Under the fading light, they could only tell that it was an owl but not which species. They photographed the bird for later identification. Imagine their excitement when weeks later, bird experts declared the bird to be the dusky eagle owl – a rare bird once thought to be extinct in the country. 

Sharon Chan and Dr Chan Ah Lak are avid birders. They spotted the rare dusky eagle owl near Tasik Merah, Perak last year.

The Chans’ sighting is only the fifth in the country since the 1800s. Ornithological records reveal that one owl was collected in Malacca in the 19th century and another, undated, in the Dinding district in Perak. In 1910, after one bird was sighted in Gunung Semanggol in Perak and was shot and stuffed as a museum piece, the bird was never seen again – until December 1998 at the edge of a swamp in Sekinchan, Selangor. Still, the owl remains elusive and never showed up again in Sekinchan. It was three years later before the Chans sighted the owl at Bukit Merah. 

The bird-watching fraternity is all abuzz over the discovery. More so since four owls have been spotted at Bukit Merah. “This is exciting as the bird is thought to be extinct. The sighting is also significant because it was near Gunung Semanggol, where the bird was collected in 1910,” says ornithologist Dr David Wells, an authority on South-East Asian birds. 

The Chans, avid birdwatchers for the past four years, have seen the owls 15 times since last October. Oddly enough, the birds have chosen to settle on two telecommunications towers standing just beside the lake which was created in 1936 for irrigation and water supply. The towers sit beside a small oil palm estate which had been carved out of a swampy forest. 

“The owls roost in the forest during the day but just before dusk, between 6.45pm and 7.30pm, they will perch at the towers. There, they will preen themselves, pecking their feathers and stretching their wings. They stay there from several minutes to half an hour, then fly off to hunt for food,” says Sharon. 

Dr Chan is quite enamoured of the owls – he has taken almost 100 photographs of them so far. “They are very sexy … they’ve got this coy look as their eyelids are usually half closed,” he smilingly declares. 

Two of the owls are smaller in size but sport adult plumage. So the Chans think they may be a family of two adults and two sub-adults. “I think it is the same family we have been seeing since they perch on the same tower,” says Dr Chan. If their assumption is correct, it would be good news – it means the owls are breeding. 

The dusky eagle owl or Bubo coromandus is within the group called horned owls because of the two ear tufts on their heads. Their greyish brown bodies have dark streaks on the underside. Their range stretch from the Indian Continent down to South-East Asia. They seem to prefer wooded areas near water bodies, which explains the sighting at Tasik Bukit Merah. 

Even the 1998 sighting at the North Langat Forest Reserve in Sekinchan was near an irrigation canal. The Sekinchan sighting has certainly gone down into the country’s ornithological history and the event remains vivid in the mind of Mah Teck Oon – he and three other bird-watchers were the first people in 88 years to see the owl. 

Aquatic reeds which grow in abundance at Tasik Merah nurture a profusion of birds, including herons, eagles and storks. The dusky eagle owl roosts in a swampy forest beside this lake but, in the evenings, it heads towards the lake to catch fish.

“The owl was perched on a tree at the edge of the swamp forest. It was sleeping, so we could observe it for almost two hours. I even had time to drive to the nearest town to get new rolls of film,” says the mechanical engineer who had been bird-watching for seven years. 

“The sighting means the forest there has sustained the owl population over the years. That’s good news,” says Mah. Although no one saw the owl in Sekinchan again, Mah believes the bird still inhabits the area but appears to be elusive because of the extensive forest cover there. 

The recent sightings can be attributed to the fact that bird-watching has caught on. There were few bird-watchers in the past and fewer still who would venture into murky swamps. The owls had defied sighting previously because of the remoteness of their habitat and their nocturnal habits; owls sleep by day and feed by night. While the recent sightings signal hope – the owls are not extinct yet – they are by no means common. 

“If they were widespread, they would have been seen or heard more often. Here in Malaysia, they are definitely rare and possibly within a hair’s breadth of extinction,” says Glenda Noramly, secretary of the Bird Conservation Council, a body under the Malaysian Nature Society (MNS). 

At the Chitwan National Park in Nepal, the owl was absent for 150 years until nature guide Dinesh Durani spotted one in 1984. “Sighting of this particular owl in Chitwan is still very rare today,” he says in an e-mail. In India, Dinesh says the owl inhabits only Bharatpur and its surroundings. “Seven to eight pairs breed every year at the Keoladeo National Park in Bharatpur and not in any other national park. So it is not an endangered species in India but it is not common either.” 

In Myanmar, Thailand and Malaysia, information about the owl is scanty and most birding field guides list their habits as “little known”, their distribution as “rare” and their status, “uncertain”. 

