A typical 'trapeang' or pond
This was my first wildlife shoot in far too long. A friend and fellow wildlife photographer Bruce Kekule came from Thailand to try to get some photos of the enigmatic Giant Ibis, one of the world’s rarest birds. There are thought to be around 300 of these rather prehistoric looking birds remaining, all of them in Cambodia. They require a very specific habitat that used to be found across much of South East Asia, however today this type of open forest has almost disappeared from neighbouring countries, having been turned into rice fields.
Giant Ibis searching for lunch
I first came to Preah Vihear province in February 2001, when I spent 15 days trying to take pictures of the recently rediscovered Giant Ibis. These birds had not been seen in decades in surrounding countries and after the three decade long war in Cambodia they were believed to be extinct. In 1999, just a year after the fighting finally finished, conservationists were surprised to find a handful of the birds surviving on the northern plains of Cambodia. The Wildlife Conservation Society began surveying the area and discovered several other critically endangered large birds, including the White shouldered Ibis and three species of vultures. The area is also home to numerous other rare and endangered birds like the Lesser and Greater Adjutants, Woolly Necked Stork, Green Peafowl, Sarus Crane, Black Necked Stork and White Winged Duck.
Giant Ibis
I got my National Geographic shot of the Giant Ibis after walking more than 150kms in 15 days and staking out a number of ponds, known locally as ‘trapeangs’. I finally got my shot on day 13 just as I was about to give up for the day due to the lack of light. I’d just spent 3 days sitting at this particular tiny pond and had only seen one pigeon and a rather muddy little tortoise that wandered into my hide. It landed no more than 10 meters away and I knew immediately I would only get one chance, as the noise from my cameras shutter would almost certainly scare it off. I managed to sit patiently for about 2 or 3 minutes as I let it settle, which was not easy having waited so long. It finally started feeding so I clicked off 2 shots. It looked up in surprise and I knew I wasn’t going to have much time. I waited a few seconds more hoping it would settle again but I felt sure it was going to take flight. Desperate not to miss this opportunity after so long I fired off 2 more shots and then held the shutter button down to fire off about 7 or 8 shots as it took off. It was hard to get the grin off my face that evening. As I was still using slide film at the time, I had an anxious 5-month wait to get the film developed to see if I really had got the shot.
Anyway, back to this trip.
We headed out with guides from the village of Tmat Boey (which means “Vulture washing place” in English). There is a fantastic eco-tourism/bird watching set up here, which genuinely benefits the community. The Wildlife Conservation Society in Cambodia have helped to set up a network of bird watching sites aimed at wealthy birdwatchers, rather than mass tourism that could negatively effect the wildlife here. Among other things the roads in the village have been repaired and a school built to help this very remote and poor community. Villagers also earn money as guides, cooks, cleaners and drivers and they have also learnt how to run a very effective tourism project. Visitors also pay a basic fee of $30 that goes to the village fund.
With assistance from WCS the village now has 6 small bungalows with hot and cold running water, enough solar power to run lights, charge equipment and even run small fans in the rooms. As someone who has been working in remote areas like this for the past decade I can tell you that being able to have a hot shower after a long hot and dusty day in the field is wonderful. Especially on a crisp winter evening!
As you will probably all be aware the Thai and Cambodian military have been at it again, fighting over a measly 9 soccer pitches of land… personally I can’t see why they can’t just split this tiny bit of land in 2 and get on with life. It seems to be a convenient distraction from political problems at home for the Thai’s and an opportunity for the Cambodian govt to gain some brownie points at home. We arrived in Tmat Boey on the 3rd Feb and headed out the next day to build hides. It wasn’t until we started shooting on the morning of the 5th that we realised something major was going on. As we sat there waiting for the sun to rise we started to hear loud booming in the distance. At first we couldn’t work out what it was as we were about 10kms from the nearest village. Then Bruce hit on it, bombs! We sat there listening to the bombardment for close to 3 hours that morning as we photographed various birds that appeared at the little pond we had staked out. It was hard to understand how we could hear it, as we were some 60 to 65kms from the Temple site on the border. It wasn’t until that evening that we were told that the Thai’s were bombarding a Cambodian Military base about halfway between us and the border. The bombing continued both on the 6th and 7th, although it was only sporadic. We listened to jets flying in and out and then what sounded like bombing runs rather than artillery fire. I have not had much time to search for news on the net about the fighting since we left the forest, but I spent an hour trying to find any references to Thai aircraft or the attack on the military base and could find nothing. This is a massive escalation from the occasional gunfight or lobbing a few mortars at each other that has taken place over the past year.
