The Distribution of Waders in Northern Peninsular Malaysia - A Birder's Observation

INTRODUCTION

Whenever we are out there with mother nature, we would most likely be the first to witnessed the destruction (if any) of our natural world either by deforestation, illegal land used, reclamation works, pollution etc.  Some would blame it on the government while some will accused the sleeping politicians and the list of accusations goes on. It has been mentioned that for a business to mature, it would take nothing less than 10 years. On the other hand, for a forest or an ecosystem to flourish, they may take twice/even longer the amount of time to attained its sustainability and flourishing returns.

The "Kapar Declaration" conjured out during the AWC seminar held on 25 June 2016 in Malaysia was indeed a timely action by some concerned stake holders. Only time will tell whether this "declaration" will be translated into action or will it remained merely a "declaration" and disappear into the thin air just like the smell of the masala curry coming out from your neighbour's kitchen. 

EXPLORING THE MUDFLATS

What really caught my attention about this "Kapar Declaration" was that it was only meant for the conservation and protection of the North-Central Selangor Coast which covers a massive 28,000 hectares of mudflats and mangrove belt. How about other IBAs in Malaysia? Are there any waders in other areas which needed to be protected as well? To find out the answer, i explored the mudflats and tributaries of the following areas: i) Teluk Air Tawar,  ii) Kota Kuala Muda and iii) Pulau Sayak from December 2016 to January 2017.

THE FINDINGS

Teluk Air Tawar

I started at "Bagan Belat" mudflats on 21 December 2016 from 10.00am. As you can see from the above photo there were only a handful of waders which you can count using your fingers and toes.  There were Brown-headed Gull (10), Eurasian Curlew (1), Ruddy Turnstone (2), Pacific Golden Plover (9), Wimbrel (2) etc to name a few. Returning fishermen then alerted me that there were more birds further up from where i stood. So off i went near Penaga area. After an hour or so of waiting patiently, came 3 big waves of waders flying from north towards 'Bagan Belat". 

The First Big Wave - estimated about 200 birds

The second Big Wave - estimated about 500 birds

The 3rd Big Wave - estimated about 700 - 800 birds

I head back to 'Bagan Belat' hoping to greet them but was surprised to find that there were only a few waders. Where did they all gone to?

My Findings: it appears that the waders must have landed somewhere between Penaga and Bagan Belat where there are still thickets of undisturbed mangrove line which are inaccessible.

Kota Kuala Muda

On 21 January 2017 i went to search for waders at this location. Time was 11.30am. This place was slightly better in terms of bird life as compared to the mudflats of Yan district which i have explored back in February 2012.

There were Little Tern, Common Tern and Whiskered Tern.

Red-Necked Stint were also spotted for the first time in this location.

I decided to go back to the location in the evening (17.00hrs) to check out its bird population.

The bird numbers appeared the same except that Brown-headed Gulls have now joined the equation. 

My findings: in terms of the number of birds seen here, it was far cry from the ones observed at Teluk Air Tawar but it was still not too bad. A total of 22 different species of waders (including terns) were seen within a day at this location.

Pulau Sayak

This area is located just about 12km further north from Kota Kuala Muda. 

Despite its huge span of intertidal mudflats, i have only spotted a lone "Great Egret", a Pacific Golden Plover" and a "Common Sand Plover". 

Eyeing for something?

My findings:  there is only one word to describe this place. Its "abiosis" !

DISCUSSION

Teluk Air Tawar mangroves seems to be able to hold/attract a substantial number of waders. Bagan Belat which was once a heaven for waders seems to lost a bit of its glamour as the waders have moved further north. This could be due to some reclamation and construction works around the waders feeding ground as observed. Further north, the number of waders were even lesser. Kota Kuala Muda showed some promises as waders were seen foraging and roosting in the area. A group of red-necked stints seen for the first time here should provide some encouragement for other small bodied waders to venture to this location as well. There is also a possibility that the waders seen at Kota Kuala Muda could have came from the same colony which traverse the coastline of Teluk Air Tawar as the location is not too far from Penang. At Pulau Sayak, unfortunately there were less waders than expected despite its vast mudflats. The situation is quite similar as the one in Kuala Gula mudflats as reported by Dave Bakewell in his blog posting back in February 2014 as well as the numerous record posted in e-bird by birders to the area.

Why are these sites lacking waders despite having such a huge area of mudflat to forage / to roost? Could it be due to the muddy terrain as opposed to the more sandy/gravel filled beaches that some waders would prefer?

This is a mud-ball seen at Kota Kuala Muda. There were lots of these things on its beaches.

To answer those questions, perhaps we can find some answers from a local research carried out by Nur Atiqah Norazlimi and Rosli Ramli (2015). In their research it was found that time of the day and tidal conditions do not influence the foraging behavior of shorebirds. Instead it was the differences in bill size and leg length that would influence the time spent foraging so as the size of its prey, probing depth and preference of habitat.

Note: The research uses stratified random collection of data whereby the samples/data collected usually does not represent or follow a specific distribution  of the samples. Nevertheless by using ordinal / rank data, a simple non-parametric statistical test such as Spearman Rank Correlation should be sufficient enough to explain its results. 

Note: for a statistic buff, Pearson Correlation Co-efficient is used when the data collected is on a continous scale (example if you used a likert scaled instrument) while One-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) is used to determined whether there are any significant differences between the means of 2 or more independent / unrelated groups/variables of study.

 SUMMARY

Based on the above observations, it appears that at this moment, there are only two sites in West Peninsular Malaysia which could hold substantial number of waders i.e at KPS in Selangor and Teluk Air Tawar in Penang mainland. It would certainly be good for all if the sites could be extended further to other areas. This however also depends on nearby feeding grounds as it has been reported that roosting sites located in areas without nearby feeding ground has less or no birds at all ! As such conserving and protecting their feeding grounds are equally important as safeguarding the waders roosting areas.

Note: this little survey was carried out by the writer's own accord and funding (no external funding were obtained, sob! sob!). The info written here is correct as at the time of observation.

"Doing What You Like is Freedom

Liking What You Do is Happiness"

References:

i) Nur Atiqah Norazlimi and Rosli Ramli (2015), The Relationship between Morphological Characteristics and Feeding Behavior in Four Selected Species of Shorebirds and Waterbirds Utilising Tropical Mudflats, The Scientific World Journal, Vol. 2015, Hindawi Publishing Corporation.

ii) A Report from the Asian Waterbird Census (AWC) Seminar, 25.06.2016, KL, MNS Conservation Publication No. 12, "Charting the Future of Malaysia's Most Important Migratory Waterbird Roost site: the Kapar Power Station Ash Ponds"