Wild Bird Club of Malaysia: Global Big Day 2018 5th May counts from Malaysia

eBirders recorded 454 species and 143 lists from birdwatching sites all over Malaysia covering different habitats such as wetlands, coastal areas, islands, parks and gardens, lowland forests, montane forest, on 5th May 2018, which enabled Malaysia to be placed 18th worldwide. View the 2018 World results HERE .

In Asia region, Malaysia was placed 3rd behind India and China. A new world record of 6899 species was achieved in 2018 compared to 2017's total species of 6637.

Mr Vincent Wong, our member from Kuching, Sarawak shares his Global Big Day 2018 experience as below:-

Global Big Day 2018 was a date I have been looking forward to since the early announcement months ago.

I went to bed early and by first light, I was ready to count birds in my house back yard. But unfortunately, due to the extreme heat of that day, most bird activities had slowed down after an hour thus I stopped counting.

I did another short count at a different location for the evening even though it was still so hot.

Though my contribution to this Global Event was modest, I had great satisfaction in being part of it to report my bird sighting to the world. And I do not have to travel far nor cost much to participate, to contribute to this world wide survey of our birds population which is the Barometer of our Environmental Healt

Mr Vincent Wong's morning checklist can be viewed HERE and his afternoon checklist can be viewed HERE . He was in 56th position out of 100 Top eBirders in the World by species on 5th May 2018 when he submitted his morning checklist through eBird.

Cornell Lab of Ornithology initiated Global Big Day (GBD) since 2015. In 2017, 6,659 species were reported worldwide during GBD that was celebrated on 13th May. Malaysia recorded 380 species with 75 checklists submitted for GBD 2017 according to eBird website
HERE

Some of the birds recorded on 5th May 2018 in Malaysia were Cinnamon-headed Pigeon (see Ang Teck Hin's checklist HERE , White-winged Black Tern (see David Bakewell's checklist HERE ), Lesser Adjutant (see Tang Tuck Hong's checklist HERE ) and Hadada Ibis ( see Yeo Yee Ling's checklist HERE )

It was also exciting to read about nesting records of Whitehead's Trogon, Whitehead's Broadbill and Borneon Stubtail, in Kinabalu Park, Sabah. See checklist by Timothy Forrester, HERE .