Borneo - The nature of travel, and travels in nature.

When our friend Bob Wright suggested he was contemplating a trip to Borneo I asked if we could come along. Borneo conjures up images of dense jungle inhabited by headhunting tribes, orangutans and a wide variety of wildlife. In the event it turned out somewhat different of course, progress does not let ecology stand in the way of making money and supporting an ever expanding human population.

Petronus Towers Kuala Lumpur

I flew separately from Elena and Bob as my son arranged standby flights for me with BA. I had a one night stopover in Kuala Lumpur on the Malay Peninsular so I took the opportunity to visit the Petronas Towers, the World's tallest buildings until 2004 and still the highest twin-tower structure in the World. Overall my impression of Kuala Lumpur was of a very modern city with a fast and highly efficient transport system. Much of the wealth for this comes from the natural resources of the Malaysian section of the Island of Borneo, as we were to discover. We flew onward and met each other at our hired apartment in Kuching, the capital city of Sarawak.

I will start the wildlife section of this blog with a couple of the abiding images that I will remember from Borneo. Primates are a major feature here, not least the Proboscis Monkey and of course the Orangutan, one of the last of our common ancestors. I think the proboscis Monkey is just beautiful.

Proboscis Monkey

Orangutan

This is however primarily a birding blog and I will go through the bird photos as well as the other wildlife in the order that I took them. After exploring our immediate surroundings in Kuching we started our nature quest at a small forest park within the City limits. This was shown to us by Hans, a contact given to Bob by his cruising friend Ron, who would arrive in Kuching later. Hans is a large German who lives here with his Chinese wife and children. He took us to this park which is in a fairly affluent ethnically Chinese area and which is frequented by many joggers. The best bird we saw was the Long-tailed Shrike, a species that has fairly recently moved in to inhabit urban parks and gardens. Quite a handsome member of the shrike family.

Long-tailed Shrike - lanius schach

Collared Kingfisher

The other bird of note observed was the Collared Kingfisher, a fairly common resident that we saw in a variety of habitats. I was surprised to hear the unmistakable call of a Black and Yellow Broadbill, one of the great sounds of the forest. I was also quite interested to see that the most frequently seen Mynah species here is the Javan Mynah, not the expected Common Mynah that I was very familiar with.

Javan Mynah

Next day we took a trip out to a forest reserve ostensibly to see the World's largest flower, the Rafflesia. This is a speciality of Gunung Gadang N.P. about two hours drive to the West of Kuching. The rare Rafflesia plant flowers irregularly and apparently there was an opportunity to see one in bloom, which only lasts for four or five days. So off we went to Gunung Gadang. Unfortunately the flower was past its best and had shrunk from it's original diameter of sixty centimetres. Now I am not a flora man and coming all this way to see an ugly stinky plant was not top of my list of priorities, but all was not lost. This place turned out to be about the only primary forest we saw in Sarawak and I'm sure it harbors a multitude of exotic birds. In just the twenty minutes or so we spent in there I picked up this stunning female Scarlet Rumped Trogon. perhaps my bird of the trip, I love Trogons.

Scarlet-rumped Trogon

I also spotted this Greater Racket-tailed Drongo. A familiar but always wecome bird.

Greater Racket-tailed Drongo

By the way, here is the Rafflesia flower, or what was left of it. Pretty uninspiring in my opinion but a botanist might have been thrilled. Funny what turns us on eh?

Rafflesia Flower

After a few days exploring Kuching and sampling the local food, which is excellent. We flew up to Sabah in North Borneo for some real wildlife experiences. Our first stop was at Sepilok Jungle Lodge which was a picturesque jungle resort complete with boardwalks across lakes and some forest trails to explore. We were greeted upon arrival with a flypast by the resident Stork-billed Kingfisher which I later photographed with a fish that he seemed to want to show off to everyone. A handsome bird.

Stork-billed Kingfisher - pelargopsis capensis

The Stork-bill is a very large tree kingfisher being about 35 or even 40 cms in length. Sparsly distributed throughout its range from India through to Indonesia it is highly conspicuous with that huge painted red bill.

