My Fat Biawak!

Once again, I now publicly declare myself as a typical  city person. It is not about me not having to see a biawak (Monitor lizard) in my life before. It was about that biawak on that same tree for more than twenty four hours in this such awkward position...

This photo was taken at night, low flash

...until I pressed the panic button ... Silly me. Yes, you will agree with me after reading this... click on please

On this day (Day 1) at 8:00am: 

A tourist staying in a resort took a picture of this biawak hanging in the mid-section of a tree.

Day 1 at 7:00pm:

I was informed by the tourist about this biawak and he told me that the biawak was on the same tree since morning. He was asking about the awkward foreleg. It was motionless. 

Day 1 at 9:15pm:

The biawak was still on that same tree. Two other tourists joined me watching it in the dark. It moved! Yippee! It was moving its head away from my strong torchlight which was shining towards it. Great! it was still alive.

My action taken: 

Informed the manager of the resort to get help from the Wildlife Department.

Day 2 at 11:30am:

Followed up with the manager with a call if the Wildlife Department was contacted. Yes, it was contacted and the Wildlife people suggested to use a long stick to push the biawak off the tree. No one knows what happened next.

Day 3 at 10:00am:

I returned to the resort to check the tree if the biawak was still there. Another manager informed me that the tourists complained to the big boss of the resort that the biawak was still left hanging on the tree on Day 2. The staff went to the tree, had a look and reported that the biawak was happily sitting there. Well, this biawak was not on the tree now and no one knew what happened to it.

Today (Day 3) at 1:30pm:

Over our plates of char koay teow, I asked my pet expert friend, Jeff, if it is normal for a biawak to stay up on a tree for more than twenty four hours. To my surprise, he said "Yes".

And then I saw this coming from Jeff. It was a huge roaring laugh smacked on my face. 

Ok! OK! I have never seen a biawak stayed up on a tree for so long. Unlike Jeff, he has seen biawak doing such in his kampung house. From Jeff's observation, a biawak in his garden would stayed up on the same spot for days, usually to wait for prey, to hide away from predator or being lazy after having a large meal. Then he said, "No wonder my kittens went missing".

I bet the resort staff would laugh at me now... gee... I never said that I am a wildlife expert or a biologist anyway.

Finally, Jeff admitted that a long time ago he had the similar thoughts like me when he saw a biawak in such condition. He was proven by a vet that the biawak he encountered was not dead. The vet set up a video camera and it recorded the biawak moved away after four days.

Jeff corrected me by explaining the actual position of a biawak stuck on a tree. If the biawak's body is on the tree with its head and all the limbs hanging in the air, that would mean the biawak is STUCK for real! For this case as shown on my pictures, this fella was just hanging out.

An unexpected wildlife education for me over a plate of char koay teow. Not bad, huh? Hey, Jeff, I googled for facts related to this experience as you suggested. I cannot find any. Perhaps you can google this for me then.

Gee... I have to spend more time in the "kampung" life now and Damn! I was tricked by a biawak.

Biawak curry, anyone? 

Just kidding-la.

Before I left the resort, I greeted my little darling here, for she will never trick me by hanging out on a tree like this.

A lovely female Colugo 

One more last note, Jeff. Now you know a Colugo is a mammal. We are even...muahaha! But seriously, thank you for the free education, Jeff!

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Tang's Thoughts On Plastic Bags

The "NO PLASTIC BAGS" fever was on the island recently and coincidentally, I stumbled upon one of my birdwatching mates who shared his amazing drawings to us via Facebook.

These are two of his tons of amusing and entertaining cartoons that he drew. 

Err... this method would probably work for guys only, Tang?

Click below for the second picture. 

Do you see that small symbol "TTH"? Yup, that is his initial and copyright. Tang Tuck Hong is his name and he is also an enthusiast birder. Tang is a volunteer and facilitator for Birdwatching course conducted by the Malaysian Nature Society Selangor Bird Group. 

I met Tang about about four years ago in Fraser's Hills on a birdwatching course and that was where he demonstrated to us on how to sketch birds on our notebook. 

Man, I love your creative drawings! You reminded me of my much younger years when I was drawing cartoons. However, I was much better in drawing stick figures!

