[Chlidonias]

Borneo info has been sent (apologies for its size).

The snake in your photo is a Wagler's pit viper (which is probably a species complex, so the Sulawesi one will be a different species to the ones you'll see in Borneo).

Re Borneo field guides, if you're not going to Java and Sumatra I'd get hold of the new Susan Myers guide to Borneo (has all the latest splits), otherwise the MacKinnon one for all three islands (or you could get both books I guess!)

Just a question, are you counting heard-only birds on your list too? (eg Flores crow and isabelline bush-hen)

[Larry Wheatland]

Many thanks for all that wonderful new Chlinformation, we'll print off the pages and wear them out

Heard only birds are being added to the trip list if they're obvious enough. Of the trip's 579 lifers 8 are heard only, according to my current tally, so they'll just go on my heard list. I'm glad Minahassa Masked Owl's just had that upgrade, cos they don't "feel" counted until I see them.

The first bird on the trip list was Redwing, heard as we walked out the door of our mates' house. We didn't see one till the ferry to Holland I think.

[Lappkrabben]

Wish i was there! Many amazing birds you've seen on Sulawesi!

If i where in your shoes i would try to make it a bit more east, geographically spoken.

Try to get a flight to Sorong and back or Ternate and back to get the standardwing and/or Wilson's BoP.

Merpati tickets is not so expensive.

I guess it's a thought that's crossed your mind but it might be over your budget.

On the other hand: while your still there and when will you be in that area next time?

Take care!

[Rob Hutchinson]

There is also a new version of The Phillipps guide available which covers only Borneo, the illustration are perhaps not as good as Myers but the text is excellent.

Originally Posted by Chlidonias

Borneo info has been sent (apologies for its size).

The snake in your photo is a Wagler's pit viper (which is probably a species complex, so the Sulawesi one will be a different species to the ones you'll see in Borneo).

Re Borneo field guides, if you're not going to Java and Sumatra I'd get hold of the new Susan Myers guide to Borneo (has all the latest splits), otherwise the MacKinnon one for all three islands (or you could get both books I guess!)

Just a question, are you counting heard-only birds on your list too? (eg Flores crow and isabelline bush-hen)

[Rob Hutchinson]

Hi Larry,

Your description of the racquet-tail call is definitely Yellow-breasted.

Accipiter - the ID of these is very difficult. I have only ever seen Small Sparrowhawk in montane habitat at Lore Lindu and Gunung Ambang, I doubt it is at Tangkoko as I have never heard a reliable report from this well visited site. I certainly doubt that it would be common enough for Samuel to be familiar with the calls. Did you get any photos? Have attached one I took one tour in Sept at LL

Owls - Minahassa is quite a rarity whereas Sulawesi is a common species, particularly at Tarout. Certainly wouldn't claim that Minahassa isn't present but Sulawesi Masked is more likely.

Rob

[halftwo]

Larry,

Great stuff, especially on the MMO - which you didn't put on your list!
The episode ran like a nightmare to a dream.

Incredibly last night on 'Life' Attenborough was commentating on a green snake trying to creep up on Spectral tarsiers in Sulawesi - he didn't see any owls though!

H

[birdboybowley]

Originally Posted by Chlidonias

Re Borneo field guides, if you're not going to Java and Sumatra I'd get hold of the new Susan Myers guide to Borneo (has all the latest splits), otherwise the MacKinnon one for all three islands (or you could get both books I guess!)

Hey Larry...drooling like mad over here, sounds a great time! Re the book, it is good but just watch out for the Bornean Barbet illustration as it's the wrong one...it's the same as the Blue-eared above it. Had to repaint mine!

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[Chlidonias]

Originally Posted by Rob Hutchinson

Owls - Minahassa is quite a rarity whereas Sulawesi is a common species, particularly at Tarout. Certainly wouldn't claim that Minahassa isn't present but Sulawesi Masked is more likely.

both Sulawesi and Minahassa masked owls are found at Toraut

[Rob Hutchinson]

Originally Posted by Chlidonias

both Sulawesi and Minahassa masked owls are found at Toraut

That's interesting indeed, I had always assumed that they more or less replace one another. Minahassa is a forest species which seems to require good habitat while Sulawesi Masked is well adapted to poor habitats and forest edge, it is much larger than Minahassa and I would expect it to be dominant where they meet. Sulawesi Masked is VERY common at Torout and I am surprised Minahassa is still around. Have you seen the birds yourself Chlidonias or do you know of any good reports. I am very familiar with the call differences from Sulawesi Masked and have spent many nights at Torout without finding one.

Rob

[Rob Hutchinson]

Originally Posted by birdboybowley

Hey Larry...drooling like mad over here, sounds a great time! Re the book, it is good but just watch out for the Bornean Barbet illustration as it's the wrong one...it's the same as the Blue-eared above it. Had to repaint mine!

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Same goes for two of the babbler plates which were wrongly duplicated, don't have the book to hand but I think Abbott's Babbler was duplicated in place of something else. The books on sale now in Malaysia have the missing plates included on an insert in the book.

