Raptor Migration Over Ipoh

Something extraordinary happened at 3:50 PM 8th October 2018. I accidentally caught sight of a small flock of about 10 eagle-like birds when I glanced out towards my Northern bedroom window. In the past, the norm was to have no more than 3 birds at any one time. "This is unusual", I thought to myself. And so, I attempted to photography them.

Having failed to capture any decent shots, I looked around and waited hoping for this flock to return. Nothing happened. I looked out on the Southern side of my bedroom window and I got excited when I saw, which I thought initially was the same flock. After taking a few shots, I then noticed that there were actually more birds in the sky than what I saw earlier. A thought then popped into my mind: Raptor Migration!!

I ran downstairs and out to my front garden with my camera. A sight to behold. The sky was filled with raptors in every direction that I could see. Some were circling, while a small number could be seen jetting from afar at a rather high velocity trying to catch up with its buddies. Quite evident thought, slowly but surely they were drifting Eastwards. They came from the Westerly direction, by the way.

Truly, this was an amazing sight that I got to enjoy for something like 30 minutes. Quite appropriate too the time as my neck was beginning to ache then. I have been bird watching for 5 years and this is the first time that I am witnessing this event. Couldn't be better as this is happening right here at my backyard. Incidentally, if you were wondering, this is not the first time that raptor migration is happening over Ipoh. I have come across some reports in the Facebook MNS Perak Branch Bird Group a few years back about raptor migration. I was obviously envious then.

I wasn't counting (because of my excitement), but in total, I think there were about 10 groups in all with about 20 birds on average in each group. Some groups were barely visible because of their distance, so there could be more. As far as bird ID goes, I have yet to look closely at my pictures to identify them. Crested Serpent Eagle, Black Baza, Crested Goshawk, Oriental Honey Buzzards, Accipiters, Chinese and Japanese Sparrowhawks - these are some names that are usually mentioned in other Malaysian raptor migration sightings.

Since then, I have been having regular peeks up the sky. Nothing was spotted except for yesterday at 11:30AM 12th October 2018 while I was out and about at Ipoh town. 20 raptors were seen gliding slowly from the North-West to the South-East direction. There was some light rain at that time. I got home at around noon, but could see nothing.

Here are more pictures.