Not a good day for this barbet

While working outside sometime ago, I heard a loud bang as something knocked into one of our house windows. When I went to have a look, I found this poor bird unconscious in a flower pot. It had flown directly into the tinted window (which reflected the very bright outdoors like a mirror since it was such a sunny day),... crashed and fell into the flower pot. I think it's a male Gaudy Barbet (Megalaima mystacophanus).



Good thing it fell into the pot too, as my cats were on the prowl! I hung up the pot out of reach of my cats. Slowly, the bird recovered from the concussion and after about an hour, it flew off.



The characteristic "took took took" call of barbets are often heard during the fruiting season in my area. They are especially fond of "jambu bol" (water apples) and, along with starlings and hanging parrots (lorikeets), are frequent visitors to our tree every year. Sadly, our tree is dying, affected by borers and termites.


Invisible stars circling its head… still recovering.


About an hour later, he’s about ready to fly off.

Engkabang – Shorea spp.

 

Engkabang (illipe nut) is the local name of the fruits of Shorea trees. These tall dipterocarp trees produce winged fruits which are often collected by locals either for local consumption or for sale.

 

 

Here in Sarawak, villagers, particularly the Dayaks, collect the fruits to make engkabang oil which is mixed with hot white rice for a smooth buttery taste. The prepared oil is not in liquid form but in solid form at room temperature (about 27 degrees Centigrade).

 

Discarded “wings” – collected by locals, the fruits have been removed.

 

Dried engkabang fruits in a rattan winnow. The big white sack on the right contains fruits ready to be sold off to a middleman or buyer. Photographed in a Bidayuh village.

 

 

Commercially, the fruit is processed for its oil used in the making of chocolates. Look up the research paper entitled “Engkabang (illipe) - an excellent component for cocoa butter equivalent fat” by K. Nesaretnam and Abdul Razak b Mohd Ali if you’re interested to read more about this fruit and its uses in making cocoa butter.

Habenaria species (in situ)

This Habenaria species could be H. elatius but I am not 100% sure.

 

Flowers aren’t that big, about an inch across. I should probably take measurements when photographing plants in the wild but that’s extra work and takes up more time than we already have when out snapping photos in the field.

 

A seedling, possibly that of a small shrub or tree, sprouting from a seed that had fallen into the core of a Habenaria plant.

 

The inflorescence bears several flowers.

 

Typical habitat of this species of Habenaria. There are two or three plants in the above photo, can you spot them? They grow in pockets of decaying organic matter trapped in crevices in the limestone. Some grow on near-vertical cliffs so photographing them may be quite a challenge.

A “fishy” outing

 

 

Went on another photo outing, this time to catch and photograph peat swamp fish species.

 

Carinotetraodon sp., possible Carinotetraodon salivator.

 

Carinotetraodon sp.

These tiny little puffers are sooooo cute. One puffed up into a tiny ball as big as a marble and I was fortunate to have my camera ready just then!

 

Puntius hexazona

 

Puntius hexazona

 

It was also my first time seeing the beautiful six banded barb, Puntius hexazona as well as another colorful rasbora.

 

Rasbora sp.

 

Still waiting for my fish guru to ID that one. I made up a name for it in the meantime, the "Rainbow rasbora" as it appears to have colorful bands running the length of its body.

 

How sad that more and more streams are turning into smelly polluted streams. We visited many places in the countryside to look for blackwater rivers and peatswamps to explore but runoffs from poultry farms, pig farms and vegetable gardens have done a lot of damage.

 

 

It was only after driving around and exploring for several hours that we eventually found a stream still nice and unspoiled. *sigh*

 

Photographing a juvenile pikehead.

 

A Luciocephalus species, predatory pikehead.

Far away in the countryside, we also had the good fortune of spotting a hornbill in flight. Not the large greater hornbill but a smaller species. I couldn't change lenses fast enough so no photo of that hornbill. Maybe a “birding” or bird watching trip next time!

Tiny freshwater pufferfish

This tiny one, about 1.5cm long, just ate an insect larva and is looking for more.

This species of freshwater pufferfish, believed to be Carinotetraodon salivator,  is the cutest little puffer I’ve ever seen. Pretty interesting to observe them swim around in a tank, eyes moving about searching for prey.

The large one is about an inch long and the small one is about 1.5cm long. Before I took these photos, I fed them damselfly larvae and soon as I dropped the larvae in, both started going after them. Some of the larvae hid among the Egeria densa leaves but the puffers eventually got to them.

There was a big dragonfly larva too, as big as the smaller puffer and the larger puffer kept nipping at it. By night, it'll probably be fishfood.


The larger, 1 inch adult “stalking” a damselfly larva.

Besides insect larvae, they also feed on small snails and fish. So they are a good choice to naturally control a small snail infestation in a freshwater tank!

Photo quality is pretty poor cause the water is dark, stained with tannins and I'm shooting at 800-1600 ISO through plastic. Here are more photos of this little fish:



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