Blogs from Sabah, Malaysia, Asia - page 4

The Amazing Danum Valley (Note: this post covers my first full day at Danum and was written that day. The next three days will be in one post coming a bit later) I started the first day at Danum with an obscenely early start for a sunset watch. They drive you to a view point early in the morning to watch the sunrise over the forest. I wouldn't have done it, but they offered me the last seat in an already full vehicle so the cost was split. It was quite spectacular to watch the sunrise over the forest with the tree covered hills like islands and the cloud filling the valley below. There were sunrise birds about too of course including two species of parrot and the morning gibbon chorus and on the return drive ... read more

I started with another morning cruise, and we went a slightly different route this time and rather than sticking to the main channel we went to an oxbow lake. It's technically not a true oxbow lake because it's still connected to the main channel by the remnants of a meander but it's very narrow and shallow and choked with vegetation and overhanging trees, nothing compared to the size of the main channel and the engine even got stuck in the mud at one point. So it was very interesting to cruise around the oxbow lake and morning cruises are really cool anyway with the vapour coming off the water. We did see one very interesting species which was a Mangrove Snake (or Gold-ringed Ratsnake as the guide called it which is an alternative name but I ... read more

I started my only full day at Kinabatangan with a sunrise cruise on the river. Unfortunately, some rather noisy dogs right outside my window during the night meant I hadn't slept as well as ideal. The morning cruise was nice at sunrise being cool enough with nice light over the river and a number of interesting birds like fish eagles and Storm's Stork. On the mammal front, the most interesting thing was a mother orangutan and youngster in some trees by the river. So it's very nice to see some properly wild orangutans now which I didn't really expect here but it's great to get them already. The cruises seem to generally last longer than advertised which is good and there's lots of cool stuff to see. After breakfast was a guided 'nature walk' in the ... read more

There's wasn't much about in the morning but I did hear Bornean Gibbons calling. I'm hoping to actually see them at Danum. I also got my first leech at Speilok. I haven't been wearing my leech socks at all and hadn't encountered any leeches up to this point but the rain may have brought them out now. I was expecting more really. I did find another not-nondescript (descript?) bulbul: Black-and-white Bulbul, as well as a fruiting tree filled with Black Hornbills. Most odd though was a way overhead flyover by two White-bellied Sea Eagles extremely high above the forest flying past. An odd species to see here but nothing else as far as I can see has that tail shape, no particular long beak, and that pattern of white and dark on wings and body. I ... read more

I started the morning with a slightly different approach and rather than going straight onto the canopy walkway, I decided to try birding the ground-level pathways because there were a couple of endemic babblers that I hadn't seen yet. It seemed to be a quieter birding morning anyway and I didn't find the babblers, but I did still find a few interesting things including a couple of endemics and Grey-headed Bulbuls which is a bird I've been looking at longingly in the field guide whenever I'm identifying nondescript brown bulbuls for something more interesting looking and they are nice birds. The field guide describes them as 'widespread but very scarce' anyway so that's good. It was already getting hot when I went for breakfast but I went out again afterwards anyway because it doesn't get really ... read more