Sugar & Spice and Everything Nice: The Raptors are back

Pic above: Raptor Watch at Tanjung Tuan

Last Saturday was my second time visiting Tanjung Tuan wildlife sanctuary. The first was during a family trip to PD a few years ago and now, to catch the giant birds of the sky, an annual event organised by the Malaysian Nature Society.

Raptor Watch is a festival to celebrate the return of the mighty birds of prey. Many species of hawks, eagles and ospreys use Tanjung Tuan as the crossing point from Sumatra on the way back north to their original breeding ground. Tanjung Tuan is one of Malaysia's oldest forest reserves and wildlife sanctuaries. Many of us come to Tanjung Tuan to visit the old lighthouse (10th Mile Port Dickson) but i never did realise the significance of this land mass as a pit stop for birds of prey till now.

The rising hot air at Tanjung Tuan is important during this time of the year. The raptors use the hot air to glide as opposed to flapping their wings over the long distances which tire them.

When David and I arrived on the Saturday afternoon, scores of visitors and birders were already on their way to the light house to catch a glimpse of these tired birds, gliding effortlessly in the air. MSN members were seen busy counting the numbers of birds that flew to Tanjung Tuan this year. The last I saw, numbers stood at some 30,000.

Pic above: Oriental Honey Buzzard

Booths were also set up on that day for product exhibitions, sales of MSN merchandises and registration for forest walk, marine walk and games. The whole event was held at Ilham Resort, about a kilometer away from Blue Lagoon.

Definitely not for 'puteri lilin' material as the scorching hot sun was unforgiving that day. But then, with sunblock SPF 50, a cap, an umbrella and oh......a bottle of icy drink all ready at hand, made our visit to Tanjung Tuan much more tolerable.

Pic above: White-bellied Sea Eagle

All in all, it was great fun watching the birds flying around and as a bonus, we also managed to spot a dollarbird (glad that most people there could immediately tell that it is a dollarbird), sunbird, bulbuls, drongo and mynas. Most of these birds were spotted as we were exploring the nature trail at the Tanjung Tuan wildlife sanctuary.