Sabah Trip. Day 4: 30th May, Danum Valley Field Centre

An Oriental Magpie Robin singing at dawn. It's the same species as we get in the Peninsula, but this form has an all black body.

We set off at first light to get to the Giant Pitta location in the hope of finding it on the ground early in the morning. En route we had reasonable views of a female Great Argus as it crossed the path. Once more the GP called incessantly yet remained resolutely invisible. No wonder it's such a mythical bird! To see what one looks like, click here!

Eventually the bird moved off invisibly into the distance, and again we were forced to give up. Thereafter, things improved markedly, first with this Chestnut-backed Scimitar Babbler...



... and then a stunning male Rufous-collared Kingfisher.





On our walk back along the waterfall trail, we came across this Rufous-tailed Jungle Flycatcher, which was a new bird for me.



This was followed by brief views of both Maroon-breasted and Rufous-winged Philentoma, and then a nice look at a Spotted Fantail.



This dung beetle was laboriously pushing its cargo along the trail.























An attractive flying lizard landed on a nearby tree and began displaying by extending its strikingly coloured dewlap.

Back on the Nature Trail near to the Centre, we spotted a Diard's Trogon again. By the broken tail feathers we could tell it was the same individual as the one I had photographed yesterday.



Here's a rear view...






















...and one from the front. The bird actually allowed me to walk around it and photograph it from different angles!

Bird activity was again excellent in the trees beside the restaurant verandah.

































I guess these are Greater rather than Lesser Green Leafbirds, though the yellow eyering and throat on the female is not as well-marked as on birds in the Peninsula, nor does the bill seem particularly heavy. I find this pair of species one of the most difficult identification challenges in this region.



It was good to get fine views of this lifer seen earlier - a male Yellow-rumped Flowerpecker



A Buff-rumped Woodpecker pays a brief visit. Years ago we rescued a young Buff-rumped Woodpecker that had been caught by orang asli. "Bertie Buff-rump" gave us hours of amusement by climbing all over our furniture. Bertie may be gone, but Buff-rumped Woodpeckers will always be a special bird for me.



This flower was favoured by the visits of two spiderhunter species, Little ...



... and Grey-breasted.



A male Plain Sunbird drops in for a snack.



A fine Buff-vented Bulbul - so distinctive when seen well.



A Rufous-bellied Eagle also put in an appearance.



Not to be outdone by the birds, the butterflies put on a superb show as well.

In the late afternoon I went for a walk around the Grid.



On the bridge I watched a young Whiskered Treeswift being fed by its parent. Wow, that looks just yummy!



Kids are never satisfied!

On the Grid I saw a female Blue-headed Pitta - again brief views - and better views of a Black-and-Crimson Pitta. Again, no photo, but this is what one looks like!



The day ended with us watching Rhinoceros Hornbills, Large Green Pigeons and best of all, a Binturong, feeding in a large fruiting fig outside our room. If you don't know what a Binturong is, read tomorrow's posting!

Sabah Trip. Day 3: 29th May, Danum Valley Field Centre

A brilliant day in the field today, with many highlights - a male Blue-headed Pitta being the main one; also, seeing all 4 lowland trogons, 4 hornbill species and 3 orang utans.



A map of the Grid. This morning we walked from the 'You are here' sign, up to W5N0, then left to W5S5, then back along a riverside trail (not shown on this map) to the bridge.

At dawn, we walked around the research area known as 'the Grid'. It was quiet for long periods, and we only saw 4 species in the forest, but one of these was the pitta. We saw it briefly some way up the trail. When it hopped out of view, we walked quietly up to where we'd last seen it, whereupon it hopped up onto a tree root close to us, before flying into the forest. A real jewel of a bird! No time to take a photo, but to see what one looks like, check here.



Our first trogon of the day was this male Scarlet-rumped, responding to our whistled imitation of its call.



We surprised this male Emerald Dove on the trail.



A mid-morning breakfast at the restaurant was enlivened by great views of a Black Eagle, as well as a variety of birds coming to feed in the fruiting tree below the verandah...



... such as Red-eyed Bulbuls ...



... and this fine male White-crowned Shama



This immature blue flycatcher caused us a few identification problems, until eventually we had good views of the parent bird, and were able to identify it as a Malaysian Blue Flycatcher.

Breakfast over, we set out on the Tembeling Waterfall trail, reknowned location of the near mythical Giant Pitta. First off was another trogon, the first of many Diard's Trogons.



