Thursday, July 5, 2012

Kuala Selangor Nature Park revisited

A follow-up visit
The last time I was at the Kuala Selangor Nature Park was back in the late 90s.
I was sent to cover a tourism road trip in the state. 
Now, fast-forward to 2012, I made a trip again to the nature park two weeks ago.
Before I did that, I purchased a guide book at the MNS Nature Owlet in Jalan Kelantan.
The RM7 booklet was filled with information on the wildlife, flora and fauna found in the park.


Some updates
Entrance fee to the park is now RM4. In the outdated booklet, it was RM2 per entry.
To get there, I drove via the ELITE Highway from my house in USJ26, Subang Jaya and connected with a new highway that links to Kuala Selangor.
The journey took about an hour and a-half and while I was driving, the weather was really bad with haze engulfing the entire coastline of Northern Selangor.


Spotting for birds at the nature park


 Gearing-up
This was strictly a birding trip.
So, I left my wide angle and close-up lenses at home.
The shortest length was the 100mm F2.8L IS macro lens.
For some closer subjects, I packed my EF70-200mm F2.8L telephoto zoom lens.
The serious business is done by the EF400mm F5.6L.
To spot the birds, I had a cheapo Silva 10x25 binoculars.
This worked very well in getting an ID of the birds as well as other wildlife.
While walking down the 2km trial, I encountered some Silver Leaf Monkeys.
Slowly and little by little, the birds came in plain sight.
My first capture was the familiar yellow-vented bulbul.
I learned later that this is a common bird.
My capture of the day was a little bronze cuckoo.
There were some egrets and a brahmin kite flying around the park. But these were harder to capture as the angle was too steep.

Gallery





Summary
I've had a blast getting acquainted with the bird population at the park.
There's enough fowl to keep me occupied during the walkabout. 
I made two loops before leaving the area for lunch in Kuala Selangor.
Before setting out to the town area, I was told by an MNS staff that the best time to visit the park is in September during the bird migratory season. 

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