A New Year 2013 Post

Festive season is the time of joy of giving and sharing. What a joyous moment to be able to  capture this beautiful moment of a male Great Hornbill passing food to his beloved expectant wife which is now being imprisoned in a tree cavity until she is ready to be out again.

A male Great Hornbill (Buceros bicornis) feeding his mate in a tree cavity

Is the female having a time of her life inside?... click "read fullpost" below

A labor of love, endurance and commitment shown by this monogamous pair. Indeed it is tiring for the male to fly in and out to feed her while she is sitting in there waiting for food. If you think it is an easy job for the female then think again. Mind you, it is not a nice feeling to be confined in a very tight space for 8 to 10 weeks filled with the smell of urine and feces even though there is constant cleaning in the nest. Is mentally tough!! 

When people had their lucky moments to see this live, some took the trouble to ask me if the hornbills are endangered. Yes, if their natural habitat is continuously being taken away. Big trees being ripped away by deforestation due to the rising tide of human population, development and greed. Langkawi is at the edge of losing her natural charms..."naturally langkawi"

My New Year rambling starts here. I decided to have a quiet new year on my own since I  got jaded with jamming in places filled with new year revelers and traffic congested roads.  And so, I picked up a movie to watch on New Year's eve and Hellboy II: The Golden Army was my choice. It has been ages since I watched this sequel of Hellboy (my favorite hero character) and I have forgotten the entire story. 

Here's the story extracted from Wikipedia: Hellboy II The Golden Army:

"In Christmas of 1955, a young Hellboy is told a bedtime story by his adoptive father, Trevor Broom, involving an ancient war between man and magical creatures, started by man's greed. After years of battle and defeat of the magical creatures' forces, the master of the goblin blacksmiths offers to build an indestructible golden mechanical army for King Balor, the one-armed king of the elves. Influenced by his son Prince Nuada, Balor orders the building of this Golden Army. Soon the humans attack again but the Golden Army devastates them; Balor creates a truce with the humans to stop the bloodshed: Man will keep his cities and the magical creatures will keep their forests. Nuada does not agree with the truce, and leaves in exile. The magical crown controlling the army is broken into three pieces, one piece going to the humans and the other two kept by the elves, so the Golden Army can never be used again"

The humans have eventually pushed the magical creatures out of their natural home and their habitats were taken over by developments. Prince Nuada returns and consumed by hate, he declares war on humans. And the story goes on with Hellboy and his team saving the humans from being attack by the Golden Army. And of course, who wins? Prince Nuada could have won the war but the director dictated the winner...

Prince Nuada: Image taken from entertainment.wikia.com

In my own ponder, humans can win over nature or we think we can. And Nature eventually has her own way to return with a bigger clobber over us. When will the revenge takes place? In her own sweet time and it will be the time when humans are overly complacent with our own created world.

And so with Langkawi, will there be a Prince Nuada hiding in the mountains of Macinchang or Gunung Raya, still asleep and the forest creatures are awaiting for his return to declare war on us? Or it should be the job of Puteri Mahsuri? Perhaps not. The power of Puteri Mahsuri's curse has already depleted. And so, wake up Prince Nuada!

Thanks for reading my ramblings.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL MY BLOG FOLLOWERS AND THE FOREST CREATURES

p/s: You must watch this movie!

Link:
Wikipedia: Hellboy II - The Golden Army

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New Life On The New Year Eve

A lot of cicada species found in our region here usually produce high frequencies. They are so loud and yet it is difficult to spot them. When they sensed your presence, they usually take off in flight. Unless they peed, then it will be easy to spot them. Attempting to spot a cicada on a tree is like a one in million chance, what about seeing a cicada coming out of its shell then? One in a trillion chance??

On the note,  in some countries cicadas can be spotted easily when they are out periodically. 

That night was my last evening nature walk for the year 2011. Shining that torch around and this little critter on a tree caught my eyes. At that moment, it has emerged more than half way out of its exoskeleton. It didn't move at the beginning and when we got near it to have a closer look, it was twitching as if it was struggling hard to come out.  

Another half way more to come out

I rounded up my walk and decided to return to that same spot to witness the rest of the wonderful event. The second part of the event was recorded about twenty minutes after the first shot. 

"Look ma... I can do the upside down thing"

Notice how this cicada did its first "sit-up" exercise. Looks like it has used tremendous strength to do this exercise. 

Thank you for being patient with this shaky video. While videoing this amazing event, I had to balance with a big torchlight on one hand and my camera on the other. p/s: if you like this, click LIKE :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR, Cicada! 

This cicada was transformed on the eve of 2012. Unlike those robotic Transformers, this cicada transformed very, very slowly. I am not sure how long the whole process took because I was not there from the beginning.

Could this be a symbolic event for me? Or a symbolic in nature? Whatever it is, I cannot help to ponder if this could be a sign or something. A new hope for conservation? I do hope that this is for real and yet I strongly feel the conservation efforts on Langkawi is diminishing. With the upcoming development of resorts, hotels, another port and uncontrollable illegal poaching on Langkawi, the preservation of her natural heritage does not seem promising at all. Not even the NGO here can protect her. Alright, enough of my yakkety yak on conservation issues for this post.

On a happy note, this live event was meant for me to witness and I was so thrill that I have to share this to everyone. This blog post is dedicated to all my blog followers, readers, supporters and nature lovers. 

May the Force and the Blessing of Eywa continues to guard our precious Rainforest and her biodiversity. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2012! 

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For My New Year 2010

Garden plants do not usually excite me until the more I have to learn about them, the more I slowly grew to appreciate them.

I saw the broken variegated Schefflera Arboricola stubs that were used for the new year's party decoration and I asked if I can have them. Then the kind landscape lady handed me two different plants in the poly bags. My new year gift in the morning at work!
Schefflera Arboricola or its common name, Dwarf Umbrella Tree,  is a flowering plant in the family Araliaceae and it is believed that this plant is native to Taiwan and Hainan.

It is great to know that this common houseplant is tolerant of neglect and poor growing condition. This is the plant that is most suitable for a "gardener" like me then. The most interesting fact about this plant is that it will produce aerial roots under the right condition. When the aerial roots reach the ground, they will become fully functional roots. Wow, like the mangroves Rhizophora family. 

The second plant from the lady is a Dracaena family. I'm guessing that this variety could be the "Indonesian Pinwheel" based on the darker green stripe in the center of the leaves and lighter green stripe at the sides. In Greek, Dracaena means "female dragon" and I am clueless why it is named as such.
To me, Schefflera Arboricola represents resilience and the Dracaena represents strength. In the hope that from this new year 2010 onwards, Langkawi will be blessed with ecosystem resilience and strength to ward off any further developments.
2009 is the year I started blogging out of encouragement from Dr Paul Saffo. Thank you, Dr Saffo. I wish to take this opportunity to thank these people for helping me  identify the species and generously sharing their wealth of knowledge:

Mandy of Not Just Ordonata blog for being my spelling and grammar checker

Dr Wee Yeow Chin of Bird Ecology Study Group, for helping me with garden plants

Chiew and Dr Ruth Kiew of FRIM, for helping me with forest plants

Ria of Wildshores of Singapore, for sharing the common interest of our shores

Ku Ismadi, for his pictures and identifying local plants

Azimi, for his turtles expertise

Nina and Seng (MNS Bird Group), for birds id

Aida of LangkawiNatureKakis blog for being a gig too

Also to my blog followers! If I had missed out any other names, please give me a shout

And of course, Wikipedia! I have done my tiny weeny part to prolong Wikipedia's life.

I look forward to your continuous support and checking in. Happy New Year to all Nature Lovers!

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