Back to the birds. I was really hoping to get a shot of a White Shouldered Ibis on this trip, the one remaining critically endangered bird in Cambodia I didn’t have a good shot of (although I do have plenty of video). I did get a white bellied woodpecker, which are not easy to see as well as numerous other fairly common species like Spotted Doves, the very vocal Crested Serpent Eagle, White Throated Kingfisher and the Javan Pond Heron. We didn’t see a Giant Ibis till the second morning when one landed in a nearby tree to survey the area. These birds have a strange call that’s hard to describe. We are unsure why, but the bird decided not to land at our pond. Something obviously put it off although we were pretty sure it wasn’t us. Anyway in the mid afternoon as it was getting bloody hot in the hide and we were both starting to doze off we suddenly heard their unmistakeable call. We looked up to see five had landed in the big tree opposite us. As you can imagine our hearts were racing, five at once would be a bit special. We had to wait about 10 minutes before they decided the coast was clear and it was safe to come down to feed. They all landed about 12-15 meters away and immediately began to search for frogs, crabs and anything else that took their fancy. We stared clicking away, I was there mainly to concentrate on video but I soon discovered that even with my reading glasses I couldn’t focus the video using the LCD screen in the confines of the hide. I had to get in focus taking some still shots and then switch to video… new glasses are the first thing to buy now I am in Khon Kaen. We photographed and filmed the birds for around an hour before our guides returned to pick us up and scared the birds off, but we were very happy as we both had some great stuff in the bag. The following morning I managed to catch one of my feet on a tree stump as we drove to the site, twisting my ankle. I managed to get to the site but during the morning my ankle became swollen and by the time it we left I could barely walk. We decided to move to another trapeang for the afternoon in the hope of seeing some different species but didn’t have much success. One Ibis did turn up briefly but was so close that as soon as we started to shoot we scared it off. What we believe to be the same bird came back a second time about an hour later and again stayed for only a few seconds, but I did get a great shot this time.
By the time the guides turned up my ankle was really sore and I decided it wasn’t worth risking serious damage coming out the following morning so Bruce went on his own. Unfortunately he didn’t have any luck but we left the village very happy all the same.
For anyone interested in visiting this site or any of the other wildlife sites around Cambodia you can go to www.samveasna.org or check out www.wcscambodia.org or feel free to drop me a line.
This was a very cool experience and totally unexpected.
I was working with the Wildlife Conservation Society making a short film on their project in the Keo Seima Protection Forest last August. I arranged to take a quick drive up the main road early one morning to try to get some new Douc Langur footage. We left the HQ around 5:30am just as the sun was showing the fist signs of life. I was busy putting my 70-200 stills lens on the video camera when we rounded a corner and came across a large elephant, feeding on some grass by the side of the road. For a moment my heart sank. I felt sure it would move off into the forest before I could change lenses. I scrambled to remove the big lens and its cumbersome plate as we pulled up about 15 meters away from the grazing, tusk less male. It’s not always obvious what sex an elephant is but this one was definitely a male, as we would discover later. As I finally got the right lens on the camera I began to realise that he wasn’t remotely bothered by us. He gave us a kind of hard stare for a couple of minutes but carried on munching away.
As the engine rattled to a stop and I started filming he began to move a little closer, giving me some very nice shots despite the poor early light. He was clearly very interested in us and despite his ear flapping, which can be a sign of aggression, he didn’t stop eating and I felt he was just being nosey. He moved even closer, to about 7 meters away and the nervous driver decided to start the engine… just in case. The, presumably young, male didn’t come any closer and slowly moved away. The engine stopped again and I finally relaxed knowing I already had some really nice footage in the bag.
For no apparent reason he became rather excited at one point as you’ll notice in the footage.
Definitively a boy. Not sure if this qualifies as Elephant Porn!
After a while other vehicles began using the road. Moto’s off to market; taxis making the five-hour journey to Phnom Penh, he ignored them all. Except for a large black Landcruiser, which he seemed to take exception to, giving it a fake charge as it disappeared into the distance. After about 25 minutes I decided to get the driver to move back as I couldn’t get the road in the shot. I realised that everyone would think it was at the zoo if I didn’t get a wide shot.
In the end we watched him for around 40 minutes before he slowly moved off into the forest. At times he stood with his back to us and almost seemed to doze off he was so relaxed. This was not my first experience with wild elephants, but my first in Cambodia. It’s absolutely wonderful when a wild animal becomes so at ease with your presence, it doesn’t happen very often, especially in Indochina. With some lovely footage on tape it took a while to lose the silly grin I had on my face as we drove back to camp.
