Kledang Saiong Forest Eco Park : Pitcher plants and a bird or two
When: July 2017 Weather: Hot 30+C at 3pm
Nikon P900, Leica Q
Although I grew up in the small city of Ipoh, I’d never really birded nor appreciated the natural environment there. So having had a wonderful lunch at the Meru Valley Golf Resort(wonderful food and location!) which is but a 20min drive from Ipoh City centre, I discovered that a birding site that had been blogged about previously was but 13minutes away…..the Kledang Saiong Forest Eco Park, not to be confused with Kledang Hill itself….
Of course, being shortly after lunch it was about 3pm and blazingly hot, but the lure of a potential birding location nearby was too hard to resist…..so off we went….this is another one of those places which only open at 9am(!!) if you are lucky and you need to sign in….
Having done that, we walked slowly in and the place looked as if would be very good….
Kledang Saiong Forest Eco Park
Interesting plants…
The bird life was sparse…not surprising as it was in the heat of the afternoon….so we headed to the Nepenthes or Pitcher Plant enclosure only to find it gated and unwelcoming; we finally managed to figure out how to open the gate and get in…
the Nepenthes park….
A Paddyfield pipit appeared
and entertained us for a while…
and then a magpie robin with his teatime snack
But in the absence of birds, the pitcher plants in the garden more than made up for it…
I knew there were different varieties of Nepenthes but little did I know there were quite so many….we’d seen some in the hills of Bako National Park in Borneo before but this was way better….there were green ones, brown ones, red ones and all imaginable combinations of sizes…
a spiky pitcher to start with….
A long slim one from Borneo…Nepenthes Hispida
a gorgeous red one with a striped mouth…not sure what this one is!
Another reddish one with a red cap…Nepenthes Sumatriana
A half red half green…Nepenthes x Coccinea
another view of Nep x coccinea
Nepenthes Reinwardtiana
A spectacularly colourful, mottled pitcher….
looks brownish from another angle
Nepenthes bicalcarata
beautiful even in black and white
Nepenthes rafflesiana
Deeply coloured Nep tobaica from lake Toba area of Sumatra
unusual green pitcher with coloured rim
Nep ampullaria…short fat and stumpy
And just before we left, this little caterpillar bade us farewell
I think that the Kledang Saiong Forest Eco park could be very good for birding if one came early morning (they are supposed to open at 8am but always open late which is a problem for birders….)but clearly mid-afternoon was not great. The wonderful varieties of Nepenthes made up for it though……
The Natural Traveller 