AF point is active, and I miss a lot of opportunity with this flying bird.
For this session, I took off that TC, and sacrificed the reach for better AF speed. AI Servo AF mode was selected.
This is what it look like with activate all 9 cross-type AF points.

Full frame photo and croped 50% with Adobe Photoshop CS2

Final image after processing.

two Egrets flew in between coconut leaves.
Little Egret (Egretta garzetta), Local name: Bangau Kecil, Size: 61cm

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Brown-throated Sunbird at Banana Flowers

another male brown-throated at my favorite banana flowers

Brown-throated Sunbird (Anthreptes malaccensis) - male

White-breasted Waterhen - Wordless Wednesday

(Amaurornis phoenicurus) for Worldless Wednesday

Jelir Lidah! - Rufous Woodpecker's Tongue

Rufous Woodpecker
(Celeus brachyurus)

I have two birds that show their tongue;
1. Common Flameback protruding tongue.
2. Little Spiderhunter elongated 'tube' tongue.

Flowers at Kundasang, Sabah

Assorted flowers

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Merbah Kapur dan Bayang-bayang - Yellow-vented Bubul and its reflection

I noticed this Yellow-vented Bulbul (Pyconontus goiavier) landed on top of my car one evening.
It then clawed it's feet on the upper part of the car's window and started pecking at the mirror image. It continued doing that for about one minute, enough for me to set-up my camera and fired a few shoots.
This burred image was taken from behind the front gate.
Birds are known to behave like this, thinking that those reflected images are their rivals and pecked it for a fight.
More articles and picture about the same behavior - Birds and their reflections - (from BESGroup website). Another interesting and nice picture of Ruby-cheeked Sunbird attacking the side mirror of WCMSusan's car here (from PhotoMalaysia.com).