Thank you so much for allowing to share your pictures in my blog. You are my cartoonist idol!

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Caught Napping

Have you ever seen a monkey taking an afternoon snooze?

At 4:00pm, this group of Dusky Leaf Monkeys (Trachypithecus obscurus) were relaxing at the front porch of a resort along Jalan Teluk Datai  and then two of them started to fall asleep...

Their zzz postures...

I didn't know that monkeys take afternoon naps like I do. They were so adorable!

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Temporary Blog Out

Dear blog followers and readers;

My personal blogging partner has decided to opt for a vacation and leaving the other partner in the "dark". Production is kind of slow recently but now is even slower. Slow like a snail but production is surely progressing. 

Thank you for all your patience. 

I am pondering now "What is life without a laptop?"

A pathetic situation when lifestyle has depended on my laptop to facilitate my hobbies, work and studies. It really feels like one part of your life is missing. How gosh... I had became attached.

Finally my thirty five months old Toshiba Satellite decided to demand for a rest! It has been giving annoying problem at bootup by beeping for ten seconds before displaying this message:

Choose an operating system to start, our press TAB to select a tool:

To specify an advanced option for the choice, press F8

After searching for solutions on this error, the tech guy suggested the keyboard was the problem. And yes indeed as I detected the combination of two keys are not working. The good news is that it is still under warranty. 

My laptop is on mainland while I will be contributing my $$$ to the local cyber shop and sitting in those smelly room.

So instead of groaning and moaning, I now look at the bright side:

Less blogging = Less late nights= More hours of sleep

Early to bed =Less pimples and acne

Less sitting on my sofa and typing away = More pumping and workout = Less flabs on my tummy

Opening and reading my books = Reducing dust collection on my shelf

Owling = Healthier late nights

WE (me and my lappie) WILL BE BACK IN A WHILE... 

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Banana In Paradise

That day was my first time appreciating the beautiful inflorescences revealed out of a banana heart. This wonderful herb that many of us eat almost daily is indeed pretty from the beginning.

I also realised I was not the only one attracted to these pretty flowers.

Who else then?

The wasps and ants of course! The pollinators.

Banana in paradise

Wasps. Can you spot a red ant near the tiny yellow flowers?

More visitors!

The more I admire it, I started to reflect on us, the homosapiens. From babies, we are always cute and pretty attracting lots of admirers. Then as we grew older, we became like a bunch of bananas.

There is a proverb that I came across: 

"Man is like a banana: when he leaves the bunch, he gets skinned." - Proverb

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Who Says Malaysians Have "Tidak Apa" Attitude?

Malaysians are very well known for our "Tidak Apa" attitude (light-hearted or inattentive) or "Never mind-lah". Or some Malaysians will say, "Cin Cai-lah". Simple examples such as double parking, parking in front of someone's else house, littering, using too much water unnecessarily or not wearing safety helmets while riding motorbikes. 

I spotted a very rare sight this evening on our road especially on Langkawi. This has proven that not all Malaysians have "Tidak Apa" attitude.   

I drove past them and I just had to stop to take their pictures. I stopped my car beside the road and got my camera ready. The "father" looked at me as I was smiling and he smiled back.

What made me want to take their pictures?

The fact that they actually care about their safety on the road, which is a very rare sight on Langkawi. Both parents had bicycle helmets on and the little girl as well. And the home made small plastic chair for the little girl amazed me.

I noticed the little girl was very near to the back of her father and I saw her nodding off as I past them. The best thing was the safety belt strapped on her so she can continue dozing without falling off.

Picture of the home made chair (zoomed in)

Well done to this family. Great role models! I hope I will get to meet them again and have a chat. Any Langkawians out there know who they are? 

On the note, I am very sure they were Malaysians. For a start, they looked like one of us.

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Out of Boredom

I was wondering why there were so many idiots in my workplace lately.

Probably this was the reason.

There were so many types of these idiots. They came in different shades, colours and having to observe them, they were quite fun to watch at times.

Besides these idiots in my workplace, the full moon on this day was awesome.  At the end of the day, I still vote for the real full moon as the best thing to observe rather than these idiots.

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