Blogs from Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary, Sabah, Malaysia, Asia

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Asia » Malaysia » Sabah » Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary July 7th 2018

For those of you who were keeping a track of my adventures prior to me going to Sepilok, I apologise for the silence for the last 2 months. I spent May and June volunteering at Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre and whilst completing the volunteer programme at Sepilok we were asked not to blog due to confidentiality. If anyone is interested in my time spent working with the orangutans I’d be happy to answer any questions if you contact me directly. I’ve had so many photo opportunities, I literally have thousands of photos - there are a select few posted here, but rest assured I have many more to bore you with should you want to see them! In summary, I can confirm I had the best time of my life whilst working with the orangutans, experiences ... read more
I don’t think he’s too happy!
Hornbill close up at the proboscis monkey sanctuary
Me battling with Sepilok to get him on the feeding platform

Asia » Malaysia » Sabah » Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary June 16th 2018

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
Black-and-yellow Broadbill
Black Hornbill
View of the Canopy Walkway from the Watch Tower

Asia » Malaysia » Sabah » Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary June 15th 2018

It did seem a bit cooler following the rain, although the birds didn't seem any more active and the only thing seen from the canopy walkway first thing in the morning was one of the resident Wallace's Hawk Eagles, as well as loads of Pig-tailed Macaques. Walking around on the trails though, I did find my first tree shrew on Borneo, a Large Tree Shrew. Given how many species there are present and how many are supposed to be common, I was expecting to see more. Large is a nice species to see though. After breakfast I went back to the RDC for a bit more birding and I got a lovely view of a group of Bushy-crested Hornbills up close from the canopy walkway. A bit later, I found a patch of trees which for ... read more
Bushy-crested Hornbill
Lesser Treeshrew
Bornean Brown Barbet

Asia » Malaysia » Sabah » Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary June 14th 2018

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
Black-naped Monarch
Trefoil Horseshoe Bat
Oriental Dwarf Kingfisher

Asia » Malaysia » Sabah » Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary June 12th 2018

It hadn't dawned on me (pun intended) how early sunrise was here until I checked on Google just before bed. It's still in the same time zone but because of how much further East it is, sunrise is more than an hour earlier. With it being so hot in the middle of the day and so dead bird-wise, I wanted to make sure I was in as early as possible. Unfortunately, the Rainforest Discovery Centre only opens at 8, but I got to the entrance at about 5:45. There are no gates and the guard seemed to be asleep so I just gave him a wide berth and went in. Having not been told anything explicitly about the morning opening times, I could claim ignorance which is going to be much more difficult at night now. ... read more
Pig-tailed Macaque
Pig-tailed Macaque
Pig-tailed Macaque

Asia » Malaysia » Sabah » Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary June 11th 2018

(I've put the location for the blog post as the Orangutan Sanctuary because there's no option for just Sepilok which is odd. The orangutan sanctuary is about 3km away) People in other rooms were making a lot of noise during the night including a small child running around and screaming and being very much budget accommodation, the walls are very thin indeed so I didn't have the best night's sleep which does rather defeat the point of a private room. I got the monorail to KL Sentral where I changed to get the KL Ekspres directly to the airport. I can't remember what I thought of the price when I got it on my first day, but it seems very expensive now at almost 50 ringgit. It's much cheaper than a taxi though and easier and ... read more
Pig-tailed Macaque
Prevost's Squirrel
View From the Canopy Walkway

Asia » Malaysia » Sabah » Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary April 26th 2018

Monday 23rd April 2018 On Monday morning we said a sad “Farewell· to the Nature Lodge and crossed the Sungai Kinabatangan to pick up a minibus to take us to Sepilok. It was a bumpy journey! Our driver said locals call the trip a free body massage! However, the diggers are moving in to make the road a new duel carriageway to accommodate the palm oil trade. We are so glad it isn’t harvest time, when lorries would be back and forth taking the palm fruits off to be processed. More rainforest destruction! We arrived at Sepilok B & B at 11 a.m. after a two and a half hour journey and we were able to check in straight away. We have a nice little bungalow just a half hour walk from the Orang-utan Conservation Centre. ... read more
Hard to spot bears in their lush rainforest
First ones to arrive
Just hanging abiut....

Asia » Malaysia » Sabah » Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary October 24th 2015

A visit to Sepilok Orang-utan Rehabilitation Centre was one of the reasons I decided to visit Borneo so I was very excited about today! We set off from the hotel and after a 5 minute drive we arrived at the centre, put all our things in a locker, paid my fee for taking in a camera and I was on my way. With my guide, we walked down the board walks to the nursery area and one of the workers was walking along holding hands with 2 adolescent orang-utans, taking them to another area of the centre, one of them was completely bald and looked so odd. They walked straight past me and I could hardly believe I was so close to such an amazing animal. At the centre they work with orphaned baby orang-utans and ... read more
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Asia » Malaysia » Sabah » Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary October 22nd 2015

Today I said a very sad farewell to Eric and left Kuching, he's been SO good for the last week and I'll really miss him. Most of my day has been spent either on a plane or in an airport. I caught my first flight from Kuching to Kota Kinabalu and then a connecting flight from there to Sandakan. When I got to the gate at Sandakan and saw the plane it filled me with dread! For anyone that knows me, you know I hate flying and little planes are my worst nightmare - but in actual fact, the flight itself wasn't too bad and thankfully only took around 40 minutes. I was collected at the airport by my driver and was taken to my hotel for the next two nights - Sepilok Nature Resort. My ... read more
Home for the Next Two Nights
My Room
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Asia » Malaysia » Sabah » Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary January 18th 2015

We have only been to Brunei in transit so many times, we have passed through the airport and wondered. Well wonder no more, myself, I was very disappointed. For me it reminded me of Darwin from the eighties, lots of public buildings and the suburbs set out with similar house projects homes. Yes their is the affluent, but also a lot of poor people. We took a tour of the river to find that over 22,000 people actually live on the river. They dwell in stilt homes and have shops and schools. We had the most lovely fella show us around. He himself was born and still lives on the river with his family of 6 children.The most amazing mosques and palaces and very Muslim. We were told that that of the 500,000 people in Brunei ... read more
Brunei
Brunei
Brunei




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