The 'song' of these birds was an almost constant feature of our trail walks. They seemed to be so numerous that we jokingly referred to them as 'trash birds'! Note the broken tail feathers of this individual.

Later along this trail we also added Red-naped Trogon, and then, after imitating a strange, pitta-like call, succeeded in calling in a male Cinnamon-rumped Trogon, much to our surprise.



Trogons a-go-go! A poor shot of a pretty rare bird, Cinnamon-rumped Trogon.

Several hours were spent 'in conversation' with a calling Giant Pitta. Its soft hollow whistle was frustratingly difficult to pinpoint, and, though the bird was extremely close at times, we never got a glimpse. We even heard the wingbeats. The bird's ability to throw its voice, so that it seemed to come from different directions with successive calls, had us wondering whether it was in fact high up in the canopy, perhaps even directly over our heads. No amount of neck-craning prevailed however, and eventually we had to admit defeat.



These large Nymph butterflies fly so slowly through the forest they appear to be floating through the air.



While listening to a calling Black-and-Crimson Pitta, we noticed this whip snake in the bush in front of us. The snout appears too long for Oriental Whip Snake. I've since been told it is a Long-nosed Whip Snake.



Back in the late 80s I travelled round Malaysia and Thailand with Phil Hurrell. I went on to work with AWB, while he went off, rediscovered Schneider's Pitta, and started building canopy walkways and tree towers in various places, and working for the David Attenborough series "The Life of Birds". It was great to bump into a reminder of those good old days, though I didn't dare to climb the tower - nothing personal Phil if you ever read this! Where are you now???

Even though there was no rain all day, the river rose dramatically in the late afternoon, demonstrating how potentially dangerous it can be to swim in these large forest rivers.



Another night walk around the nature trail yielded a fleeting glimpse of a mouse deer, more spiders, and this stick insect.

Sabah Trip. Day 2: 28th May, Kota Kinabalu - Danum Valley

An early start today, rising at 4.45am to get a flight to Lahad Datu. The hotel thoughtfully provided us with a packed breakfast - 4 egg sandwiches and 2 boiled eggs each - must have thought we needed a little extra cholesterol!

The scenery en route to Lahad Datu was a mix of spectacular - forest-covered ranges and early morning views of Mount Kinabalu, the tallest mountain in South-east Asia - and sad - logging trails reaching out like sandy tendrils along seemingly every ridge top, and blankets of oil palm plantations as we neared Lahad Datu.



Kota Kinabalu in the early morning sun.



Gunung Kinabalu is a truly impressive mountain, even from a distance.



Lahad Datu airport is little more than a glorified coffee-shop. That's our plane through the window.

We were in Lahad Datu by 8.30am, but then had a seven-hour wait to get our ride into Danum Valley. So we dumped our bags in the DVFC office and whiled away the time playing endless games of Uno, and occasionally venturing out to see what the town had to offer in the way of food and other delights (which wasn't much). Hardware stores containing prodigious quantities of fertilisers and herbicides predominated, and 2 out of 3 vehicles on the roads seemed to be 4-wheel drives, giving the place a real frontier town feel.

Our van finally departed punctually at 3.30pm. After half an hour on sealed roads, we turned off onto logging trails for a bumpy hour and 45 minutes. Every few minutes we were forced to pull over to one side to allow huge logging trucks past. Looming out of clouds of dust backlit by the sun, they looked like prehistoric monsters, and carried tree trunks as much as twice as long as their trailers. We counted 29 trucks carrying, on average, 10 trees each, in the space of an hour or so - just frightening.




We finally arrived at the Field Centre in light rain, and were immediately urged by the friendly staff to come take a look at an orang utan that was feeding in a fruiting tree just behind the restaurant. Dusk was beginning to fall and the animal had already settled into its nest for the night, so all we could see was a langorously outstretched arm. A great introduction to Danum nevertheless!



Danum Valley Field Centre from the river.

After a superb evening meal, Roger and I went for a lamping session. No birds or mammals, but spectacular creepy crawlies aplenty!



A large spider under a leaf chomping on something tasty!



Another spider - different model, spiny like its host plant.



This attractive lizard sleeping on a vine overhanging the path is probably a juvenile Gonocephalus lizard. Can anyone tell me?

Sabah Trip. Day 1: 27th May, Kota Kinabalu

A long-anticipated family holiday to Sabah had finally arrived. We flew to KK courtesy of Air Asia and checked into the Kinabalu Daya Hotel. An hour later we met up with Brisbane friend and ex Asian Wetland Bureau colleague Roger Jaensch, who had been persuaded by his wife to come and spend some time birding with me at Danum Valley - ahh such sacrifice!

