February in Pictures

Here are the pictures to go with the last post.

		Feb at the Forest VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

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The Hornbill Tree

The other day Ben was out hiking and he came across a wild fig tree loaded with fruit and birds.  On closer inspection he was able to make out that the tree was loaded with figs and he thought about 30 or so Pied Hornbills feasting.  After watching for a while, something spooked them and they all took off.  He then estimated that there were about 100 or so of the Pieds.  He also was able to identify a pair of Great Hornbills.  A really exciting spotting - these are huge birds-according to wikipaedia about 1 metre long, 1.5 metre wingspan and weighing 2-4 kgs.  They have the best personalities, if ever you get to meet a tame one - friendly and comical.  I imagine they are awesome to see flying.  Naturally, Ben didn't have the camera.

The same day he came across more troops of languars and some giant black squirrels.  Wild pigs have also been scuffling around the building site and digging up the garden attempt.  In general he has noticed that the languars are coming closer and closer to the building site - which is good meaning they are feeling more secure.  Lets hope we can protect them. He just told me today that he wants to fence in about 500 ha - the core of the core area to keep out hunters and their dogs.

They also have been trailing more banteng (the wild cows) in the last few days, but not sighted them.  They were very very close yesterday and found some big tracks - telling me they were from a wild bull. Of course I asked him how he knew it was a bull.  He asked me back why I always question him!?  He thinks I don't trust his tracking skills!  Anyway, the answer was that the bulls are significantly larger than the females.  Valid answer I suppose.

Ben's been out there for the last ten days.  He's had helpers from the local village and has been making trails and patrolling.  He gets a range of personalities helping him.  He has worked out that the older, ex-Khmer Rouge soldier men are much tougher and know how to work hard.  This one guy who is on the Community Forest Committee has been helping a lot and has stayed out a lot longer than the others, saying he feels bad leaving Ben out there on his own.  Some other guys are less active - one spending a lot of time during the day "conserving energy." Others are a bit free spirited.  Actually, mostly they are all very free spirited.  They are happy for a couple of days work then need to go and do their other jobs.  The soya bean harvest is starting and it is proving more difficult to get helpers from the local village.  And then soon after that they will start harvesting the rice which means everyone will be busy with that.  We will eventually need to be hiring people on a permanent basis which will be an interesting task.

So this week, they have a finished trail to the temple on the mountain (both terms, temple and mountain are used freely here - temple being a pretty small construction and mountain being about 300 m elevation, maybe).  But a trail to this place is progress.

Here are some pictures of the temple and cave taken in 2012 when we bush-bashed our way through.

Updated Bird List and Other Bits and Pieces

In April, Ben and our bird watcher friend Lisa went to Phnom Tnout to do a bird survey and to see if they could find a White Winged Duck.  They found a pair of White Winged Ducks and also documented 37 other species of birds, increasing our bird list by about four times.
It was a good day out.  I finally got around to writing up the list to post here so you can look over at The Birds page for an updated list.

Lately, Ben has either been rained in or rained out.  He finished up roofing the building and realised he was short of the tin roofing caps, he finished up a storage shed which is lockable.  Very important.  Then it started to rain and so he came home.  He came with us to Phnom Penh for a week sorting out various vehicle issues. And so we returned home for it only to start raining again.  It has cleared up now, just in time for Pchum Ben holiday where we get hundreds of visitors to our house - so maybe we'll go out to the forest for a break soon.

That is about it for now.  I do have some pictures to put up but alas my battery has run out as I sit here at the bank (where there is fast internet).

Signing off for now.
Sharyn

The Hunt for the White Winged Duck

A few weeks ago a birder friend of ours came to the “Game Reserve.”  The primary purpose was to look for endangered bird species.  We had heard reports from villagers that there are a number of White Winged Ducks living on the creek and wanted to verify this.  According to websites I’ve looked at, there is a worldwide total of only 700-800 in the world or which about one third are in Cambodia.  The first day we saw lots of different birds but no ducks.  On day two we decided to go further afield and our efforts were rewarded when we finally came across a pair of ducks roosting along the creek.  We had kind of given up looking and were returning on a section of the creek that we had detoured earlier when they flushed.  If we had been paying attention it would have had a nice photo.  Instead I have a McManus photo of where they were once sitting:

Elated to know that there are some endangered species on the Game Reserve.  Now I need to find the bird list of what we saw on that trip.

Here are some other shots from the hike:

New fields

Lisa and a log

Fig tree