Monday, September 6, 2010

Borneo is Wild!! Kinabatangan River–Jungle Camp

 

Jungle camp on the river in Borneo was our favorite spot!  We saw so many species of birds and mammals on our trips by boat down the Kinabatangan River with our very knowledgeable guides.

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Here are our new digs in the jungle:

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Right off this deck and near our room we saw huge monitor lizards and small pittas:

monitor lizardHooded Pitta

The river was wide and muddy, like the mighty Mississippi, with many tributaries off to the left and right to explore.

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We got to watch elephants as they came down in the evening to their watering hole at the river’s edge. The group consisted mainly of females and babies. The babies were so cute!  One elephant was swimming across the river with his trunk sticking out of the water like a snorkel.  He looked like he was doing the breast stroke, submerging and then popping up and spraying water from his trunk.

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The night cruises brought new sights and sounds  We got to see owls and a 10 foot crocodile!  The croc was sleeping on the muddy shoreline all curled up when our guide Robert shined his flashlight on him. He leaped up and unfurled his huge body and slithered into the river as fast as lightening.  A little too close to our boat for comfort, pretty scary to me, but an awesome sight!

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Spotting the Buffy Fish-Owl…

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During the day, we saw hundreds of birds, many species we’ve never seen before!

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Rhinoceros Hornbill

Hornbill Sabay Flying

                                                              Oriental Pied Hornbill

Rhinocerous HornbillOriental Pied Hornbill

Wrinkled Hornbill                          White-crowned Hornbill

Wrinkled HornbillWhite-crowned Hornbill

A Woodpecker?!? Yes, a Rufous Piculet.

Rufous Piculet Borneo

          Yep, Scarlet-rumped Trogon

Scarlet-rumped Trogon

These sparkled like Jewels along the river --

Blue-eared Kingfisher                         Stork-billed Kingfisher

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Black and Yellow Broadbill           & Black and Red Broadbill       

Black & Yellow BroadbillBlack & Red Broadbill

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We were lucky to see this bird – the beautiful Bornean Ground-Cuckoo, and can thank Robert Chong for his persistence.

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Bornean Ground Cuckoo1

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And Gibbons, langurs, macaques, proboscis, leaf monkeys ……!!!

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Red Leaf Monkey2Proboscis Monkeys

Stick bugs …

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  Our fearless leader and great

  birder – Robert Chong.

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A Happy Couple…

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Next… to Thailand.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Borneo is Wild!! Mt. Kinabalu and Danum Valley

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Here is our first look at Borneo – beautiful islands off the coast of Kota Kinabalu in Sebah. Kota Kinabalu is an attractive new looking city, quite clean with a lot of new buildings and new construction going on. Below is a new mosque that we drove by. The primary religions in Sebah seems to be a mix of Islam and Catholicism, quite different from Bali and Thailand.

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We leave the city of Kota Kinabalu (KK) behind and head out to our next destination, Mt. Kinabalu.- the highest mountain in SE Asia and the highest peak between the Himalayas and Papua New Guinea, 4095 m (13435 ft) high. It’s a large granitic pluton, about a 2 hour leisurely drive east of KK.

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In Borneo, we discover a new fruit – the rambut. It is sweet and has the consistency of a large grape.

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   This is our favorite fruit – the Mangosteen.

    White fruit inside and very sweet.

 

 

 

 

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This is the Aristo Hotel near Mt Kinabalu where we stayed. Had a great view, but as the other couple from Italy staying there said – “Quite Basic”.

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But the views, awe-inspiring!

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And nice sunsets, too – but not as good as Saipan sunsets.

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We got up early morning and started climbing the mountain, not to the peak, just wandering and birdwatching! of course.

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We saw many beautiful sights along the way.

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These are just a few of the beautiful birds we saw around Mt. Kinabalu:

Indigo Flycatcher

and the Oriental Magpie-Robin.

Borneo Whistling-Thrush

Black-sided Flowerpecker

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After exploring the area around Mt Kinabalu for 2 days, we take off for Lahad Datu, on our way to Danum Valley – areas on the east side of Sabah.

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Lahad Datu was a nice little town where we waited for a minibus to take us to the Danum Valley field station. Although very quaint, there were many cellphone stores way out here in what seems to be the middle of nowhere.  Everyone, everywhere, seems to have a cell phone.  A family gathered around a laptop computer on the patio of their little restaurant, with the youngest daughter at the keyboard, another example of the mixing of new and old cultures in Borneo.  Not sure what they might have been internet surfing for!

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Below is the wi-fi spot we used -

the local bakery!

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This is the central market in Lahad Datu, very colorful with lots of fresh vegies and good food. Open markets are typical and found in every town we visited in SE Asia. Many women dress in Muslim attire with covered heads.  Some of the younger women dress in western clothes, but with the addition of the Muslim head cover.

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Around 3:00pm we take off for the Danum Valley Field Station with a bus full of Danum Valley workers and their cute kids. The driver has the radio blasting, so we are rocking out down the bumpy dirt roads to the valley.  There are cows roaming in small herds thru the streets and yards as we pass by.

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As we draw nearer to the field station, we actually get to see our first Borneo Pygmy Asian Elephants. We are so excited to see elephants in the wild. For the next few miles, we notice a lot of the Very Evident Scat left by these pachyderms, indicating their heavy use of the roads.

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We finally arrive at the Field station.  By the time we get settled and are able to go for a walk it’s quite dark, but we roam around anyway listening to the night time jungle chorus!

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This is what the field station looked like in the morning. A lush, tropical area with a river running right next to it, and lots of trails to explore.

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Exploring the jungle we ran across some interesting things like this clinging or crawling plant found on the trunks of the trees.

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The roots of the large Dipterocarp trees are very impressive, as are the “canopy topper” trees you find sticking high above the general canopy top. Very hard to identify any birds at the top of these trees.

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Because of the thick native dipterocarp jungle, birding takes effort in Danum Valley – it reminded me of birding in the forests of the east coast where I took my first ornithology class, an effort which creates sore necks! We called it Warbler Neck! So, easier to locate than the treetop birds, we saw wonderful, unique and some endemic ground or near ground foraging species – the Pitta’s.

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  The blue-banded Pitta

      and the Black and Crimson Pitta.

Black & Crimson Pitta

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The female Giant Pitta. A good 3 Pitta day for Cheri and I!

 

 

A few other birds we saw were:

The Jambu Fruit Dove

               And the  Red-bearded Bee Eater

 

White-crowned Shama