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Published: November 22nd 2010
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Education staff and visiting students
The education staff and us with the latest batch of students from Lahad Datu. Despite some quiet days, I think this week may have been our best so far. It started a bit slow, but it definitely ended with a bang!
Last Saturday (13 November) we gave a frog presentation to a visiting school group. We have been working with the education department here to present information about frogs and what it is like to research them. It has been really fantastic and all of the students (and teachers!) get really into it. It is great because a lot of the kids are a little bit afraid of frogs when we first meet them, but they genuinely seem interested in finding out that certain frogs can tolerate freezing while others can tolerate long droughts, and they really get excited about pretending to be a scientist when we take them through a practice forest plot or night survey. I really like this aspect of my job, because it makes me hopeful that some little Sabahans will grow up to study frogs one day.
After our presentation, we had coffee and homemade doughnuts with the education director, and while we were sitting on the balcony outside of her office, we saw a baby
Pied Hornbill family
Papa, baby, and mama! hornbill take what may have been his first foray into the world! It was so stunning to witness—the family perched on a big snag not too far from us, with each of them surveying the terrain for about half an hour. I have never seen a baby hornbill before, and it was amazing to witness the family sit together, and then take turns flying from the snag to a nearby tree, eat some fruits, and move on to the next tree. Thanks to some rigging with a telescope, Rachel was able to get a decent picture of the little clan!
The start of last week was pretty quiet—few snakes on our night surveys, and no big mammals to speak of—our first ellie-free Monday in a while! On Friday morning I was thinking that it was likely to be our “down” week in terms of wildlife spotting, but on our way to the forest after breakfast we saw a flock of Asian Black hornbills flying along the road near the river. Hornbills are common here, and are often spotted solo or in pairs, but I have rarely in my life seen flocks of them anywhere, so seeing this group was a special treat. A few hours later in one of our leaf litter plots, we found a frog that I have never seen before—a Philautus, or small tree frog. Many of the species in this genus are particularly difficult to tell apart, so we have no idea which species this actually was, but locality records indicate it was either disgregus or tectus. After that, I figured our day had pretty much been made and I was feeling quite pleased with how the week turned out by the time we started our final nocturnal stream survey of the week. About an hour into the survey, James called over to me “Jen, do you want to see a clouded leopard?” I thought for SURE he was kidding, but I went over to see what he was looking at anyways, trying not to get too excited. When he pointed to where he was looking, I was trying to get my eyes to see a speck of something far away, maybe a pinprick of eyeshine, or a glimpse of a cat, but instead, about 25 feet in front of me I saw an enormous grey cat with dark markings chowing down on a mouse deer (a tiny deer about the size of a medium-sized dog). I literally had to put my hand over my mouth to keep from making too much noise. I was stunned, and couldn’t believe that I was seeing this gorgeous cat at such close range. And to make it even more interesting, there was a second clouded leopard a few feet away from the first, feasting on its own mouse deer! I can’t express enough how rare it is to see this—nearly nothing is known of clouded leopard behavior or ecology, and here were four herpetologists seeing TWO cats together. As near as we can tell, it was likely a mother and nearly full grown cub. We continued watching them for almost an hour, and they were perfectly happy to just eat their meal, keeping their eyes on us the whole time (see the short video above by Rachel). They switched places once or twice, and after they seemed to have finished, they walked around a bit and then lay down—with one of them momentarily rolling onto its back and batting at an overhanging vine! It was absolutely surreal to witness, and amazing to think that moments before we saw it, this huge predator had been hunting not more than 50 meters from where we were. After we returned to our survey, I was literally saying “could this night possibly get any better?!” when overhead we saw huge flying foxes silhouetted against the nearly full moon! Unbelievable. It truly was one of the greatest days of my life, and makes me think that Danum is one of the best wildlife spots left on the planet.
I hope this finds you all well, and I look forward to getting any questions or comments about the wildlife or work here. Have a fantastic Thanksgiving, and please eat some extra turkey for us!
xoxo
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Lisa Goldstein
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WOW!!!
How incredibly amazing that you get to be part of such a beautiful world! And how great that you share with us!! Definitely something to give thanks for!!