We spent the afternoon and evening shopping for essential supplies - an umbrella, dustbin bags, and leech socks. We were unsuccessful in finding the latter, so ended up buying some cloth and elastic, and taking it to a roadside tailor.






















Caution: leech sock expert at work

He indicated that this was not the first time he'd been asked to make such things, so we confidently handed him the cloth and asked him to make four pairs - two for kids and two for adults. Many hours later I triumphantly walked back to the hotel clutching the socks, to try them on. The kids' ones fitted quite ok, but mine were way to narrow to allow my feet to get into them. The result was a long upcurled section at the end, so that they looked the kind of boots pixies wear! All that was lacking was some golden bells for the ends!























My leech socks, which also handily doubled as pixie boots!






















The craft market along the seafront was chock-full of treasures.

21st May, Ulu Paip Forest Reserve, Kedah

Our friends from Brisbane were here for a few days over the weekend. We enjoyed some excellent birding together last October in Australia, so now it was my chance to show off some of Malaysia's finest for a day.



We started off in the morning whistling for Blue-winged Pittas. After a while we located a pair, one of which flew straight to us and sat in a tree almost overhead looking at us. Later on it started calling from a tree a little further away.

In the forest proper we spent some time scouting around for Blue-banded Kingfisher, and were eventually rewarded with good views of the male. This wasn't photographable, but there was plenty else that was.



This large damselfly, a male Neurobasis chinensis, sits on its territorial rock in mid-stream, opening its wings occasionally, flashing irridescent green wing patches. Several other males occupy similar rocks nearby, and a lone female, distinguished by her reddish wings, plays it cool not far away.



This Kuhl's Gliding Gecko has lost its original tail, and the replacement is definitely not up to the required standard!



This agamid lizard is a kind of water dragon, but I'm not sure which one. In breeding condition, this male's throat will flush bright pink, adding to the already impressive array of colour.




This Yellow-breasted Flowerpecker had a problem with these juicy-looking fruits - the spiky hairs at one end.



It manouveured the fruit smooth end inward, and then proceeded to suck the goodies out without eating the skin.



Problem solved! The skin is sucked dry then discarded.

After a good lunch we went to check up on an Oriental Pratincole breeding site.



Several birds were in evidence, but there was no sign of breeding having begun yet.



All the birds were in wing and tail moult (new secondaries, old primaries), and their plumage was generally heavily abraded.



Several pairs of Red-wattled Lapwings were also present, in a similar state of wear and tear.

Wednesday 16th May, Air Hitam Dalam, Penang

It's been almost a month since my last post, and in that time I've barely been out birding... must be the post wader migration blues!

However, I did manage to get out yesterday afternoon, not an ideal time of day but better than nothing. I've written about the sad state of Air Hitam Dalam before - and highway construction continues apace, while wildlife continues to hang on by a toehold in the fragments of mangrove and swamp remaining.



Olive-winged Bulbuls are common open scrub birds - rather non-descript except for the dark eye, streaky ear coverts and olive tinge to the wings.


A male Mangrove Blue Flycatcher was a nice surprise along the boardwalk beneath some large strangling figs. It spent some time hunting unconcernedly nearby.



Interestingly, this bird has an orangey vent. Robson's Birds of South-east Asia says it should be 'pale'.

Other birds of note recorded were a very late Arctic Warbler, and Green-billed and Raffles' Malkohas.



There aren't too many places in Penang where you can see Silvered Leaf Monkey, though they are commoner further south. I caught this one in mid-leap between trees.



A Plantain Squirrel, the commonest squirrel at this site.



This brightly coloured wasp was competing with many other insects at this flowering plant.



I wasn't able to identify this attractive dragonfly. Can anyone help? [This is Aethriamanta aethra. Thanks to Ian Choong for the id]



As the sun set, this Spotted Wood Owl started to call, puffing up its white throat feathers as it did so.



An army helicopter came to take a look!




This female Diplacodes trivialis was one of several catching the last rays of the sun.



A pair of Jungle Mynas flying to roost.



A fledging Wood Owl came out to join the adult. It tried out its wings by flopping from tree to tree.



It was easy to locate as it kept up a continuous mournful mewing, sounding a bit like a Eurasian Collared Dove.



As it grew darker, a pair of Barn Owls also appeared, along with 4 Great Eared Nightjars, which flew out of the forest to hunt over nearby fields. Sorry for the horrendous image - it was the best I could do!