Stork-billed Kingfisher - pelargopsis capensis

Birds were not prolific around the grounds but with patience and careful scrutiny they could be found amongst the shrubs and flowering plants, often from the restaurant veranda. I spotted this female Brown-throated Sunbird while wandering through the gardens, it was in company with a male which gave me the ID. 

Brown-throated Sunbird - anthreptes malacensis

Here is the male Brown-throated Sunbird, a little stunner this time on a white flower, nothing like a bit of variety........

Brown-throated Sunbird - anthreptes malacensis

......so here he is again on a red flower.

Brown-throated Sunbird - anthreptes malacensis

I also picked up a nice shot of this little Ashy Tailorbird which was unexpected. This species is usually seen around the coast in mangroves or similat habitats. However there is no doubting the colouration of this species which was a lifer for me.

Ashy Tailorbird - orthotomus ruficeps

Another locally common but nice bird is the Chestnut Munia, this one perched in a tree overhanging the lake.

Chestnut Munia - lonchura malacca

Just twenty minutes walk from the Jungle Lodge was the Rainforest Discovery Centre, which includes a hanging canopy walkway and tower. I would like to have spent more time there as it is probably the best site for birding we had come across, but we only had two days and there was plenty more things to see and do. I very much enjoyed watching these Baya Weavers busy building and inhabiting their elaborate nests. Very clever structures they are too, entered from below.

Baya Weaver - ploceus philippinus

Baya Weaver - ploceus philippinus

Sandakan Rainforest Discovery Centre is an environmental education centre mainly for school visits and teacher training courses on environmental education. It was opened to general visitors in 2007 to sustain the environmental education programme for the future. It is open daily from 8 am to 5 pm. but visitors are allowed to stay until 7 pm to view the flying squirrels at the 347-m long Canopy Walkway, the only such structure in Southeast Asia. Bob was the only one of us to actuall return to view the flying squirrels, which he successfully did. Elena and I chose to lounge around the swimming pool at the Jungle Lodge, lazy toe-rags.

Canopy walk ate the Rainforest Discovery Centre

The only birds of note that I managed to photograph at the RDC were the Scarlet Minivet and a little Green Iora. The male Minivet is a fiery red colour as suggested by the name but surprisingly the female is mostly bright yellow, very striking sexual dimorphism. The Green Iora is fairly common I understand but I include it here as it is actually a lifer for me. We did see other species but they were generally too distant for photography. Perhaps the most notable was a large White-bellied Sea Eagle flying high overhead.

Scarlet Minivet, female and male - pericrocotus flammeus

Green Iora - aegithina viridissima

While walking back from the RDC I picked up this nice male Copper-throated Sunbird. It was getting dark by this time and I had to increase the camera exposure by three stops to pick out the colours on this dark little beauty.

Copper-throated Sunbird - nectarinia calcostetha

Less of a problem was the Barred Ground Dove, otherwise known a Peaceful or even Zebra Dove. This was out in the open on an overhead wire so no exposure difficulty here.

Peaceful (Barred Ground) Dove - geopelia striata

Our Jungle Resort was virtually next door to an Orangutan Rescue Centre where visitors can see these wonderful primates in something like their natural habitat. For me it is not really exciting to see animals in this way as they are not wild, but it was interesting to see the efforts being made to conserve the species which like almost all other wildlife has been decimated by habitat loss. Deforestation in Borneo has taken place on an industrial scale since the 1960s. Borneo is the third largest island in the world, it was once covered by dense tropical and subtropical rainforests. In the 1980s and 1990s these forests  were leveled at a rate unprecedented in human history, burned, logged and cleared, and commonly replaced with agriculture. The deforestation continued through the 2000s at a slower pace, alongside the expansion of palm oil plantations. Half of the World's annual global tropical timber procurement is from Borneo. Palm oil plantations are rapidly encroaching on the last remnants of primary rainforest. Much of the forest clearance is illegal but it goes on apace. In plain terms, Borneo has been raped. 

