Birds, Beasts and Bugs- Trekking in Sabah, Borneo (4 Viewers)

[kittykat23uk]

Thursday 20th March


The two different receptions caused us some difficulty this morning as we waited unsuccessfully for our taxi outside the main reception closest to my room, where we thought we had agreed that the pick up would meet us. We had booked for 6 AM but after waiting 15 minutes we didn't want to delay getting to RDC any further so we ended up walking there, much to the protest of my poor feet!

We returned first to the canopy walkway and the same fruiting tree now attracted an Asian black hornbill. A female fiery minivet added a nice splash of colour to the collection of brown bulbuls that we had picked up thus far and over the course of the morning we added purple-throated and red-throated sunbird, red-billed and Raffles's malkoha (sadly both of these species always seemed to enjoy hanging out on distant vegetation-covered trees). Small birds were represented by green iora, hairy-backed, red-eyed, buff-vented and cream-vented bulbuls, black-winged flycatcher-shrike, orange-bellied flowerpecker, rufous piculet, red and black broadbill, black-naped monarch and Asian paradise flycatcher (white morph). We also spotted a hawk eagle, which I think we decided was probably Wallace's (there are two different hawk eagles which look very much alike, Wallace's and Blythe's, as well as two mimics, honey buzzard and Jerdon's baza).

Below are: Fiery Minivet, Buff-vented Bulbul, Wallace's Hawk Eagle

 

[JWN Andrewes]

Splendid stuff. More squirrels please! They're ace.

James

 

[kittykat23uk]

You won't be disappointed!

 

[JWN Andrewes]

Oh goody!

 

[Mekmek]

Lovely - I was in Sabah around the same time. Did "only" Sepilok, Danum (FC) and a day at the Kinabatangan though.
If you saw the hawk-eagle on the canopy walkway at the RDC I'd definitely go Wallace's, they were nesting on one of the trees above the walkway.

 

[Chlidonias]

hi, whereabouts is the bin at which you were seeing the pretty rats? I'm guessing it isn't the bin up by Timpohon Gate?

 

[kittykat23uk]

Hi,

Had a feeling that the prospect of a giant rat would interest you! It's just up the road from the 4 km mark, big rectangular metal thing next to the road. There are also some small bins at Timpohon gate, these also got raided, but we didn't see by whom!

 

[Chlidonias]

excellent, I will be there tomorrow. Vladimir Dinets has seen Kinabalu ferret-badger by the bin up by Timpohon Gate, so I plan on being up at that one at night too.

 

[Frogfish]

excellent, I will be there tomorrow. Vladimir Dinets has seen Kinabalu ferret-badger by the bin up by Timpohon Gate, so I plan on being up at that one at night too.

I also had one massive tree shrew (small cat sized !) investigating a bin down near the entrance to the park (sorry can't remember the exact location now).

 

[JWN Andrewes]

Never heard of ferret-badgers. Clock it here, 30 seconds on google and now it's joined the ever growing list of tricky expensive things I want to see in my ever dwindling time on this planet. Reading these threads can be dangerous! (Not gonna stop though!)

James

 

[kittykat23uk]

Have fun mate! Hope you get great sightings!

 

[kittykat23uk]

We also had another cream-coloured giant squirrel, this time in better light so we could really appreciate the colours on him. Lesser green leafbirds, and walking some of the trails revealed greater racked tailed drongo, a delightful oriental dwarf kingfisher and plated millipede.

Below are red-eyed bulbul, Cream-vented bulbul, Cream-coloured giant squirrel and Lesser green leafbird.

 

[kittykat23uk]

Some more pics.

Red-throated Sunbird, Purple-throated Sunbird, Greater racquet-tailed drongo, Oriental Dwarf Kingfisher and a plated millipede.

 

[kittykat23uk]

And a few more!

Don't know the name of the dragonfly or lizard, there's also a olive-backed sunbird, and a scarlet-backed flowerpecker.

 

[kittykat23uk]

Birding at RDC took us up to around midday, whereupon we walked back to the lodge for lunch, stopping to photograph sunbirds and a scarlet-backed flowerpecker en route. Paul then headed to the nearest town in the afternoon to use an ATM, whist I spent from around 14.30 to 16.00 ish visiting the sun bear and orangutan rehabilitation centres.

The Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre was better than I expected with a nice big wooded enclosure (I couldn't see the boundaries of it) where a number of sun bears seemed happy and were exhibiting natural behaviour. There was also a smaller enclosure where one sun bear was pacing around, this was a new arrival who was in quarantine. He would be released into the other enclosure once he was declared healthy enough. There are interpretors on hand to provide information about the work of the centre. Use of flash is not allowed as it is said to disturb the bears. A detailed history of this centre can be found here: http://sunbears.wild...n-centre-bsbcc/

 

[kittykat23uk]

I enjoyed watching the sun bears clambering over fallen trees and generally milling about, but I didn't want to miss the feeding time at the orangutan sanctuary. So I took my leave and headed next door. After paying at the entrance I then had to drop my bag off in a locker as no food is allowed in the sanctuary. From there, it was a short distance along a boardwalk to the feeding platform. It wasn't long before I saw my first orangutan, a young one who seemed to have some sort of problem with it's fur, it looked fairly naked and reminded me of Gollum from The Lord of the Rings! This one made its way along one of the ropes, suspended between the trees and the platform.

The next to arrive was a mother with tiny baby in tow. The little one was so cute with his little punk hair do! Mum sat herself down on the platform and made a sunshade for little one out of a couple of large leaves. As feeding time approached a male joined her for the banquet and they fed quietly together for a while before the male moved on. Another orangutan hung on the fringes waiting for her turn.

 

[kittykat23uk]

Eventually the show was over, or so we thought. But as we were leaving one naughty youngster seemed set on raiding the cafe, getting rather too close to the visitors! It was eventually ushered back into the forest.

Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lfr170WA7pk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9WrPw1fRjY

 

[kittykat23uk]

At this point I wandered back to meet Paul at the lodge for an early dinner. An oriental pied hornbill was feeding in a tree next to the restaurant and Paul also pointed me to a number of roosting Borneo fruit bats. We headed back to RDC (by car this time) to do some spotlighting. We headed first to the hornbill tower and waited as the sun began to set. The chorus of 6 o'clock cicadas began to fill the air, signalling the shift change-over to begin. A barred eagle owl flew into view a few metres away and then I spotted a red giant flying squirrel as it clambered up a tree, moving to a horizontal branch for a quick brush up before gliding off into the night.

Once it got too dark to see much, we headed down and walked some of the shorter trails, Kingfisher was one of these. We didn't see much of note aside from a large hawk moth and a rather sizeable huntsman spider. My feet started to to protest so I decided to wait by the lake as Paul continued spotlighting along the trails for a little longer. Then we called the lodge for a pick up and retired for the night.

 

[Chlidonias]

I also had one massive tree shrew (small cat sized !) investigating a bin down near the entrance to the park (sorry can't remember the exact location now).

that's probably the large tree-shrew (no, really, I'm not being smart o). Scientific name is Tupaia tana. I couldn't work out what these were on my previous visit to Mt. Kinabalu because according to the mammal field guide (unless I'm remembering it wrong) they shouldn't be up that high, or in that part of Sabah, or something like that. But I found lots of photos online afterwards showing tana at Mt. Kinabalu.

 

[Chlidonias]

At this point I wandered back to meet Paul at the lodge for an early dinner. An oriental pied hornbill was feeding in a tree next to the restaurant and Paul also pointed me to a number of roosting Borneo fruit bats. We headed back to RDC (by car this time) to do some spotlighting. We headed first to the hornbill tower and waited as the sun began to set. The chorus of 6 o'clock cicadas began to fill the air, signalling the shift change-over to begin. A barred eagle owl flew into view a few metres away and then I spotted a red giant flying squirrel as it clambered up a tree, moving to a horizontal branch for a quick brush up before gliding off into the night.

the fruit bats are a Cynopterus species, but off the top of my head I can't remember which ones are there (I think there are three or four in Borneo).

The giant red flying squirrels were brilliant! The RDC in general was fantastic for squirrels. I think I saw six (?) species in one day there, including both red and black giant flyers).