Rob

[birdboybowley]

Yeah I'm pretty sure that there's usually an insert with it....just not mine!

Cheers Rob, just noticed the babblers - Temminck's and Abbott's are indeed one and the same.....oh dear, not good is it??

[halftwo]

Ads,

You're either up very late or very early! BTW - mine had the insert.

H

[birdboybowley]

Always up late H....it's the only time to paint!! Couldn't scan in the insert could ya so I can make the necessary changes???

[Larry Wheatland]

Some great comments folks, and many thanks to Rob for comments on the sparrowhawk and owl ids.

Re the owl:, I must admit I was swung by the confidence in the guides' id as Minahassa MO, and the fact that the bird was strongly washed brown on the face and underparts, thus resembling the illustration of MMO in the Wallacea guide much more than the SMO picture. Size is obviously difficult to judge in a bird high in a tall tree. Having just seen how dark some of the SMO are on Oriental Bird Images, I'm certainly far from confident in the id as MMO, and I'll be very surprised if Rob's not right about it (and others calling nearby) being SMO. Thanks for that Rob, and please let me know if it looks like I've got anything else wrong too

Re the sparrowhawk:, I did wonder about it (obviously, as I've not called it anything!). The vast majority of Samuel's calls were spot on, but I did notice he wasn't always right (who is!). Interesting to see the SSH photo, because one thing I noticed about the bird at Tangkoko was the particularly strikingly black and white barred undertail, which is not shown on the SSH in Rob's shot. Is this due to shadow from the branch, or does VBSH have a more black and white undertail?

we've made it to Palu after an extremely uncomfortable 18 hour overnight bus ride. And our worst fears have been realised, ie both Pelni ships that go to Borneo before our visa runs out have been cancelled. That means that during this trip all pelni boats we've tried to catch have been cancelled, not to mention the fact that we also keep getting given conflicting information from them. Trying to get round this country without flying is a total nightmare. We've got another boat option (we hope!) but it might end up with us still getting stuck somewhere in south Kalimantan before our visas run out for all we know.

So all that on top the dodgy owl . Stlll, never mind.

[Chlidonias]

Originally Posted by Rob Hutchinson

That's interesting indeed, I had always assumed that they more or less replace one another. Minahassa is a forest species which seems to require good habitat while Sulawesi Masked is well adapted to poor habitats and forest edge, it is much larger than Minahassa and I would expect it to be dominant where they meet. Sulawesi Masked is VERY common at Torout and I am surprised Minahassa is still around. Have you seen the birds yourself Chlidonias or do you know of any good reports. I am very familiar with the call differences from Sulawesi Masked and have spent many nights at Torout without finding one.

agreed I shouldn't have given such a definite response on what is actually hearsay, my bad. I was at Toraut in July and the big news of the guides was that Minahassa masked owls are found there. I had no reason to suspect they were wrong when they were so absolute in their statements. I actually had very bad luck with owls at Toraut - heard one Sulawesi masked owl and that was it! I know you've been there many times so I'll go with your opinion; it wouldn't be the first time in Indonesia that I was told with absolute certainty that a particular bird was something rare when it was quite obviously something quite different, or that an unlikely species was found in a particular area.
Rule of thumb in Indonesia: never trust anything you're told until you see it with your own eyes :)

[Larry Wheatland]

Over the last few days we've been travelling pretty much non-stop, and are now in Tarakan in Kalimantan. We've got a big change of plan, and for various reasons, not least stuff going on back home, we've decided to head back earlier. We still want to do it mostly overland however, but now hope to get to England not long after the clocks go forward. Our new plan is to spend a few weeks in Sabah, then get a boat to Mindanao in the Philippines, travel to Manilla and fly to Hong Kong and make it back on the train from Beijing. We've pushed the boat out to the extent of ordering the Philippine field guide to be sent from nhbs to Kota Kinabalu, so we're quite serious about it. Haven't a clue what we'll do in the Philippines, so obviously any advice about some of the cheaper and more easily accessible sites would be much appreciated.

We discovered that from Palabuan Taipa near Palu there are 2 ferries a week to Balikpapan in southeast Kalimantan. It wasn't ideal but it was a way out of Sulawesi. The boat takes c24 hours, and on landing we immediately got in a shared Kijang to Samarinda, 3 hours further north. We spent the night there. At Samarinda we looked into visiting Kutai NP on our way up north, but it looked too complicated and expensive. By now we just wanted to get out of Indonesia before Christmas, maybe to be somewhere where we're less of a 24 hour freak show for the locals, which has become very waring lately on top of not much sleep. So we got on a bus to Berau, which took 20 hours on an extremely bumpy road. It was a strange way to celebrate both summer and winter solstice (we crossed the equator that day). From Berau it was 3 hours in another Kijang to Tanjung Selor, where we took a speedboat to Tarakan. From here we have to get another boat in the morning to Nunukan, from where we hope we can get a boat across the border into Sabah.

