New acquaintances when they heard that my interest is bird watching. Invariably most of them would voice their sentiments that bird watching is a very expensive hobby. I know the background as to how that feeling or impression in them originated. In short, I can tell you that prerequisites of having expensive and good equipment to aid in birding  is not true at all. Like any other hobbies, start with the means, equipment that you could afford. Second step learn what the hobby is all about. The third step, learn the rope and finally hone the skills. So getting the best equipment like  a pair of excellent Binoculars to start birding must not be the pre-requisite and and wisest move. Sustaining the interest is!

There is nothing like getting a good but fair price pair of binoculars to kick start the hobby. Understand bird watching and practice the techniques used is paramount. The easiest and simple way possible - around the place you are living with minimal transport needs.

Yes, you can do bird watching within the comfort of your backyard, your balcony or even from your room. All you needed is clear mind, an interest. The number of birds sighted is "ideally low" and simple enough for you to cultivate an interest in these "Trash" birds. Just focus on your need, what is bird watching all about!

Birders needs to know about the type of birds that live in urban Malaysia, not fuelled by fantasy of meeting up with colorful birds in deep jungles. New birders needs to know how to identify them and then slowly progressing on to how these birds become part of the bird world in Malaysia.

To ease some apprehensions of starting, in this page I tried by listing some pictures, in an attempt to give some introduction to the birds we will get to see in our garden - one type of Malaysian environment. Hope that will help you to start recognizing birds around your home.

You know this bird! It is a song bird. Very often seen on the ground. Kept in cages of many houses in the rural areas. Yes, learn about this bird. That's bird watching.

There are more pictures of this bird on my other page dedicated to Robin. In it, also a brief write-up which you may find interesting . To make your search even more realistic, go to this page on bird calls and scroll down to Robin. You should be able to identify yourself with some bird calls you heard so often in your living room.

This bird has the largest repertoire of calls under varying conditions. You may not hear more than 2-3 calls in a single day, but over time, you could mentally take note of the range the bird has. Its ability to master the wide range is only beaten by another jungle bird, the Shama. Shama besides having their personal calls could also mimic and innovate new calls. Save that discovery of the Shama for future venture when you have progress to the level of entering the forest.

To most untrained eyes, we get to see birds with the look of Mynas almost every where. Noisy birds, fairly large size that makes them conspicuous when combined with their loud calls. In reality, there is a complicated scene of making identification. Right now, just be contended to know that there are plenty of Mynas in the place where you are living.

The fight to be the most common "Myna" around town. Quietly a cross breeding process had taken place and now time for prolific breeding.

Easiest to identify, there is a brown Myna with yellow face mask. This is the Common Myna. But watch out, there is another one, darker colored Myna, which is  the Javan Myna. According to record, in our open park areas, there should be seen 4 types of Mynas, Common, Jungle, White-vented & lastly the Javan. For some time now, the Jungle Myna, recognized by the blue tinged at the base of its lower bill had hardly being spotted in central and southern peninsula. It is assumed that the Javan Myna has done some cross breeding with this species.

Without making the topic more complicated, those of you staying in Selangor, just keep a look-out. Check to see whether there are more darker colored Mynas [Javan Myna with inconspicuous crest] when compared with the brown colored ones [Common Myna -brown with no crest]. First step to bird watching in Malaysia!

Of course, there is another species which is very often seen as well. The noisiest of the whole lot - the White-vented Mynas. No, not by the white feathers on the tail end or under tail. But by the size of the crest over their beak. They move around in small family of a pair or 3 birds. Very easy to differentiate them, they are the ones with very prominent crest. Illustrated by the photos below.

Javan Myna [tiny crest]

Common Myna [no crest]

White-vented Myna [bushy crest]

Most important point to note is that this species is termed as a "Tree-Sparrow" as compared to an ordinary Sparrow.

The name Eurasian Tree Sparrow was given, perhaps to differentiate this bird from the American Tree Sparrow,  Not clear as to how it was introduced to Malaysia or when. The bird is found in Europe, temperate Asia, Himalayas and South-east Asia. This is a lowland bird feeding on seeds of grasses. But here, they soon became so used to be around humans and now have preference for urban dwellings. Today, in Malaysian towns they live of scraps of food and left over's. Moving around and among humans in flocks. In Europe and Australia, this is still very much a rural bird. They hang around within low bushes but often foraging on the ground.

Enough with the 3 types of predominantly garden birds, i.e. birds that stay around the area of backyards, then the scene migrates over to public park and forest edge birds. By the way, all birds are seen in garden and forest environment but I am trying to draw a vague line as to which settings that they are seen most often.

Each morning as punctual as the alarm clock, at precisely 6.45 am, this bird would be doing his morning call. It may sounds melodic but most time noisy! The ritual would run for about 10 minutes until he felt that the day's chore is over. At last, you can identify this bird that is making all the noises and I know that you would say "I know this bird!" Very often seen in your garden. Now you get its name as well.

