The diversity of animals and birds in Lipat Kajang.

Burung Murai (Robin) (not of Lipat Kajang but similar can be found)

Lipat Kajang is set rural, tropical and under developed. As a result its flora and fauna, its birds and animals are still very original, not really wild and very diverse. If one cares to sit quietly in the fringes of bushes in Lipat Kajang one can see the variety of these animals and birds, one can hardly count them and one can picture them by their noise and their swoosh when they fly about. And one may take pictures of them if one has got powerful telescopic camera lenses.

Flying about high will be eagles, and among the tall trees hornbills, they are the larger birds. Then you can hear ‘sebarau’ (sebarau is also a name of a type of fish, but in our kampong sebarau is also a bird) in the distance, ‘cericak’ going about their business collecting nectar, ‘murai’ chirping away and skipping about, bull bull flying about making that ‘knocking’ noise …….. I can spend a whole day describing the birds that one will find in Lipat Kajang. Luxurious birds such as kingfisher sitting quietly on tree branches by the water and ‘serindik’ flying high from coconut trees to coconut trees. ‘Serindik’ are beautiful small parrot like birds and they make very high pitch short note noise. And by the waters edge, especially by the river bank, one may detect sand pipers going about their business search for food, probably small worms.

One is not disturbed by the sounds of vehicles (probably on rare occasion of motorcycle or a rare car passing by) and ones ears may be ringing because of the quietness. Its so quiet in Lipat Kajang, at the fringes of the bushes, sometime you imagine people watching you which is just an imagination. You might even hear people talking in not so loud voices in not too far distant, or even maybe the sound of ‘parang’ striking wood when people cut some small trees at a distance.

Of animals, squirrel is plentiful, all types and all colours, with some having beautiful coloured furs. And of course monkeys, there are varieties of them, not as many as in the zoo but if you care to sit quietly and watch the trees above you may see some shy looking uncommon monkeys coming out of their hiding places.

Some time you might get a few surprises. A 'mengkarong' (smooth and patterned skinned, whitish lizard probably about 9 inch from nose to tail) might suddenly come out of the dead leaves and just crawl out fast passing just your feet, or even a small 'biawak' (small sized dark coloured and rough skinned, the family of monitor lizard) might just run ahead of you or may climb a tree close to you, or you may see a woodpecker (look alike Woody Woodpecker) knocking on a tree trunk, making surprisingly loud noise. Or even a wild boar with a whole family of piglet crossing the road in front of you. The only danger in all these adventure are snakes, but they are quite rare and seen far in between.

Some of these animals are present seasonally. By season I mean not the 4 seasons (as in temperate climate) but the seasons when trees fruit. When there is plentiful of fruits on the trees one can see many varieties of birds and animals. During seasons when trees do not fruit one can still see animals, going about their business in search of food, a bit quiet most of them but they are not hungry. Somehow on the jungle and bush fringes they will manage to find food, birds may still get worms and some nectar and other animals some kind of jungle fruits which may fruit out of season.. As I said earlier, with the kampong having so many variety of plants, thus so many varieties of fruits, the results are varieties of animals and birds present and living on the fringes of these bushes..

Having lived in Lipat Kajang since small, I have lost interest in all these birds and animals, they are just natural to me, everyday stuff, and I just get used to them. They are there and we are what we are and we lived happily among them and with them. Its only when we move into towns (as we get older and going about our profession or business) that we realize the rich assets of our animals friends in the kampong.


Lipat Kajang people (or decendents) are encouraged to participate& contribute (Orang Lipat Kajang, atau keturunan, di jemput memberi sumbangan idea)