Birding at National Botanic Park

National Botanic Park or Taman Botani Negara in Malay language is located in Shah Alam, Selangor, Peninsular Malaysia. Many names have been given to this place but it is not as troublesome as to trying to locate the place. We spent about 15 minutes searching before locating it. When we reached the place about 9.00am it was already packed with hundreds of people. Whatever it may be we had earlier decided to visit this place because of some earlier reported sightings of hooded pitta and long-tailed parakeets at this location.

Dark-Necked Tailorbird

The first bird seen was this dark-necked tailor bird which was also heard calling near the roadside. The roads here were wide and long but there were just too many cyclist around.

Common Flameback (male)

A pair of common flamebacks were seen foraging for food.

Indian Cuckoo (Juvenile)

Heard this juvenile Indian Cuckoo calling from the edge of the forest. Its continous calls led me down from the roadside to some bushes without knowing that it was just a few feet away from me.

Short-tailed Babbler

I have learnt a few tricks from people on how to get good images of babblers in the jungle. Although i am far from perfect but at least these images were able to tell that they belong to a short-tailed babbler. We saw two of them down on the slope. Luckily they kept coming back to the same location which allowed me to get some images of it.

Rufous Woodpeckers

We saw these pair of rufous woodpeckers drumming at a dead tree trunk - probably looking for some insects.

Hill Mynah

We saw quite a number of this hill mynahs calling.

Large Woodshrike

This large woodshrike was seen whacking a long caterpillar.

We saw at least two large woodshrikes making a lot of noise up on a tree.

Chestnut-Bellied Malkoha

We waited for sometime for this chestnut-bellied malkoha to come out in the open but it somehow did not want to obey orders.

Raffles's Malkoha

This Raffles's malkoha was more receptive.

We thought this bird flying towards us was an oriental magpie robin until it perched.

White-Rumped Sharma

White-rumped Sharmas featured quite prominently at this place. Its calls were noticeably different than those of white-rumped sharmas in Gg Nuang.

Dusky Langur

We also saw quite a number of Dusky Langurs.

Although we did not see any lifers but this place could possibly spring a few surprises due to its vast wooded area.