Sun Bear

In the event we did see some Wild Orangutans later along the Kinabatangan River and so I post a photo of a wild one here. The reason we were able to see genuine wild animals is because their jungle habitat has been squeezed along the banks of this river by the encroaching palm oil plantations, and so all manner of wildlife is crowded into this narrow strip of land, clinging to a tenuous existance where their long-term survival is probably doomed. I was very happy to see some of these wonderful creatures before they are all gone, it won't be long. Sun Bears are the World's smallest species of bear, their numbers have declined 30% in the last three bear generations. Their only hope of survival is as a spectacle for paying tourists, like us.

Orangutan

While walking back along the trail from the Sun Bear enclosures I came across a couple of young tourists looking intently through a gap in the trees. There in front of us was a rare spectacle, wild Asian Pygmy Elephants. At first I thought they must be part of the Rescue Centre but this was not the case. These were genuinly wild animals and it was a delight to see them. It was gratifying to know that amongst all the tourists gawping at the captive animals, just three of us had the privelage of seeing some genuine wildlife.

Wild Asian Pygmy Elephants

Back at our Jungle Lodge I continued to seek out more birds to photograph. A group of three Chinese photographers had been extremely lucky the day before we arrived, capturing superb images of a very special bird, the Bornean Bristlehead. I had been particularly keen to see this special bird but knew my chances were slim, it is nomadic, unpredictable and scarce, and to have missed a flock of eight by one day was really galling. Oh well, that's birding. I contented myself with some images of a few very nice species that showed up on our last morning here. First was this exotic looking Little Spiderhunter. This is a very long billed relative of the Sunbirds and is a nectar feeder. They are known to be excellent pollinators of banana and ginger plants.

Little Spiderhunter - atacnothera longirostra

Next was a small group of Scarlet-backed Flowerpeckers. This is a bird I had seen before in Thailand but never managed to photograph properly, so I was pleased with these shots of a very nice looking species.

Scarlet-backed Flowerpecker - dicaeum cruentatum

The male obviously gives the species its name. The female below is less flambuoyant but I like this shot as she brandishes a large and juicy termite. I notice that birds very often savour and display their catch before eating it, which probably prolonges the pleasure as they enjoy their moment of triumph.

Scarlet-backed Flowerpecker - dicaeum cruentatum

Scarlet-backed Flowerpecker - dicaeum cruentatum

Finally the last bird from the Jungle Lodge is the Orange-bellied Flowerpecker. Another very handsome member of the species I was happy to get decent images it..

Orange-bellied Flowerpecker - dicaem trigononostigma

Orange-bellied Flowerpecker - dicaem trigononostigma

One final note from the Jungle Lodge. This handsome green lizard literally jumped up onto the boardwalk rail right in front of me. He sat glaring at me as if daring me to come closer. I took a photograph but he was so close that my available depth of field was too narrow to get everything in focus, but anyway here it is. Yes a fine looking chap but they were very noisy animals, croaking away like frogs all night.

We were picked up at the Jungle Lodge and driven to a backpackers lodge in the small town of Sukau, about two hours drive south of Sepilok. This would be our base for a couple of days and from wher we would make numerous boat trips on the Kinabatangan River, looking at the fairly abundant wildlife that had been squeezed into this narrow strip by the encroaching palm oil plantations. We started that afternoon and I post a shot of a riverboat with Elena and Bob enjoying the view of wildlife along the banks.

Elena and Bob wildlife watching on the Kalibangtan River

In all I think we made five trips on the river, including one night viewing excursion which was very exciting. here are some of the highlights of these boat rides.
The Crested Serpent Eagle below remained nicely in the tree as our boatman slowed down and approached, allowing me to get a great shot.

Crested Serpent Eagle - spilornis cheela

The Black Hornbills were fairly distant and high up in the tops of the tallest trees so this is the best I could do in the circumstances. It was a thrill for me to see them, another spectacular species for my life list.

Black Hornbill - anthracocerous malayanus

As we came in from our first excursion the light was fading and I snapped this shot across the river as we disembarked just in time for dinner.

Dusk on the Kalibangtan

As we walked the short distance from the dock back to our lodge a group of Pied Oriental Hornbills settled in a tree right next to our path. Although the light was low I managed to get a fairly reasonable shot of a super bird, perhaps the most common Hornbill in SE Asia but always spectacular and a pleasure to see..