But elation over the “rediscovery” of the dusky eagle owl may be short-lived. The forest which provides roosting ground for the owls will be paved over, according to Abdul Kadir Abdullah, head of nearby Kampung Selamat. “The land has been divided into plots and given out to some people. We don’t know what they will build there,” he reveals. 

The Chans are concerned. “If they open up the swamp, the owls will lose their nesting ground,” says Dr Chan. 

As it is, even the relatively common buffy fish owl has become scarce in the village, says Kadir, 58, who has lived in Kampung Selamat for 35 years. “We used to see a pair everywhere in the evenings. When the moon is bright, they will be calling loudly gup gup gup, like drums. Villagers used to rear baby owls but they were very naughty. They ate all our chickens.” 

The dusky eagle owl (below, photo by Dr Chan Ah Lak) roosts in this small tract of swamp forest near Kampung Selamat in Bukit Merah, Perak.

Habitat destruction is likely to have caused owl numbers to dwindle. At the southern fringes of the lake, what was once an extensive spread of swamp forest is now the Bukit Merah Laketown consisting of a water theme park, a resort, condominiums, bungalows, marina and shopping centre – and all that is only the first two of the six-phase 660ha project by a subsidiary of MK Land Holding Bhd. 

Although the boundary of the Laketown property stopped short of the swamp forest which currently harbours the dusky eagle owls, future phases featuring a golf course, more condominiums and bungalows will eat into the forest close to Gunung Semanggol – the site of the 1910 owl sighting. No one has surveyed these areas and, for all we know, they may be the domain of more dusky eagle owls. 

It is a scenario repeated nationwide. As development eats into wild lands, wildlife habitats are shrinking. “The owls are definitely threatened by loss of habitat,” says Glenda. “Furthermore, the dusky eagle owl found in Malaysia is a subspecies called Bubo coromandus klossi and is confined only to South-East Asia. 

“The specimen which was collected in 1910 in Gunung Semanggol formed the basis on which the klossi was described. In the scientific world, the Semanggol area is important as the ‘type locality.’ ” 

Clearly, a count of their remaining numbers and habitat is vital to safeguard the owl population. But neither the MNS nor the Bird Conservation Council has any such plans currently. Glenda says the council is run by volunteers and lacks funds and researchers. Moreover, there is a dearth of ornithologists in Malaysia.  “With new policies stressing research that is profitable and universities having to be profitable, birds are generally seen as useless and neglected. It could well be that the species here will vanish before anyone ever, for example, finds a nest. In Oregon, United States, they stopped the logging of a private-owned forest and created a wildlife refuge to protect the northern spotted owl. Can you imagine that happening here?” 

What the MNS and the council can do, she adds, is to bring sightings like that of the dusky eagle owl to the attention of people in a better position to take conservation measures. 

However, the Perak Wildlife and National Parks Department has not been informed of the owl sightings in Bukit Merah. Director Jasmi Abdul urges the MNS to submit a report so the department can consider listing the owl as a protected species. 

Jasmi shrugs off concerns over the proposed development of the owls’ habitat. “The forest is not under my jurisdiction. If there is a disturbance, the birds will move away and find new territory. There is a big swamp forest near Bukit Merah, the Pondok Tanjung Forest Reserve. 

“Experts must study whether the owls are nesting there, and whether they are residents or migrants. Just seeing four birds, even 10 times, is not enough to stop development. It will not be fair,” says Jasmi. 

The dusky eagle owl in the swamp in Sekinchan may fare better. Mah says a sign marked the forest there as being sustainably logged. “As long as they keep it that way, and the logged forest is allowed to regenerate, birds will go there. Owls are quite adaptable.” 

For Wells, filling in blanks in the owls’ biology is the priority. “We have to gather more information and learn about their habits. Until we know more, we cannot make any sensible plans to protect the birds.” 

For instance, he suspects the owls are seasonal migrants and were wintering here. “All the sightings so far occur during the northern winter period. If they are breeding here, we would have heard the calls which they use to advertise and mark their breeding territory,” says Wells, who lectured on zoology in Universiti Malaya between 1967 and 1994. He is now writing his second book on Thai and Peninsular Malaysia birds. 

If Wells is right, the owls would have returned to their home ground by now. Perhaps that explains their elusiveness of late. Visits to the site in January and March were not fruitful. The owls’ absence, however, may well be because they have embarked on another round of nesting. “They may be busy incubating eggs rather then coming out to hunt,” says Dr Chan. 

To know for sure, Wells says observers need to be out in the field in October and November to see if the owls return. 

But even if the owls are migrants, they are no less important as they still add to Malaysia’s list of species.