(I notice that at my end at least, there's an odd block of formatting text where each paragraph break should be on this post and the last. That's not from my end but is something wrong with Travelblog. Hopefully it fixes itself because there's not really anything I can do about it.) I started as early as I reasonably could with breakfast at the restaurant at 7:30 when it opened and then got my stuff and went to wait for a bus. There isn't actually a bus stop or timetable at Mount Kinabalu so getting out involves standing by the side of the road and waving at anything that looks like it might be public transport. I was on the road just after 8 and I got a minibus to stop for me just before 9:30. ... read more

My very scientific title refers primarily to the Bornean Mountain Ground Squirrel and the Lesser (Short-tailed) Gymnure. The former is very common and extremely cute and fluffy, the latter I’ve seen once very briefly dash into the vegetation by the side of the road near the top not far from the Timpohon Gate. They super cool and not actually mice or even rodents (they’re insectivores, in the hedgehog family). There are lots of different squirrels around though, many of which are very cool like the Whitehead’s Pygmy with its awesome white ear-tufts as well as the almost as small Red-bellied Sculptor Squirrel along with several other montane squirrel species. If you like squirrels, Mt Kinabalu is definitely the place to be! There are also lots of treeshrews that look confusingly similar to ground squirrels. But the ... read more

My morning birding at Danum was quite productive and the French guys also found it more productive than usual completely independent of me. This seemed to be a common trend with occasional days of great birding and others with almost nothing in the same areas. I added quite a few new species actually, see the list below which were all from only a couple of hours this morning, as well as a great and first-photo view of a Large Green Pigeon being worth noting. I've refined my breakfast strategy by this point too so I don't miss out on birding. Breakfast is officially 7-8:30 but if you're not there at 7 on the dot there will be no food left and you'll be stuck behind a long queue and waste loads of birding time so the ... read more

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