Bukit Fraser 2010

Took a weekend trip up to

Bukit Fraser, Pahang, Malaysia for some bird watching. I’m new to birding and was lucky to have a season hand guide me along the way. Located about 500km, by road, from Singapore. Took us about close to 7 hours of driving with stops along the way for food and drinks.

Heading up from The Gap proved unsettling for one and we had to make frequent stops for her. I think its motion sickness from all the short and tight turns up. As we went up the air slowly but surely got cooler till at the top it was a nice cool 23C. We quickly settled in at the Jelai Highland Resort, which I’ve heard was a birders favourite. Its not 5-star and I was ok with it but if you do go, do set you expectations to basic.

Best way to explore Bukit Fraser is to walk, there’s a good variety of trails from easy to advance. Be warn though, it can get damp and wet from being a lower montane range. As with a wet areas, leeches abound! So do dress well, a long pants, hiking boots and long wooly socks will do that trick.

Here’s some of birds that I managed to catch with an Olympus, a model that boast a 26x optical zoom, which I’m not very pleased with but that’s another story. Peter, the seasoned birder, kindly pointed out to me exactly what I was looking at. I must admit that I wasn’t really keen on bird watching until I tried to identify birds. Usually I’ll just tag along and look for insects. This time though I seem to have ‘caught the bug’.

Here’s some of the birds I managed to snap.

Most of the other birds I did not managed to capture of the images came out poor. So I’m on the hunt to get another Point-N-Shoot camera, no SLRs for the moment, I don’t have the kinda funds for the lens.

Though its my third time up to Bukit Fraser, its my first real birding experience and I can feel the joy. I’ll definitely be back for more and will definitely bring my new copy of Birds of South-East Asia from Craig Robson.