Pied Oriental Hornbill - anthrococerus coronatus

I should say that the primary focus of most of the guests on the river was on the animals rather than the birds, particularly the primates. There were lots of them. Troops of Long-tailed Macaques crossed the narrow tributaries at strategic points, sometimes above our boat.

Long-tailed Macaque

Silver-leaf Monkeys, actually a form of Langur were also numerous. About one in five of these were morphs in a completely different colour, being orange rather than silver-grey.

Silver-leaf Langur

Pigtailed Macaques

Above and below, Pig-tailed Macaques, known locally as Short=tailed, were equally as numerous as their long-tailed cousins.

Pig-tailed Macaque

My favourite of them all, the Proboscis Monkey. He has very gentle eyes, a beautiful glowing coat in shades of burnt orange and grey, and that amazing long nose of the male. A lesser known fact is that the proboscis Monkey is an expert swimmer and is adapted to a slightly aquatic lifestyle by having partially webbed feet.

Proboscis Monkey male

and here is another shot of a wild Orangutan. This is a solitary male, they tend to leave the females at puberty and become solitary until they can find a female to mate with & form their own family group.

Orangutan

On one boat trip we were taken quickly to see this adult female Pygmy Elephant. The guides were concerned that she was in fact sick and had possibly separated herself from the herd as a result. However they had noticed a marked improvement in her appearance over a few days so perhaps she was recovering and will rejoin the herd.

Bornean Elephant

So, lots of animals to see, but my interest is more with the birds, and here's a good one, the Grey-headed Fish Eagle. Another lifer for me and I was thrilled to see it perched in a tree overlooking the River. 

Grey-headed Fish Eagle - ichtheophaga ichtheatus

We were lucky to see this bird again later and in slightly better light, so I post another shot, the Grey-headed Fish Eagle is after all a new bird for me.

Grey-headed Fish Eagle - ichtheophaga ichtheatus

There were of course other birds to be seen, often quite distant but sometimes distant shots can be worthwhile. Consider this silhouette type images of a Purple Heron (above), and an Oriental Darter (below) on top of a stark bare tree, I quite like the geometry of it.

Oriental Darter - anhinga melanogaster

...and heres another Pied Hornbill but this time in the same tree as a Green Imperial Pigeon. Two for the price of one!

Pied Hornbill with Green Imperial Pigeon - ducula aenea

Speaking of Hornbills, this one below is a Wrinkled Hornbill. I was delighted to get this as it was another lifer for me and a very spectacular one at that.

Wrinkled Hornbill - rhyticeros undulatus

.....and to round-off our Hornbill sightings heres a record shot of the fourth one, a Rhinocerous Hornbill. This is the larget and perhaps most impressive of the Bornean Hornbills so it was a little disappointing to only get a poor record shot, but it was exciting to see this magnificent species at all and I was well pleased,

Rhinocerous Hornbill - buceros rhinoceros

Brahminy Kite - haliastur indus

The Brahminy Kite (above) is a familiar raptor, perhaps the most common in SE Asia but it's worth putting on record here. Of much more interest to me was the Buffy Fish Owl which we picked up with a flashlight during our night tour on the river. This was another lifer for me and I even managed a quick snap of it in flight as it took off on our approach. It's a fairly large, short-tailed owl which hunts at night, relying on its very keen eyesight to spot prey in or out of the water. Unlike many owls it does not have soft feathers, lacking the comb and hair-like fringes to the primaries, which allows other owls to fly silently in order to ambush their prey. The Buffy Fish owl does make flapping noises in flight as I can attest.

Buffy Fish Owl - ketupa ketupu

Buffy Fish Owl - ketupa ketupu

This Blue-eared Kingfisher must have been fast asleep with its eyes wide open as it made no movement at all as we approached and highlighted it with a flashlight. We could easily have touched it but it showed no signs of realising our presence.

Blue-eared Kingfisher - alcedo meninting

Our time in Sukau with five trips exploring the River had been great fun and we had seen a lot of wildlife, both animals and birds. I finish this section with a shot of a Pied Fantail that we watched from the dining terrace of our Lodge. It was fun watching the pair coming and going and I can assure readers that this photo was taken from a safe distance and no disturbance was caused.

Pied Fantail - rhipidura javanica