Malacca City Birding
When: March 2018 Weather : Hot 28C
Nikon P900 Leica Q
In Malacca, the old Dutch colony in Malaysa, for a weekend’s meeting, I managed to visit the historic heart where the old red buildings, A Famosa and St Paul’s Church were and also found some wetlands just behind the Hatten Hotel where I stayed. I had not expected to do much birding….
The first afternoon, I paid a visit to St Paul’s Hill and the historic red buildings in the city centre….
St Paul’s church at the top of the hill…
the only standing part of the A Famosa fort…
on the way up to St Paul’s Hill, the view of the city and to my surprise, there were a few birds in this area
A pink necked pigeon
and as I was looking at the pigeons, I almost missed the pretty coppersmith barbet as he eyed the pigeons
coppersmith barbet
yellow vented bulbul
white throated kingfisher
finishing at the hill, I had a quick walk to Jonker Street, the touristy centre of town across this bridge
the famous red church
and on the river front was this white sided house, reminiscent of the typical paintings by the late Wu Guan Zhong…
From my room which faced the sea, I could see the Mahkota Medical Centre below me and beyond there was some greenery with mangroves and waterways…amazing to find some wetlands in the heart of this city!
wetlands beyond the medical centre…just a ten minute walk away….
So the next evening about 5pm I headed out there not really expecting to find much…
One of the first birds I flushed out of the reeds had coloration like a cinnamon bittern and I just shot this before he disappeared
a grey heron took off
some zebra doves on the path
and a little figure scurried into the reeds…a white browed crake!
A flock of cattle egrets in beautiful breeding plumage
cattle egrets in flight
collared kingfisher
Common redshank
there were plenty of red shanks around
common sandpiper
grey heron
?Intermediate egret
Little egret?
brown shrike
common greenshank
cattle egret as the sun set
A paddyfield pipit
blue tailed bee eater
another brown shrike as the sun set further
cattle egrets in breeding plumage
egret
this was the terrain at the wetlands
sunset
grey heron at dusk
sunset over the wetlands
So whilst there wasn’t anything very spectacular, it was still a pretty interesting 90min I spent at these wetlands in the heart of Malacca city. You could do a lot worse elsewhere…recommended.
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The Natural Traveller 