We are at Fraser Hill, in the Malaysian highlands, one of the birding hotspots of the Malay peninsular. The bungalow we’ve found for the week is rather rustic, a 1920s building with 21st century bathroom (thankfully not the other way around).

Bukit Fraser, as it is locally known, was originally a British hill station. The road up here, built in the early 1900s, is an extraordinary feat of construction, and shows how much the colonials were prepared to invest in their cooler climate retreats. Now it is a tourist village, busy with weekend visitors from Kuala Lumpur, a somewhat odd place in the tropics with its topiary hedges and quaint bungalows. There is even a small strawberry farm!

After the disappointments of humid lowland forests, we’ve come here in the hope of recording some of the highland birds that Fraser Hill is renowned for.

The first exotic species we encountered was a Fire-tufted Barbet feeding outside our bungalow. Unlike any other Barbet, it has a sprig of red feathers erupting from its forehead. It also has a very unbarbet-like call. Most barbets have a repetitive piping call, “potock, potock, potock…” or “pop, pop, pop…” that can go on for half an hour. Hence barbets are ubiqitous in Asian forests as they can call all day. The Fire-tufted however gives an upslured buzzing, more like an insect than a bird, and it only calls infrequently. We ended up calling them Bizarre-bets.

Next we came across a small flock of Silver-eared Mesias. We’d seen these colourful birds at Mae Wong near the Burmese border, and thought them a rare and exotic species. Here they are as common and confiding as sparrows, sitting on the backs of chairs at the strawberry farm restaurant, scolding each other as they dart for scraps from under our table. It turns out they are much more shy in the forest, presenting me the choice of an easy photograph of them sitting on a fence, or spending hours stalking them for a more natural shot.

Many birders come to Fraser Hill to happily tick their bird lists, and its easy to see why they would enjoy themselves here. Chestnut-capped Laughing Thrushes and Long-tailed Sibias are common, we have a Spiderhunter raiding the fresias in our garden, and exotic species turn up in feeding flocks throughout the day.

But recording this unique soundscape has proved somewhat of a challenge. Fraser Hill is quite small, and there are roads leading every which way over the hills, mostly to privately owned homes and bungalows. One could describe it as a hilltop suburb. Hence there is a constant hum of cars and motorcycles, plus periodic broadcasts from the town’s mosque. I am having a problem with extraneous noise.

Another problem is one that has puzzled me in other places; that there seem to be few birds in the dense, mature forest, instead they hang around the areas of forest, parks and gardens around the village. Hence my first attempts to find a quiet location, which had me exploring the more remote forest tracks, have not been rewarding. The dawn chorus has been sparse, and insects have been predominant even before sunrise. Add to this occasional rainshowers, some wind, leeches and very muddy tracks, and as you can imagine, its not long before I am considering more creative approaches.

After several days, I find a quiet road that goes around the back of a hill, blocking out the sound of the town. Here I am overlooking a densely forested valley, surrounded by the mosiac of hilltop forest and gardens that attracts the greater density and diversity of birdlife. Apart from a nuisance dog barking occasionally, and an obliviously friendly early morning jogger, this site gives me the recording I’m searching for. It also gives me my first leech bite of the week. And even the Bizarre-bets make an appearance.

By now we are looking forward to home. Snuggled up in our bungalow, with mist swirling and the rain falling steadily outside, the beginning of our journey seems a lot longer than only two months ago. After traversing Thailand and Malaysia, and with only a few days remaining (visiting friends in Singapore), Fraser Hill is the end of the ‘wild’ part of our journey.

Once home, we can begin auditioning our recordings and begin the creative process!

For those of you placing orders during this time, Alison will be attending to inquiries and CD orders. She will be able to access emails daily, so if you have any questions or difficulties, just email her at our usual address: cooee@listeningearth.com.au

She will likely be in the office only once a week, so CD order dispatches may be slightly delayed. However all download orders are automated, so should process through as usual in real time.

A few friends have asked our rough itinerary, so here’s an overview…

This coming Thursday we fly to Bangkok, and the following evening catch an overnight train to the provincial town of Khon Kaen in the north of Thailand.

That’s the confirmed part of the trip over with, after this, we shall be winging it! After numerous efforts to organise treks, we’ve achieved little. We need to find good areas of jungle and be able to explore them at leisure, which just doesn’t fit the conventional trekking template. We’ve found ourselves in the too hard basket. So hopefully, we’ll either be able to achieve our ends without the logistics of a trek, or we’ll be able to arrange for park rangers to accompany us once we arrive at each park.

Nam Nao National Park is our first destination, a large and relatively little-visited park with areas of pine and deciduous forest. There is reported to be a good diversity of birdlife here, including barbets and woodpeckers in abundance.

From there we travel west, pausing at Sukothai, the ancient Siamese capital from around the 12th century, which has appealed to Sarah as somewhere she’d love to see. So we shall spend a few days cycling around exploring ruins and decaying stupas.

Our next park is remote Mae Wong, on the Burmese border. The mountains here are at the end of the Himalayan range, and we anticipate hearing many of the families of Himalayan birds we fell in love with in Nepal; yuhinas, fulvettas, minlas, laughing thrushes, babblers… We don’t know how we’re going to organise such practicalities as feeding ourselves, because our destination is a tiny campground deep in the park. There is a ranger station, but no facilities, so we shall have to stock up on bananas! Having read about this campground, we have found it amazing to use Google Earth to locate it exactly (16º60′00.00″N, 99º06′28.68″E). I can even see the patch of grass we’ll be pitching our tent on!

Thailand’s peninsular forest parks present us with a bit of a conundrum. Initially we thought Kaeng Krachan, not far from Bangkok, would be at risk of noise pollution from flight paths. However our research into Khao Sok, further South near Phuket, indicates it will be a less pristine location for many reasons. So KK it may well be. Once again, there is a campground deep in the forest that may make an excellent base camp. More bananas.

In the Andaman Sea to the west of Thailand, are a group of islands protected as a marine national park. Kho Tarutao is one of the largest and least disturbed offshore islands in this part of the world, and I would like to see whether there is some good recording to be had there. In particular I’m fascinated by the Nicobar Pigeon, an extraordinary all-black ground pigeon with iridescent plumes. Maybe we’ll come across them there.

But really, the Andaman Sea; coral, beaches, tropical sunsets, fresh seafood…

Then back to work. Malaysia. Specifically, Taman Negara, famed not only as peninsular Malaysia’s largest and most precious nature reserve, but one of the world’s oldest rainforests, growing undisturbed for 160 million years. And, in contrast to the more monsoonal forests of Thailand, this really will be rainforest. Gibbons, hornbills, pittas, exotic birds galore! And leaches, apparently.

There are a few other Malaysian parks we may visit if time allows, such as the lowland rainforest of Endau Rompin. For the last week or so, we shall be visiting friends in the wilds of Singapore, and believe it or not, I am planning on recording there. Whether that will amount to anything other than distant traffic and aircraft flyovers, we shall have to see. But Singapore sounds an amazing place that neither of us have been to, so we are looking forward to it.

So that concludes our projected two months. We hope to be able to upload a few posts here as we travel.

Till then, be well!

Andrew & Sarah