Friday, January 16, 2009

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)

8 comments:

  1. Diversity of Wildlife in Lipat Kajang, Pahang.

    Thank you for the memories of the spectrum of wildlife diversity in Lipat Kajang, Pahang.

    I always, when i am in Lanjut/Cherok Panjang, on holiday linger around the trees around the house.

    Its always cool to be mingling with nature during the daytime. The best to do it is when it started to rain.

    The freshness of the mixed dense hedges/shrubs and trees (fruit and wild trees of varieties) exude soothing aroma which, i feel, is not polluted.

    This is when, from observation, where the diversity of birds and insect are active. The "murai", "sebarau" or "merbah", the brightly coloured "punai", "murai gila" that wiggle its tail from branches to branches, "sewoh" of the falcon/eagle species, the kigfisher (blue,red,yellow multi coloured), hornbills and many others to name a few.

    Try going out at night and u will see a safari of animals active at night. Mousedeer, jungle fowl, kijang, seladang and so on and so forth.

    Lately u have to trek quite a distance to see them. However on the side of the river(seberang)there is abundance within distance around the Kerai, Lubuk Mendi and inland areas.

    To add to all the diversity we have to account for the formerly abundance of fish such as kelah,patin, jelawat, tapah, sebarau, kalui, keli, sembilang again to name a few as i am not well verse about it.

    Lately we see fish reared in sangkar/cage to meet demand and some fishes like kelah,jelawat, patin, tapah fetches quite a hefty some from your pocket.

    i've heard that people do go broke just to buy these fishes to satisfy their appetite.

    Nature, in Lipat Kajang Pahang, that i love that exist and i hope it will exist for my future generation to keep it intact and savour its existence, feeling, diversity for knowledge and who knows for convservation and educational purposes.

    Hmmm I love the aura and smell while walking through the shrubs, bushes, streams, paya/londang and dense jungle.

    Just walk and savour what has Allah offer to us we should take care of it for others to savour in future.

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  2. you forget the 'puyuh; in Cerok Panjang in day time and the 'burung tukang' at night. Plenty of them.
    Once I went to Taman Negara and we had a so called Night Safari. We only saw a jungle cat and some birds sleeping on a tree. I thought Lipat Kajang could have done better. I bet you if we have a night safari seberang Lipat Kajang we could have seen plenty of real wild animals. Even in Lipat Kajang, from 'baruh' to Pulau Pasir Mandi we might even see a tiger a night.

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  3. babi hutan memang berkeliaran di tepi rumah tiap tiap malam mencari makan, tenggiling boleh nampak tiap tiap hari makan semut dan kerengga pada batang pokok, kalau nak makan daging landak tunggu aje gelap sikit pergi ke seberang Paya Nangka, gerenti boleh jumpa, tembak ke jerat ke apa caralah nak tangkap, ular sawa (python) 10 kaki panjang jangan cakap lah, sampai masuk ke dalam reban telan ayam orang kampong...apa lagi, you name it Kg LKP almost have it all

    we all live happily in the same habitat....human beings and animals together in Kg Lipat Kajang Pahang

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  4. we are better than Taman Negara, aren't we. Who is going to organise the tourists then. Sirad ... tanya Tapa.

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  5. there is also this young man inthe kampong (village), his name is Mustafa Bin Chik, son of Mak Lang Mahani (his mother), living in Ulu Lanjut, grandson of Wan Kalus (remember this lady, daughter of Hj Sabudin), we call him "Tapa" - he can be quite helpful (can be useful), and he is quite open minded...if you want to be guided on a tour of our very own safari park?
    i'm in contact with him

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  6. this Tapa, is he not the brother of this guy who operates a 'kiraOK or the dico at 'kenduri' in Lipat Kajang and Kerdau ... or maybe somewhere else? what is this brother's name?
    It will be a long time even before we have this "wildlife tour". Nak tenguk seladang di Jenderak boleh lah. Atau gajah di Lanchang.

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  7. this is the Tapa, and he is the one, not the brother of who or who - MUSANI ART GROUP (Kompang, Nasyid, Sewa PA System)and the Kumpulan Nasyid "All-We-See"

    enterprising too, isn't he?

    he is flesh and blood one of ours, one of us

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  8. Thanks for featuring my Magpie Robin up there.

    http://redzlan.blogspot.com/.

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