There have been few birds en route so far in Borneo, notably a Long-tailed Shrike some Slender-billed Crows and some very dark smokey coloured munias I'm sure must be Dusky Munia (I don't have a field guide yet so is that right?). When we arrived at the jetty in Tarakan laden in the heat, I stopped briefly to look at 4 egrets feeding on the mud closeby. It wasn't the time to look at them for long, but my first thought was that they must be Chinese Egrets. I managed a few pictures, and after we found a hotel we returned and Nicky took a few more. Thought I'd show you lot first, especially as I seem to be cocking things up lately! What do you reckon? Has Santa come early or am I being a pillock again?

1600 DUSKY MUNIA

Hopefully here's some pics of the egrets

[Lappkrabben]

Hi

Yes they are Chinese egrets.

For ID see;

http://www.orientalbirdclub.org/publ.../chinegrt.html

Good luck with Hose's broadbill ;-)

And by the way Marry Christmas!

[James Eaton]

Great Larry, enjoy Sabah... not much forest left along that coastal road in east Kalimantan unfortunately. You didn't miss much by skipping Kutai - the good forest has now all but gone thanks to the forest fires, I flew over it recently and it wasn't a pretty sight.

Dusky Munia is right - should be very common along all the secondary scrub.

Merry christmas!

James

[Larry Wheatland]

Ok, since at least someone agrees with me that's

1601 CHINESE EGRET

Which is my Christmas present to me from me and Mattias. And merry Christmas to you too James. Bad news about the fire damage. We were a bit shocked by the huge mad max style mining scenery along the road up the east side of Kalimantan. Very sad planet.

If anyone fancies giving me another Christmas present, does anyone know whether Grey-cheeked Fulvettas in NW Thailand and Emei Shan in Szechuan are 2 different species with the new split? And if so what are they now called?

We've made it to Malaysian Borneo now, and are now in Tawao. Saw a Great-billed Heron in transit from Nunukan in Kalimantan.

And anyone got any recent gen for Hose's Broadbill, now Mattias has mentioned it?

Best seasonal wishes to all

[jacana]

Merry Christmas to you both Larry and Nicky! Best of luck with Borneo!

[James Eaton]

Larry,

Grey-cheeked Fulvetta is indeed a number of species now - though your birds from Emei (yunnanensis) are the same species as the Thai birds (fractulata) with the common english name of Yunnan Fulvetta.
Three more species exist - Schaeffer's Fulvetta a. schaefferi (north-east Indochina - Tam Dao is the obvious location for birders). Pere David's Fulvetta a. hueti (south-east China) and Taiwan Fulvetta a. morrisonia (Taiwan endemic).

Hose's Broadbill - Try between km1.4 and 3.1 at Poring Hot Springs - very hard bird though and its a long way up there. This is the most accessible site for the species though it has been recorded near to Kota Kinabalu at the Rafflesia Reserve.

I will be in Borneo next week Larry, though in the mountains of Sarawak so will just miss you!

James

[viator]

James,

The new IOC list defines the split of Grey-cheeked slightly differently:
morrisonia, Grey-cheeked Fulvetta (Taiwan endemic)
davidi, David's Fulvetta (sc, s China to nw Vietnam)
fratercula, Yunnan Fulvetta (s China to se Myanmar and n Indochina)
hueti, Huet's Fulvetta (se China, Hainan)

I posted a question re the status of yunnanensis on the taxonomy forum and to quote Daniel:

Zou, F., H. C. Limb, B. D. Marks, R. G. Moyle & F. H. Sheldon, 2007
Molecular phylogenetic analysis of the Grey-cheeked Fulvetta (Alcippe morrisonia) of China and Indochina: A case of remarkable genetic divergence in a "species"
Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 44 : 165–174

The authors explain : « The subspecies yunnanensis also lacks a supercilium (MacKinnon and Phillipps, 2000). We did not have DNA of this taxon for comparison, but by plumage yunnanensis, which occurs in northwestern Yunnan, southwestern Sichuan, and northeastern Burma, appears related to the central clade through Sichuan rather than to the peripheral clade through southern Yunnan. »

[Lappkrabben]

Woops i wrote "Marry Christmas" wich is something else than what i meant.... but it might be what to expect later when you two get back to Bristol? (Wedding that is ;-)

About "Mad Max"-country i guess this link might show a bit of the Kalimantan nightmare;

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ear...o.html?image=5

I don't know why i can't hear "jingle bells" this christmas? (The only song i hear is "symphonie of destruction"....)

[halftwo]

Hi Larry,

A mate gave me the gen for an "easy" Hose's broadbill site (near to where James is saying - possibly the same) at Poring. I'll call him (if he's in the country - not likely at Xmas) and check for you.
I saw White-crowned shama at Poring btw. which was totally unexpected. The springs themselves are a great spot to bird the edge of the forest - hornbills pass over eg.

If we don't 'speak' again before tomorrow "Happy Christmas" to you and Nicky.

H

[delia todd]

Happy Christmas, Larry and Nicky.

Hope you both enjoy the day

D