Penang's Giant Squirrel.

Just before Christmas I spent a weekend on the island of Penang off the west coast of Malaysia. Whilst there I made a brief visit to it's national park. As time was short, rather than walking the main trails, I hired a boat at the park head quarters and used this to visit two of the main beaches in the park; Monkey Beach and Turtle Beach.

Turtle Beach is picturesque but no good for swimming on account of venomous jellyfish. Turtles nest here and there is a turtle sanctuary with a visitor centre on the beach.

There were a number of baby green sea turtles that had recently hatched on display in a large tub.

The meromictic lake behind the beach was unfortunately rather dry but was full of fiddler crabs and a few wading birds.

On the way back from Turtle beach we stopped at Monkey Beach for a snack at one of the small food stores on the beach. The beach is named after the large number of scavenging macaques that can sometimes be a nuisance.  However this is where I managed to get some good shots of a pair of beautiful giant black squirrels (Ratufa bicolor) that were hanging out by the beach.