Bulbuls are very common bird in our garden, open park, forest and mountain. So common that birders have viewed the sightings of this type of bird as one of low importance. But this bird belong to a big family of variances that has very close resemblances. The Yellow-vented Bulbul is one of the 24 species you can find in Malaysia. If you are interested in birding, this group of birds Bulbul, would be pleasant target as a project. Most members from the group are readily available, but some species so difficult to encounter.

I have a limited collection of these birds. You could see them in this link to the page on Bulbul.

There is yet another noticeable bird that comes to your garden. I am sure that it has left a strong impression too. This is a fairly large bird with brilliant yellow plumage. It is hardy and a aggressive bird. Unlike Bulbul, you may not get to hear them call. But when the group is loitering around your garden and having fellowship, they would chat very loudly for minutes on end. Such exchanges of their calls could some time last 20 minutes.

Aggressive in a way that they prey on the young of other birds. Extremely territorial - I have seen them driving the much larger House Crow away from their nest. Usually, Orioles are harmless fruit eaters, feeding on your ripe papayas. There are few Orioles in Malaysia, most of them yellow while there is also one species in dark red plumage. I too have a page on Oriole.

We do have black colored birds in our garden. Blackbirds? In fact, plenty of them. No! these are not the Black Birds as we read in fairy tale books. They are Starlings, deep bronze green in color. You may recall having seen large flock of "black birds". Maybe not in your garden but in the surrounding houses. These birds prefer trees. Seldom comes to the ground for food. When they are foraging, all you hear is a stream of single note whistle. You could hardly see them. For fellowship they would gather on TV aerials and branches of bare trees, some places open. That's the time, they are obvious.

The bird looks dark all the time. But once in bright daylight, the reflection on their body would bring out that iridescent green. The juvenile within the crowd are streaked or speckled brown.

Straight away you could recognize this as the common "Merbuk". A song bird used for singing competition in the Padang.

These are Doves, "big one and small one". Some may mistaken them as Cuckoo birds but they are Dove as in the same family as Pigeon. Very tame bird kept in cages, bred for commercial collection as niche song birds in northern Malaysia and South Thailand. This is a open field bird and available in big numbers. They are called Peaceful Dove or Zebra Dove.

Indeed they are and I need not say more. Now you understand about bird watching. It is creating awareness of the birds around you. More about this Merbuk can be viewed on my page on Dove.

Pigeon - a common bird that we all know, but these are the domestic Pigeons. We will see them, particularly in open compound of temples and squares. Do you know that we in Malaysia has a large varieties of wild Pigeon. One of them do come to feed our fruiting trees.

No mystery -they have the typical look of a Pigeon and they are also green as the names implies.

In case you need to differentiate it as which type they are. Here are so pictures to assist you.

The birds making lots of high pitch trilled calls in the open skies at your house are swift. Most likely they do not land or perch anywhere nearby. But occasionally, you may see some tiny black birds lining up in a row on your wires.

These are Swallows, to be specific, they are of one kind, Pacific Swallows. There may be another which you will see in the country side, Barn Swallows. But this is more a rural species.

The Sunbird is a resident in Parks and forest edge. We are lucky to have a member of this species that has no qualms in living among human. This species of Sunbird is a good representative the colorful bird we have in Malaysia. This little bird can be compared and also mistaken as to have connection with the renowned Hummingbirds of America.

More of the write up of this bird can be found in my other page on Sunbirds You can also get acquainted with other kind of Sunbirds that you would possibly meet up in future.

male

This crow that we see in large numbers comes from the Indian Sub-continent and South-west China. In Malaysia, the crows were brought in from Sri Langka [formerly Ceylon] to help curbing the rubbish situation in Port Klang at that time. Very soon by 1903, they already have a feral colony. Instead of a grey collar, it has a tinge of brown. Today, they are seen in the whole country. This is the species that clear up waste materials and road kills - in short a scavenger! House Crow has proven themselves to have higher intelligence as compared to other birds. I hope that I will be able to collect information for some Crow tales in future.

We do have our own Crows. the Thick-billed and the Slender-billed. Their feeding habits are slightly different and remained in the forest or Mangrove swamp area.

I hope that this page do have the information that you need and that you enjoy learning about birds around you.

Seeing them that readily, I am sure that in no time you will get associated with these "strange looking" birds and they don't seem to be an alien. Perhaps more information from the net to reinforce what else you wanted to know and which I have not included, will make you an expert in a short time.

Actually, most birder would stop at the point of having identified the bird and have little need to understand each garden bird in greater details. For that reason little is written and posted on the net. However for those moving on to a more advance stage of bird watching prior information as to the birds behavior and it's whereabouts is critical. You will be surprised that doing research and getting into the habit of being curious about birds and using these urban dwellers as starters may help you in honing that skills.