Frog on the Window

The other morning our cat T was very excited over by the window. I thought it was a gecko, he loves to hunt geckos. But when I looked out the the window I saw a frog! You can barely make him out in the photo above... he is on the left side of the window. After I took the photo he jumped off the window back into the water bowl! At least I know that there is life in the water bowl keeping the mosquitoes away.

Sweet Bird in the Backyard

I spotted, actually T spotted, a bird making a nest in the small Mango Tree at the back of the house. Everyday T has been glued to the window closest to the tree watching the activity.

I did a quick search online, but couldn't find a photograph of this smallish white bird with a black almond shape around her eyes. Anyone know what kind of bird this is?

Common Myna Birds and Grass

One of our regular visitors in the yard are birds known as the Common Myna which often lurk around the yard pecking the grass and sometimes they sit on the roof and in the Bamboo and Mango Trees. I like their call which is pretty. I looked them up a long time ago and found that they are considered an invasive bird. One of only three birds in the world to be considered invasive because they inhabit an environment and then take over in numbers and they are somehow aggressive. I think this is possibly true because the Common Myna birds in Malaysia, or at least in my yard, are very strong and they seem to always be plotting for food. Our cat T loves to watch them but given the opportunity, I don't think he would attack them as the Common Myna birds might first attack him!

So our Cow Grass after the last mow is looking like this. And in some places you can see the dirt. It seems like the grass is getting very thin. And we had the thought after seeing a bunch of birds pecking in the yard that maybe they were having something to do with the grass thinning.

We sent some photos to Nilai Landscaping, the company that put the grass in and said we were concerned the grass was dying. This is what they wrote back:

It will not die off just like that, don’t worry.

Dead grass visible underneath is actually the “thatch layer” (please google for the meaning). Could be avoided with constant cutting (2 -3 cut per month) and sweeping off the grass clippings after cutting.

Grass that looks like it is growing vertically in certain areas instead of normal horizontal growth is due to lack of sunlight (insufficient sunlight).

Grass colour is too light green and it should be darker green. This is due to insufficient fertilizer.

Trusting the above is in order.

So we will now fertilize and try and mow the grass more often and see what happens.

Birds of Paradise in Orange

Well surprise surprise... we do have orange Birds of Paradise in our front landscaping after all! I posted before that the landscapers put in red and yellow Birds of Paradise which are kind of small in size. Well, this larger orange Bird just bloomed and there is another on the other side of the landscape coming up. I love the orange and the size of these... but they are mixed with the red and yellow flowers. I tend to like repetition in landscaping, not a mish-mash. But, oh well. I guess it makes for some different flowers and after watching over time to see what we have I guess we can always change it.

Bat Outside

I snapped a photo of a small Bat hanging outside of the home office in the big leaf mango tree.

Two Strange Birds

I snapped a photo of these two birds hanging around outside our office window. The top bird was tapping on the tree, and so I wonder if they are in the woodpecker family. Anyone know what kind of birds these are? I should look up Malaysian woodpeckers to check.

Update- I think I found out what kind of birds these are... they look just like the Rufous Woodpecker seen here http://www.birdforum.net/opus/Rufous_Woodpecker.

Little Spider Hunter Bird

A few days ago I was standing under the carpark at the front of the house when I noticed a very curious bird with a long curved beak fly over to one of the pink Bunga Kantan Flower (Torch Ginger Flower) buds by the house. When in flight, the bird seemed like it was a large Hummingbird, but after it took its place on the bud, I thought it was too big to be a Hummingbird. The bird was pecking his beak inside the holes of the bud in a fast motion. He saw me and continued pecking. I thought he might be trying to get the nectar inside the bud. After a long time I spoke to him and he looked at me and continued not bothered by me at all. Afterwards I searched online and found the bird which is a Little Spider Hunter (photo above from here: http://besgroup.talfrynature.com/2009/12/23/tongue-of-the-little-spiderhunter/ ). A few of the photos showed the Little Spider Hunter near Bunga Kantan Flower buds, so I know it is the same bird. It seems they do like to get the nectar out of the plant.

Malaysian Oriole

We were up in our second floor Home Office eating lunch when we heard a loud bird making a pretty song outside our window. We peaked outside and saw an Oriole (from the Oriolidae family) in the tree. Quite a large yellow bird. We went to the Malaysia Birds website and found an image of the yellow bird. The photo here is from Wikipedia.

I didn’t know that for Orioles there are ‘Old World’ and ‘New World’ families. They have the new world type in the US and the old world type in Malaysia, so when I saw the large bird we saw today being called an Oriole, it didn’t look like an oriole I am used to seeing in the US.

Malaysian Lizard

Yesterday as I was opening the back door from the Kitchen to the Wet Kitchen area I spotted a large (large by my stardards) Lizard on the back wall of the property; the wall isn't far from the door or wet kitchen, so I was a bit startled! I've never lived anywhere where lizards are right outside before! I'm fairly sure it was a lizard. I called R and he came downstairs to take a look, he was able to snap two photos before the lizard went hiding inside one of the wall drainage holes. I checked "Malaysian Lizards"online and don't think there are any images of this exact type. The lizard had a snake-like face with a long snake-like tongue that he kept outside his mouth. He looked a bit sinister and scary. We waited for awhile to see if it would emerge, but it did not.

If anyone has any idea what type of lizard this guy is, please let me know. Thanks

Bamboo Grass

I’m too tired to write about the fan installations and the ongoing hotwater heater installation issue, so I will post R’s work for today. He has been working on the back brick wall and clearing the landscaping getting ready for the landscapers to lay the grass and rocks once the house exterior is painted. Today he tackled the large patch of Bamboo in the front yard. Being in New York Zone 6a in the past, my garden could never have taken Bamboo, hence, no idea what to do with it. But we were driving to Seremban 2 Jusco a couple weeks ago and there were some men trimming the bamboo along the road. Later, we saw that they had cut away the bottom part of the ‘grass’ leaving the bamboo exposed at the bottom. So today R got his saw and clippers out and started to work on the large bamboo patch in the front.

Along the way, he encountered two snails that lived in the center. Contrary to what we thought we knew about snails, these two moved fast and got back into the center of the bamboo immediately after I had a chance to snap a photo of them. We have also noticed a lot of empty shells in the yard as we were cleaning up.

According to Wikipedia, “Bamboos are also the fastest growing woody plants in the world. They are capable of growing up to 60 cm (24 in.) or more per day due to a unique rhizome-dependent system. However, this astounding growth rate is highly dependent on local soil and climatic conditions.” Let’s see how fast this one grows!