Harpactes duvaucelii

NEAR THREATENED

Lanchang, Malaysia

Like the Red-headed Trogon (Harpactes erythrocephalus) the Scarlet-rumped Trogon too is a brightly coloured bird of dense broad leaved evergreen forests, usually seen perched quietly on a mid-story perch. A species of bird in the family Trogonidae, It is found in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Thailand. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest, subtropical or tropical swamps, and subtropical or tropical moist montane forest - from lowlands up into the foothills.

The Scarlet-rumped is a striking trogon with an extensive blue gape and a similarly coloured patch above the eye. The Male has a brilliantly scarlet rump and underparts as can be seen in the photographs here. The female has an orangish rump, a yellow breast, and a pinkish-red belly. Both sexes have a dark head (paler in females) and densely barred wings. It forages from a perch, but typically sits quite still and acts sluggish. Gives a rapidly accelerating series of squeaks.

Lanchang is a small town in Temerloh District, Pahang, Malaysia. It is accessible via the East Coast Expressway's Lanchang Interchange. This region is home to the Asian Elephant, Elephus maximus ongkili which is listed as an endangered species. According to the UNEP there are only about 1,000 wild Asian elephants left on the Malay peninsula.The Kuala Gandah Elephant Conservation Centre is situated in Lanchang and is the main attraction of this small town apart from agriculture and the many Felda projects of both rubber and palm oil plantations. Other agriculture activities are thriving well today, because it has a low population density, yet still has much land available for agriculture.

With that said, meet the second of my trogons from Malaysia - the Scarlet-rumped Trogon. We spotted the trogon and his mate in the fairly dense montane forests near the Krau Wildlife Reserve.

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Scarlet-rumped Trogon

The Scarlet is threatened by habitat loss as this species is largely limited to closed-canopy lowland forest in a region experiencing rapid and continuing deforestation. Although it remains abundant within suitable habitats across its large range, it is likely to be experiencing a moderately rapid population decline overall, and is therefore listed as Near Threatened.

Interestingly I have also noticed that it seems to maintain a time table of sorts. I have spotted the scarlet-rumped trogon at Lanchang and every time we made sure we got to the location around the same time and invariably the bird would show up when it was expected and perch on more or less the same places while it foraged. The only catch was that it was always at a mid story perch so one would always be looking up at it.

It inhabits chiefly middle and lower storeys and borders of semi-evergreen and evergreen forest, including swamp-forest, in lowlands and hills, to 1070 m in Peninsular Malaysia, but only occasionally to 400 m in Thailand. Lowland, upland and highland dipterocarp forest, and tree plantations, in Sabah, with one sighting as high as 1500 m on Mt Kinabalu. Primary and secondary forest, riverine forest, old rubber plantations, mangroves and kerangas (impoverished heath forest) in Brunei. Streamside secondary vegetation, high lowland dipterocarp ­forest, poor-quality highland dipterocarp forest and lower montane forest, at 120–900 m, in C Kalimantan. In Sumatra, also freshwater swamp-forest.

The following gallery is of the Scarlet-rumped trogon - both male & female - observed & photographed near the Krau Wildlife Reserve near Lanchang in Malaysia.

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