Taman Rimba Kiara is a little green gem located in a corner of the TTDI residential area. The above flowering tree, the firmiana malayana or mata lembu, flashes in testimony to man's care-less-ness - it's one of only two trees in the park that had flowered, since then the tree had been chopped down.

Tuesday 11 December 2018

A Mugimaki arrival

When it's relatively quiet in the taman, I turned to Bukit Kiara for relief.  However, after almost two hours' of walking and finally heading for home with an unbelievable feeling of not spotting any striking winged ones, I was suddenly alerted to persistent although uncommon rattling calls.  It was not easy trying to seek out its owner against intense backlight.  And when I finally did, and had a glimpse of bright orangey-red throat stretching to its belly, I realised I was on to something, and it was rewarding, a Mugimaki Flycatcher.
It's another hyper-active bird, a relatively uncommon migrant which could have come from eastern Siberia or North-eastern China.  It passes through China, Korea and Japan to winter in South-east Asia.  This bird is also known as the Robin Flycatcher, with its 'mugimaki' name being Japanese meaning 'wheat-sower'.

And this was what I saw when I first sighted it.

Fortunately, it did venture to middle canopy to enable a couple of open clean shots.


Compared to previous encounters, this was the only time that the bird foraged long enough for me to obtain different poses even as it kept to the upper canopy.  
Nevertheless one can see how beautiful this flycatcher is with its gorgeous orangey-red colour set against its whitish lower half, and its rich blackish upper-part.




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