personality
A Natural Ambassador
for Langkawi
T
he Serpent Eagle
glides silently under
the canopy of the
Langkawi rainforest.
“Queek, queek,
queek!” squeals
an alert squirrel.
The predator turns
to look elsewhere, but another squirrel
repeats the alarm. Squirrels continue
tracking the raptor’s flight, while monkey
mothers and other potential prey clutch
their babies and flee.
Foiled by the early warning, the raptor
perches and waits for new opportunities.
A Greater Racquet-tailed drongo alights
nearby, keeping a safe distance from the
razor sharp beak and powerful talons. Soon
it is joined by other drongoes. The drongo
is a linguist, able to mimic the alarm and
other calls and cries of birds and animals,
including the macaque monkey, with
whom they have a special relationship.
As the eagle lifts off in pursuit of new prey,
the smaller drongoes dart in – feinting
and diving in aerobatic attack, mobbing,
confusing, and distracting the eagle with
the cries of other species, even the eagle’s
own alarm calls. Flustered, the element
of surprise gone, the eagle leaves. The
monkeys and other birds are safe.The drongoes participate in “mixed
species foraging” explains Irshad
Mobarak, one of Malaysia’s leading andmost prominent naturalists. When a
monkey leaps onto a branch, insects
are dislodged and the drongo swoops in
and takes them. In return for food, they
provide security. (Indeed, in India, they
are called kothwal, or policemen, due to
their frequent use of the same sound as a
policeman’s whistle.)Walking with Irshad feels like being in
a BBC nature programme. Seemingly
unconnected sights and sounds are
linked into a narrative of the complex
relationships in the rainforest. Linking
evolution with history, he explains how
Darwin’s phrase “survival of the fittest”
was interpreted selectively in the age of
imperialism as survival of the strongestBY ASHLEIGH SEOW