Merapoh

Taman Negara Merapoh 4/8/2007 - 6/8/2007

on 4/8/2007 morning about 6:30am started to load our food stuf, baggage into my small kenari car. I still could not imagine how we could manage to stuffed in so many things into my car. My thai friend brought enough things for her two weeks holiday away from works. After that we continue the journey to pick up Uncle Banard, his hse is about 30mins drive. Once more times we stuffed in more things into the cars.. OOOh he packed along 30 eggs as well.. It was so nicely packed by him that we even can topped it up with some others stuff as well.. Now my car is fully loaded from all the food stuff that would last us at least 4 days, tripods, our birding materials, pot, pans, utensils, plates, portable cooking stove and as well as the rest of the baggages.

From there we head to Gombak Toll.. on the journey discovered that my friends who agree to wait for us at 7:30am decided to change another place to wait for us.. Well this is my first time drive such a long journey but I packed along good navigators.. Phew...

After a good breakfast at the Bukit Tinggi New Village we head to bentong, Kuala Lipis and then follow the milestone to Gua Musang and Merapoh is about 30KM from Gua Musang. We have a good nice ride thanks God that my friend suggest that I send my car for service before this trips cause I did complained to him that somehow I have difficulties to engage gears.

We reached Kg Merapoh about 12:30pm. We check into Merapoh guest hse due to information gives to us that the accomodations are unavailable dues to a govertment course that held through out the month of Aug. The next convenience place to stay is the Merapoh Guest hse taken care by the care-taker Encik Uda-012-6632955. This guest hse is quite clean selling at the room rate of Rm45. We booked all the 4 rooms occupied by 9 of us. We then head for our lunch at those food stalls at Kg merapoh.. Once glance of those available foods.. OOOh how I treasured those varieties of instant mees, breads and other food stuff that we pack along from KL.. There are two small kedai runcit there but the only things that I found is similar in town is the Gardenia Bread.

After lunch we head into the National Park. It would be a courtesy to seek permission from the forest ranger, since this is a sat their office is not open, I walk into their quarters to look out for Encik Azmi. We then realised that the govertment course venue shifted to Bkt Rengit, but a promise is a promise to Merapoh Guest Hse. We shifted out from Merapoh Guest Hse the next morning to the park accomodations. We also occuppied 4 chalets (non-aircon) with the room rate of RM40 that can occupied 3 persons. We now have the taste of two places but I still prefer the ambience at the national park.

This time of visit I managed to clock only two lifers , Blue Rumped Parrot and the Ferruginous Babbler. This is not of the reasons of Merapoh has no birds life but due to I done alot of birds-watching at low land forest.. The calls of the Banded Pitta, Great Argus, Some Pheasant spp, Gurney Pitta, Sooty Capped Babbler is really fasinating to me in this patch of forest. In additional to that once a while we noticed a few Horbills fly above us.

The simple meals that me and my friends cooks without meats, just taste so yummy after a tired day out in the fields.. The crazy jokes that we have, the birding companions that I have during this weekend indeed bring back alot of memories to me.. and not to forget the amount of eggs meals that we have as well..

This is the place we took the truck ride right into Kuala Juram. We pay RM20 per pax for a through and for the ride. This place is where the Kelah Fish sanctuary is. The fish here is protected. During this time of visit I sighted no Lesser Fish Eagle here but I sighted a Ferruginous Babbler.


These are the groups of birding friends that accompany me to Merapoh. We marched into the forest with scopes, DSLR gears, Binoculars, field guides, water, snacks (kanom from Thailand). Each one of us harbour with great hopes of able to takes a very good sharp birds pictures , as well as able to see good rare birds and to clock lifers each time we marched in during this few days. Taking things out from this national park is of course is prohibited, therefore we only takes photos and leaves nothing behind except footprints

Three Striped Ground Squirrel

Blue- Crowned Hanging Parrot Loriculus galgulus (Juvenile), Size 12-14.5cm

Long-Billed Spiderhunter Arachnothera robusta , Size 22cm

Family/Sub-family Nectariniidae
Species name author Müller & Schlegel, 1845
Taxonomic source(s) Sibley and Monroe (1990, 1993)

I got an information much earlier of a long-billed spiderhunter nesting here but I have in mind that it has fledge before our visit then. When we walk into the forest on the 4th of Aug in the late afternoon, I notice there is no sights of this species then.

On 5th of Aug we sighted two of this birds with food in their beaks, my first thought is they are about to feeds a young birds that has been fledge maybe just a few days ago. We notice that this two birds keeps perched and it's movement is restricted just around a few trees nearby.. They keeps circling around and keeps fly down to a patch of a low bushes... We thought that it's nest could be just somewhere in that patch of bushes which we could not see from our sides.. This two birds it's movements is very fast it really test our skills to photograph them.. One after another after we had get a decent photo of them we moves from here.. Saffee and Richard stays behind and after sometimes of observations actually it's nest is just beside where we stand, near the road. OOOH no... how could we so naive, no wonder they keeps circling around dare not fly into the nest directly... Sorry Mr and Mrs Long Billed Spiderhunter...I be more courteous next time. Through my observations it's feeding time is only active during the morning till noon only.

This is the Long-Billed Spiderhunter nest, they build it besides the road just about 4 feet from the ground.

Black-naped Monarch Hypothymis azurea (female), size 17cm
Family/Sub-family Monarchidae
Species name author (Boddaert, 1783)
Taxonomic source(s) Sibley and Monroe (1990, 1993)

Checker-Throated Woodpecker Picus mentalis (Male) , Size 28cm

Family/Sub-family Picidae
Species name author Temminck, 1825
Taxonomic source(s) Sibley and Monroe (1990, 1993)