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From Dev's Desk

September 2010

Clouded Monitor Lizard - by Ian Roberts

Compared to last year we have had definitely less rain on Langkawi so far. Weather is still an unpredictable factor as it is all over the world; the climatic changes are obvious and will make it difficult to foresee what we will get the next weeks and/or months. Although we realise that not everybody likes the rain, it should not be a reason to cancel a trip as the rain might give a complete different view of the mangroves or jungle and sometimes even more wildlife can be spotted. We will always keep an eye on the safety aspects during the trip and we will postpone or delay a trip if we deem this necessary to guarantee the safety of our guests.

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July 2010

As promised in the former column we would get back to you with more information about our newest guides and we are very happy and proud to introduce to you our team members:

Cammy joined us in the beginning of this year and she is our sales & planning coordinator, manning the office on her own. She is handling your phone requests most days of the week and she is taking care that all the arrangements for the trips the next day are made in a smooth way for our guests, our guides, the taxi drivers and the boat men. In case you want to visit our office we recommend you to give a call first as Cammy might be out to visit a resort, guide or guest.

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March / April 2010

It is Mid March and we are still in full dry season. We had only a few short rain showers but it did not look like an indication of a real start of the rainy season. Many trees are flowering and really look beautiful, but we have to realise in the meantime that this is an emergency situation for the trees and that they are in real need of some natural water supply.

Cable car trek (photo by Aida Rahman)	Cable car trek (photo by Aida Rahman)

After a few extremely busy months it has slowed down a bit which gives us the opportunity to focus on some other things. We got a few times the question if the trek from the cable car down would be interesting and we have asked Aida, one of our naturalists, to try this out. The cable car has 2 stations: top station and middle station. The walk from the top to the middle station is the shortest and this will take you 20-30 minutes only. The walk from the middle station down to the bottom of the mountain will take longer and this will be 2.5 – 3 hours under good weather circumstances.

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February 2010

Thirsty Dusky-Leaf Langurs

We are in the middle of the dry season and that is what you can see all around you on Langkawi. The heat is taking its toll on the deciduous trees and they are dropping their leaves. The lack of rain is a kind of emergency situation for the trees and this will lead to flowering soon.

As this is also peak season for Langkawi with many guests coming in, they are all enjoying the sun, the high temperatures and the lack of rain as this was for most of them exactly what they were looking for. There is no worry about the weather situation and all trips can go on as planned.

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December 2009

Dingos

After the information of the sighting of the whale sharks in October a lot of boats have gone out to try to spot these amazing animals and there were only a few boats that came back with positive news and many others were not that lucky. As the whale sharks are migratory and might visit the Langkawi archipelago from December till March many more times we just have to be patient and wait for a next opportunity.

LIMA has just finished and many people have enjoyed looking at the various planes and boats that were exhibited during this show but we always wonder what the effect of the noise will be to the animals and especially the birds. As the dry seasons is almost there, more migratory birds have come in and bird watching will be a lot of fun during the next dry months. The Oriental Scops Owl is back in the mangroves and can be spotted during our mangrove boat trip and we are happy to see that the numbers of various raptors and Wreathed Hornbills are slowly increasing. I have also spotted last month a jungle owlet and a spotted owlet and both species are not common on Langkawi. One of them I could save out of my cats’ mouth so I had time enough to determine that it was a jungle owlet.

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October 2009 – extra

An extra column this month as we would like to share the experience of our good friend Naylene. We received the following mail including photos from her a couple of days ago:

I went fishing yesterday with some friends in front of the Berjaya and we spotted at least 5 Whale sharks at approx. 11:30 a.m.!! Amazing experience!!!! I imagine we spent about 2 hours with them - I'm still so excited and just had to share these (amateur!) photos with you - lucky I had my camera with me, or maybe no one would believe this experience! Don't ask me how big they were, but all I know is that we were in a 25ft. Explorer Speedboat, and the whale sharks were MUCH bigger than the boat!! They swam underneath the boat, swam all around us, and gave us a real show. After that, we really didn't care if we caught any fish!! We reckon we already had the catch of the day!

Whaleshark - by Naylene Vuurens - Smith	Whaleshark - by Naylene Vuurens - Smith

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October 2009

While writing this we are in between the Hari Raya Aidilfitri and Deepavali break for our Asian guests and in between the summer break and autumn break for many other countries and this is always a period full of surprises for us. Some days all the trips are fully booked, some days we have 4 trips going out with only a few people per trip; we always try to accommodate as many guests as possible but we would like to stick to certain maximum numbers per trip. We always recommend advance bookings, especially for short stay guests who are not flexible in changing days due to their tight schedule. Check out our eco-packages elsewhere on this website where you will be rewarded with a discount by booking more than 1 trip with us during the same stay. The combinations of the eco-packages can be done on 1 day for certain combinations, but we usually recommend to spread the eco-package out over more days.

Spathoglottis Alba	Habenaria

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August 2009

Oriental Pied Hornbill (Photo by Helen and Ben Brewster)

We are in the middle of the summer break for parts of the world which means a lot of families with children on our trips. It is great to have children on the trips as they seem to be very interested in seeing animals, plants, flowers and trees that they will not see in their own country. Especially the trips in the mangroves are popular; by boat or by kayak and for a lot of children the jungle trekking / evening walk combination is a highlight with the flying lemurs and squirrels.

During some bird watching trips last month we have seen the first grey wagtail. It seems that the migratory birds are coming in a bit early. A very popular place for spotting some good birds is the area of and around the Bon Ton and of course the Gunung Raya is still a good place for spotting the three species of hornbills. In the Pantai Cenang area we have seen the Baillon's Crake, which we have listed as a passage migrant. It is very similar to White-browed Crake, but it is slightly smaller and does not have the brow; it also has a whitish throat and belly.

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June 2009

We have been busy outdoors and on trips the last weeks; the local school holidays brought a lot of people from other parts of Malaysia and Singapore to our beautiful island. Especially the well priced new direct flights from Singapore to Langkawi are used often and we have seen an increase of Singaporean guests. The weather has been good for the tourists, which means hot and dry, but we could do with some rain once in a while to keep it all nice and green.

I have finally spotted the not so common Nervilia calcicola, an orchid species. This personally gives me a lot of pleasure because I could not recognize this plant as an orchid and now, after finding it, it has been embedded in my brain. This hexagonally shaped leafy plant is found about 2 or 3 meters above the water line and I came across it at high tide on one of our kayaking trips. After carefully pulling it out of loose soil, I could clearly see the awkward looking bulb and confirm that it is indeed the mentioned species. After carefully placing it back and taking note of the surrounding area, one could see that the plant was growing in a horizontal crevice. Now it will be a matter of time to await the flowering to make some more records and photos. This orchid is endemic to Langkawi and not found anywhere else. Therefore mentioning this plant in other states could help us update a taxonomical list. Please do forward any information to us if you have.

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