See the footage at http://www.wildcambodia.net/Home.html or check out the www.wcscambodia.org for the press release on this rare footage
Allan Michaud
allan@wildcambodia.net
Finished my latest film, a short for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and The Asia Foundation (TAF). This was a nice little project. I got to work with a hill tribe community I have worked with on several occasions. We spent one day with 3 local people collecting various foods and medicines that they traditionally use. We stopped for lunch where they prepared the food, fish and various plants and cooked them in a bamboo pot. It made for great pictures, particularly as the forest here is very picturesque. I really want to go back with my new HD camera, which has the added bonus of giving me real wide angle capabilities that I sorely miss from doing stills photography.
I got to include shots of unusual activities like Resin Tapping. Local people cut a slot in these trees about a meter off the ground and several times a month they visit to collect the tree resin. This process entails setting fire to the hole, which can be quite spectacular, with the flames roaring up the trunk. It doesn’t damage the trees by the way. The resin is used for all kinds of things, particularly for waterproofing boats but it also makes an amazing ‘second skin’ for blisters as I found out for myself a few years back. It stings a little like an antiseptic cream and forms a protective skin over the blister and is as good as any man made equivalent I have come across. The locals also use them to make giant slow burning candles made from huge leaves. They can last for days and are invaluable around the campfire in the evening.
Land tenure for these communities is vital, as they need the forests resources to survive. These humble people are often ripped off by rich and powerful Khmers from the cities, looking to take advantage of their ignorance of laws. Many indigenous communities in Cambodia have lost their traditional lands to unscrupulous Khmers. More often that not the communities fall apart once the land is taken and they are forced to scrape a living working as labourers in the plantations that took over their lands. It’s very sad to see.
Their traditional use of the forests has very little effect on the ecosystem as they use rotational farming where they clear a small area and use it to grow crops for 2 or 3 years then the forest is left for up to 20 years before they return to the same plot again. Unlike the clear cutting of huge areas by outsiders this technique allows the forest to regenerate, it also ensures that wildlife and general biodiversity are not adversely affected.
Having given a lecture to filmmaking students at the Royal Phnom Penh University recently on environmental issues I am trying to get a third Environmental Film Festival going. The previous efforts were very successful and while I have plenty of offers to fund the event and prizes I have the small problem of organising costs. The previous events organising expenses were funded by the French Embassy, unfortunately they are pleading poverty this year. I will be approaching potential donors in the New Year but if there is anyone out there interested in helping out please feel free to drop me a line and I can provide details of the planned events and how the money will be used and audited. I am looking for around $5,000 to cover the expenses.
See my web sites ‘Events’ page for pictures of the previous events.
At long last I have finally been able to upgrade to HD. Equipment includes the new Canon 60D digital SLR, I had to ponder this long and hard as it is in some ways a step down from my 5D professional stills camera but a big upgrade in terms of video.
I was considering the Canon 5D mark II and the 7D however they both have serious problems with overheating when recording video that the 60D apparently does not. While I run the risk of the 60D having trouble with humidity when running around in the jungle I couldn’t risk having to stop filming every 20 to 25 minutes because the damned camera overheated. That would be particularly embarrassing when conducting and interview…”Can you just hang about for half and hour while my cameras cools down?” I think not.
As a long time user of Canon equipment I am very disappointed they did not sort out the overheating problem before selling these expensive professional models.
While these new digital SLR’s give great HD video they are not noted for their audio capabilities. To counter this I have bought a Zoom H4N recorder, which allows me to use XLR connections and professional microphones. I have also bought a couple of very portable little LED lights that will ensure no more problems with badly lit interviews in remote locations. While I still have an old portable lighting system, the huge (and damned heavy) battery belt lasts only 20-25 minutes, whereas these new LED lights last up to 2 hours on 4 AA batteries, now that’s what I call portable.
I cannot wait to start on my new project with Conservation International in the New Year.
I recently joined Conservation International on a flight over the Cardamom Mountains, stopping at several archaeological sites along the way. We had tried to do the flight a few weeks back but the weather wasn’t being very nice and the low clouds made it too dangerous for the helicopter. This time we got some decent weather, although we had some problems with clouds at the first site we tried to visit.
We put down at 3 sites, 2 of the “Jar” sites and the suspected dolmen. These burial jars are found at a number of locations throughout the Cardamom mountain range. However given the inaccessibility of much of the area there are quite probably more. No one is quite sure who put them there. There have been suggestions they are the old Kings and Queens of Angkor, or possibly local mountain tribes, no one knows for sure. We visited one site that also has several coffins carved from large logs. With tourists starting to find their way to these remote places as part of eco-tourism development it was very sad to see some idiot had put a large donation box just inches away from the coffins. It is now impossible to take a picture of them now without this hideous green metal box that has been concreted in place. I hope to find out who is responsible in the new year and give them a piece of my mind.
