During our visit to Malaysia we visited the birdwatching hot-spot of Fraser’s Hill, the least developed of the hill stations in Peninsular Malaysia. We stayed at the Arundel Bungalow, located on the very edge of the resort and overlooking the surrounding rain forest. We were lucky enough to get a guided birdwatching walk with K. S. Durai, a naturalist with a vast knowledge of the local fauna and flora who helped us to identify what would otherwise have been a baffling variety of birds. Thanks to his skill we spotted all the common local species and a number of more unusual ones in the space of a couple of hours!
On our first night there I headed out into the gardens to see what night sounds I could capture. In the UK night recording generally requires low-noise microphones and pre-amps due to the almost complete lack of ambient noise. I soon realised that this wasn’t going to be the case in Malaysia – if anything the nocturnal soundscape was louder than the daytime one.
I’m afraid I have no idea which species are present in this recording – I assumed the regular hooting was Mountain Scops-owl (Otus spilocephalus) but it doesn’t seem to match other recordings of that species. If anyone has any ideas please leave a comment…
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