The raptors are coming! The raptors are coming!

Raptor Watch is coming this weekend!!!

Not that that means anything really significant to most people, but for nature lovers and bird watchers in Malaysia, this event should at least cause a bleep in their radar if not get them all raring and excited to go for it.

Eerr, what the heck is a raptor, you ask? Well, if you're a fan of Jurassic Park, you might think they look something like this:

In which case you'd right now be running around ecstatically in your room screaming that dinosaurs are alive, only to be sorely disappointed when you read further to find out that the raptors we are referring look a bit more like these:

Raptor Watch is an annual event to celebrate the return of raptors, i.e. migratory birds of prey on their journey back to their breeding grounds in the northern hemisphere. Apologies to the dinosaur fans, it's not quite as cool, but still an interesting event nonetheless.

The celebration goes on for two days this coming 12 & 13 March at PHB Ilham Resort and Port Dickson, although of course, the birds fly for as long as they need to and don't just pop up on those two days. The resort has a field where visitors can easily view the raptors flying by, and due to the wind currents in that area, they tend to circle around a bit before flying off. Hence you can see quite a number of raptors grouped together at the same time, as from the ground, they'd look something like this:

Here's a video demonstration if that just looked like a badly photoshopped photo of weird shaped dots to you:

And if you're wondering how many birds fly by our shores annually to say "Howdy!" before continuing on their flight, apparently it comes up to the number shown by our not-so-lovely model below.

Though from what I read on the website this year, the number so far sighted has gone up to a whopping 70,000. Man, I don't wanna be a birder having to count those fellas flying by.

The Malaysian Nature Society will be having booths and activities going on at the resort to keep people somewhat busy. Although I was there last year and personally felt the booths were a bit of bore... took me an hour or so to browse through them, and couldn't do much as I was by myself since I couldn't drag anyone with me and being the adventurous one I am, I just do whatever it is I wanna do without giving a rat's rear end if anyone is there with me. I stayed for both days too, which means I bunked by myself at a nearby resort and was enjoying a nice time of solitude and hoping a centipede wouldn't visit my room in the middle of the night and sting me to death.

Errr, anyway, other activities going on included Fun Challenge game (which I also couldn't take part in coz' I didn't have a partner!), which this year is replaced by an Amazing Race game. And there are also talks by various conservationists about...errr..... conserving nature and that kind of stuff. There is also a lighthouse near the resort, where people could walk up to and get a slightly closer view of the raptors flying above.

View of the beach from the lighthouse. Ain't too shabby.

The appeal of the event for me wasn't so much the booths and activities or even the bird watching, but just being able to get away from it all and be with nature.... which I guess I can do any time of the year, but the raptor watching event just makes it a bit more interesting. So while people could pay for guides to go on beach walks and forest hikes, this lone ranger went solo, just coz' I like going at my own pace and indulging in taking photos (bugs, animal, plants, scenery, myself, you name it, I snapped it). Here are some pics of my solo romp through the jungle, and what I saw along the way.

Some interesting plants...

A weird looking bug.

A big golden and blank ant-like thing.

Aww, ain't monkey cute?

I almost got lost in the jungle. Seriously, it was close to getting dark, and I wasn't sure which path to take. Fortunately there were other people around who were regular hikers and directed me to the right path. Whew!

After that bit of a scare, I took a walk on the beach next and said hi to the resident little crabs.

I took my umbrella along with me too to help make sure I didn't turn into overdone toast under the sun. It made for a nice artsy fartsy shot too.

There were mangroves growing along the beach , and they made some pretty good poser shots.

Just so you know, I was supposed to blog about my trip last year but held it off so long that now since Raptor Watch 2011 is happening soon, I thought now's a good time as ever to post that long overdue post. So yay that I finally got it done! I'm thinking of going for RW this year so I can hold on to another procrastinated post for another year. :P

Thank you for visiting. Please come again! Kaw kaw!