cavingliz non-cave albums: February 2012

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Kites around my Kuala Lumpur condo

There are an increasing number of kites around my condo near Kuala Lumpur. I think they are Brahminy kites. They have annnoying "mewing" call. In the mornings they come swooping down the valley and the green parrots always give piercing alarm calls.

This morning when I looked out I was suprised to see a whole flock of birds circling around in the distance. Most of them seemed to be kites though there were a few crows mixed in. I've never seen a big group like this before.

One bird sits in a tree opposite my kitchen. It sits there for up to 4 hours.

Photos are not good as I don't have a good camera.

Some of these might be crows, though luckily there are none roosting in my area

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Helicopters passing my condo from Sungai Besi

I read this news with mixed feelings.........The Sungai Besi Airport will not be closed yet. It made headline news in The Sun 2 Feb 2012.

"The Sungai Besi Airport will not be closed so soon after all, as its two main users, the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) and the police Air Wing, have won a reprieve. 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) – the government-owned master developer of Bandar Malaysia – has agreed that the airport could continue to be operational for "all government aircraft and VVIP helicopters" for the foreseeable future."

My condo seems to be on the flight path for the helis when flying from the air base to the city. Some days they go round and round and round for ages. Sometimes they are so low I could almost shake hands with the pilot!! Considering my condo is on a hill I wonder why they fly over it.

The Royal Air Police Unit Malaysia (Unit Udara PDRM) (UUP) is a special unit of Royal Malaysian Police & they look after national security by surveillance and patrol from the air. They fly the (red & white) Eurocopter Squirrel AS-355 F2 and AS-355 N2 helicopters.

The RMAF (Tentera Udara Di Raja Malaysia) (TUDM) fly the Nuri (Sea Kings) and Blackhawk helis which are the more humped ones. The Nuri (Sikorsky S-61A-4) will be phased out this year and replaced by the Eurocopter EC725.

On the 16 Jan 2012 I heard a heli hovering for ages. It was circling round in the cemetery at the top of my road and then hovered close to the ground before coming down. I don't know what they were watching but I could see men hanging out of the doors looking at the ground. These photos are No 52 onwards (9M-PHL Polis Diraja Malaysia ).

And when there have been street protests or prominent court cases the helis are again out in force.

See album on the Merdeka helicopters.

Bomba -

Agusta A109 with Penang flag -

Sikorsky (above)

Squirrel (above and below)

It looks so close to the roof, then hovers over the cemetery

People are watching from behind the tree, and the cameraman leans right out

and it comes down to land

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Thieving macaque monkeys

Long tailed macaques are opportunists and have learnt to steal from humans by aggression.

When I was in Songkhla in Jan 2012, I often went past Tang Kuan Hill which is a tourist area. There are lots of macaques here and stalls sell bananas and peanuts so the visitors can feed the monkeys. The stalls have wire netting around them so the monkeys cannot grab the food.

Bridge for the macaques to cross the road

This one is raiding the rubbish bin

From a stall further down the hill I bought a bag of pineapple for myself and walked off eating it, thinking all the monkeys were at the top of the hill. Suddenly a monkey came running towards me & took a flying leap onto my handbag. He grabbed my pineapple and in my surprise I shook the monkey off and dropped the pineapple bag. I then immediately picked it up. The monkey had such a surprised expression on his face, cos humans normally always lose out to the monkeys!!!!!!! He then left me alone and stalked off. First time I've ever won over the monkeys and I have lots of "attacks" at temples over the years!!!!

The following photos were taken at Batu Caves.