Oriental Pratincole nesting

Dato’ Dr Amar-Singh HSS visited the Malim Nawar Wetlands in South-West Perak, Malaysia on 28th February 2014. This is an extensive ex-tin mining area with many ponds/lakes that have converted to fish farming.

There was a flock of at least 35 Oriental Pratincole (Glareola maldivarum) using a freshly cleared land to breed.

The image at the top shows an adult incubating the eggs. The nest is a scrape surrounded by a collection of loose vegetable matter with two eggs in it (above, below).

“Despite keeping some distance, I unfortunately flushed this parent,” reported Amar. “I took the opportunity to nip in for around 30 seconds at 5 meters distance to get some quick images of the nest. Very hard to visualise the nest from the side.”

Amar returned to the site on 25th April and found that there were many populations of these birds there. He confined his observations to a group of about 15-18 birds with at least 7 nesting. The above image shows a breeding pair while that below shows an adult standing by the nest with an egg yet to be hatched.

He managed to record the classical calls made by an adult in flight, ‘trrik’ or ‘kyik’ HERE with the analysis of the calls below.

An image of an adult in flight is included below.