Fraser’s Hill International Bird Race.

Below are some of the coloured photographs of birds seen at the Bird Interpretive Centre in Fraser's Hill.























All good things must come to an end and below is the closing ceremony at which the writer's novice team, the Hawk Eagle, was placed fourth with a consolation prize.

The first bird race in Fraser’s Hill began in 1988. In that year there were only five teams taking part in the race. Since then, each year, usually in June, the competition was held with an increasing number of teams. This year, there were more than thirty teams with birders from not just Malaysia but also Japan, China, Indonesia, Britain, Singapore and Korea. The teams were divided into two categories, novice and advanced. As a first-timer to Fraser’s Hill and the bird race, my team, Hawk Eagle was registered as a novice team.

As real novice, there is so much to learn. First, there were so many unfamiliar birds. That morning on the 19th of June, after being fascinated by the attractive songs of those beautiful birds which visited the trees just outside the balcony of our room at Jelai Resort, we took tastily cooked chicken rice, the best Malay-cooked chicken rice I have ever tasted, cooked by the wife of the resort’s manager before venturing forth to register and learn as much as we could about the birds and their names. Fortunately, we brought along some books on birds. Then, at the newly opened Bird Interpretive Centre, we found other books which we looked through. After that we went through the information given together with the pictures of the birds.

Another problem we encountered was the insufficiently powered binoculars we took along. We found out that to progress to the advanced category or join the bird race next year, we would need to upgrade our equipment. Another understanding we became aware of was that even when two binoculars have the same power, one could be of a better quality than another, as a result of which one is so much clearer than another.

Not being experienced at searching for birds in the forest with the binoculars, at the beginning I could only see the leaves and the branches but no birds through the binoculars although with my naked eyes I had seen them on a particular branch before putting the binoculars to my eyes. Things just look different and are hard to spot when looking through the binoculars. However, that is temporary and after a short while the eyes get accustomed to the binoculars and the mind and the eyes adjust to the sights being drawn closer to us. Thus progress was slow initially with merely four birds identified by three thirty in the afternoon. By seven in the evening we had been able to identify nine of them with two lost as a result of not finding pictures of them in the books. Do you know that males and females of the same species can look so different with their different colours? No identification means no names to attach to what we saw. So, no record could be made of them.

At about five in the evening in the evening, we met a reporter from the Berita Harian who took photographs of us in action. Then, we discovered that his home-town, Lembah Bujang, was near to our place of residence. All of us were so happy to discover that we came from the same state.

The competition was a 24-hour bird identification event with night-time still a period of bird searching but the novice was not expected to go into the darkness and hunt for owls and other night birds, are they? So, the three tired novice in my team went for dinner, had a rest and a bath before calling it a day.

The next morning, we started at the resort, still in our pajamas, binoculars ready to see the bird, the reference books to seek its name and the notebook to record it, stating the place and the time. Even at the breakfast table, our eyes were ever so vigilant for the birds in the trees and forest nearby. Even if someone had accidentally spooned some coconut-fragrant rice into his nose, no one else would have noticed, for all eyes were on the birds. The poor chef must have shaken her head a good number of times as her customers were more interested in those feathered friends than in her delicious food. But then, how can anyone blame the birders?
Then it was another trip by car to a birding area where we parked our car halfway to the Jerlau Waterfall as we heard so many bird songs in that area. You will be surprised at how close those birds can come to us. In Fraser’s Hill, it is obvious that the birds have no fear of humans. And for once I noted one little bird, the blue nuthatch, hopping down the vertical tree trunk and then up again; so lively was its movement it held my attention to the second before it flew off. It was an eye-opener for me. There is still so much to see and learn; so much more to experience.

Later, we did go to the Jerlau Waterfall but there were not as many birds there. Then at twelve noon, we headed back to pass up our recording for, according to the rules, a bird recording would be deleted for each minute we were late in passing it up to the organizers. The record of our sightings must be handed in by twelve-thirty.
After that we went for lunch and waited for the results during the closing ceremony. There were some special prizes. Then, when the novice results came, we were told five groups would get prizes. The fifth group had nine identifications made. When we heard that, our hopes were raised as we have made twenty-one identifications. Then we found that we were in fourth place with nineteen identifications. After the joy of being photographed with our prize by the journalists we thought of the number of identifications which was not in accordance with our list. Why nineteen and not twenty-one? Gradually, we found out that the magpie robin ought to be entered as oriental magpie robin and the Javanese sparrow is not an endemic or local bird. So, those two bird were deducted from our list.

Looking at the positive side, it was not too bad for a novice with such poor knowledge of birds to get a prize, even though it was a consolation prize. We received books, pens, notebooks, badges and cards as prizes. Well, they will come in useful for our next International Bird Race in 2011.