The skipper on my mangroves boat cruise spotted something and pointed it out to us. I looked over my shoulder and caught a quick glimpse of this blue bird before it dipped down and disappeared behind the rock. The skipper said, "I have not seen that bird before." I may have and suspected that we have seen a male Blue Rock-Thrush Monticola solitarius in breeding. Blue Rock-Thrush is considered as uncommon for Langkawi though I have seen them on the wall of a limestone area in Ipoh, Perak where a cave temple is located.
I wanted to see this bird again. I was thinking about getting to this spot without having to rent a boat. Aha!! The cheapest method would be on a paddle, with some physical workout, getting myself wet and sweaty.
As there was no tour for me on the following day, I checked the tide level on the night before and thought that it would be an ideal time to head out. And so I was at the pier the next morning equipped with my life jacket, a paddle, cameras and the rest of the gear.
I knew I started out late on that morning and told myself that I will not get any birds at all! Oh well, I will still be happy being out there alone with nature.
Paddling out to the coastline on a breezy sunny morning with some occasional gusts and very light waves.
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| Kayaking in between these rocky islands |
I got to the exact spot where the skipper pointed that thrush to us. No sign. I waited and took more pictures of the surrounding while waiting for this bird to show up.
I noticed small crustaceans scuttling away when I got close to the rocks. Certainly one cannot miss these colourful crabs! It wasn't easy to photograph one when they were so skittish and I was trying to keep the kayak still at the same time!
This crab below is very likely a Sally-foot-crab Grapsus albolineatus based on the patterns and markings on the carapace.
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| Sally-foot-crab Grapsus albolineatus was probably playing dead and gave me a chance to photograph it. |
Thank you to these websites which led me in getting the identification:
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| Admiring the karst landscape on the kayak |
No sign of this blue birdie still after more than one hour of waiting and kayaking around that island for couple of times. I decided to move on and paddle to my favourite spot, a hidden cove to chill.
The tide level was not very high on that afternoon when I got there. I looked around for the perfect path to kayak in. Luckily the water level was high enough for the kayak to get around the rocks without hitting the rocks below.
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| Enough water to get in without hitting the rocks below. Yay! |
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| Ahh... stretching my legs and cooling off with a dip in the swallow water |
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| Alone with nature, my nasi lemak daun pisang for lunch and the kayak...Bliss! |
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| I left the beach with my footprints everywhere and took nothing but photographs with more rubbish that were washed up on the beach. |
On my way back to the pier, I decided to stop at the spot where these bats are roosting. I didn't have clear photos of them the last time and so this was my opportunity. It is a challenge to photograph them without using any camera flash and some of these bats were about 5 to 6 meters above me. Added on to the challenge were the sea current and waves from the speeding tourist boats. It was impossible to keep the kayak still and I had to paddle back and forth many times to get a few shots.
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| A decent photo of this colony of Black-Bearded Tomb Bats Taphozous melanopogon. My gratitude to Dr Juliana Senawi of UKM for helping me to identify this species. |
I decided to leave the bats in peace after kayaking back and forth for half an hour.
About five hundred meters from where the bats were, I kayaked pass a small rocky island and heard the call of a sunbird. I stopped to determine the species.
A bird appeared and I thought that this bird doesn't fit the figure of a sunbird at all. But the call was a sunbird! And so I took a shot of it. And then more shots of it.
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| This image was not cropped yet. |
After cropping the image...
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| I have checked the details from the bird guidebook and indeed this is female non-breeding of a Blue Rock-Thrush Monticola solitarius. A record shot for me. |
It was tricky to have a good photo of it when my kayak was swept away by the current. I paddled back to that spot and she was gone. Then came a male Olive-Backed Sunbird Cinnyris jugularis tweeting away.
And so, I didn't go home empty-handed. Happy to be out there with nature and very thankful to this female appeared unexpectedly even though I didn't get the male version.
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