Apart from myself and several CI staff, we also had a locally based expert on the Jars with us. She was also very interested to see this alleged dolmen. Having visited dozens of similar sites across Britain and Europe, as well as visiting 2 dolmens in India I was eager to finally get to this site. I had been puzzled by remarks from the couple of people who had seen this site as no one was certain if it was man made or not. I thought it should be pretty obvious if it was a dolmen, but once we got there I saw what they meant. It’s a very puzzling site, it doesn’t look natural but it doesn’t look particularly man made either. The stones are right on top of a mountains with absolutely nothing above so it seems they could not have fallen here naturally, however it doesn’t look quite right for a dolmen. We left the site none the wiser.
This was the second time I have had the pleasure of staying the night at Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre, about an hour south of Phnom Penh. I was working to photograph a very long list of species for Wildlife Alliance and as it’s never advisable to drive in the dark in Cambodia I requested to sleep over so I could make an early start. Photographing animals at the zoo is surprisingly tricky, largely because of the damned fences, which invariably ruin most shots. Some species like the Burmese Pythons are easy enough as they can be taken out of the cage and put in the ideal position, but most are not so straightforward. The tigers always hug the fences checking you out, or the always angry Leopards, which are more interested in trying to kill you (my bag got a good seeing to on one occasion when I left it too close to the fence).
Phnom Tamao also has a couple of Gaur (huge wild cattle) one of which I have photographed several times since he arrived as a calf. Today he is full grown and damned grumpy, apparently he managed to clatter someone recently who climbed over the small outer fence, which is meant to keep the public at a safe distance. There’s a second male Gaur that arrived recently from a zoo in Paris. Upon being released into it’s new enclosure it promptly charged the chain link fence leaving a head shaped dent (with horns) in the fence.
For me the highlight is the night-time. The sounds are just amazing, it’s fun trying to work out what the hell you are listening to. I recognise most from my trips to the jungle but Phnom Tamao also has a couple of non-native species, Lions being the noisiest. It does feel very strange listening to the sounds of the Savannah in South East Asia.
As predicted the low water levels in the Mekong look likely to cause huge food shortages come the New Year. The flooded forests where the fish breed have still not flooded and fishermen report catching many pregnant fish. A sample of the number of spawned fish in a cubic meter of water was particularly telling. Normally around 27 fish are found in this annual survey, however this year there were only 11, around a 60% decrease. To make matters worse the rice fields around the lake have also not flooded so there’s no new silt to enrich the soil as well as a dramatically reduced wet season crop.
The prime minister has now become involved, which shows how serious this is. It takes a lot to get this usually indifferent government to actually do anything meaningful. Given the prime ministers record on dams it seems unlikely he is going to accept that the dams in China and elsewhere are anything to do with the low water levels (China are the largest donor to Cambodia). With the number of dams on Mekong tributaries expected to increase several fold over the next few years this year could be the turning point for the Great Lake. I don’t know how fast the fish population can bounce back but it seems to me that the effects of this will be felt for some years to come even if water levels return to normal next year.
I must confess to some concern as to how this could develop if hundreds of thousands (possibly millions) of people have no food come spring, I guess the prime minister is also concerned, despite his seemingly iron grip on power, the fact is hungry people are angry people.
Well that was an unusual weekend. I was filming in Siem Reap with the Princess Bopha Devi at a development project she supports and had Prince Tisso as a driver, which was most unexpected. A friend is making a series for local TV about her life and it should be very interesting, as she’s led an eventful life.
While the Princess was very regal, the Prince was a very humble and down to earth character who was a delight to work with. While having lunch the renowned Prince Ranariddh dropped by to say hello and mistook me for someone else. All in all it was a very Royal weekend and although I did feel somewhat out of place I was very pleasantly surprised as to how engaging all the Royals were. The Princess turned out to be one of the most elusive subjects I have ever tried to film. While she had agreed to the filming and has always been a fairly public figure she was clearly not very comfortable with the cameras, which seems strange considering she has made many films and spent much of her life performing with the Royal ballet.
I am still in Mondulkiri but I have heard that the Mekong has finally risen (2 months late), several meters overnight. I guess the Chinese, Laotians, Vietnamese and Thais have finally started opening their dams… or maybe one collapsed and no one has admitted to it yet!
