Borneo Blog: Travel Day Travails from KK to Danum Valley

April 29, 2013

I finally made it to the Danum Valley Field Centre tonight, despite some travel issues today. With only two weeks in Borneo, I had decided it was best to shave off travel time between cities by booking short internal flights, rather than taking the bus, though the latter is much cheaper. It turns out that would have been faster and a lot cheaper than I calculated after all.

I left the Mount Kinabalu Holiday Home in a shared taxi at 8:20 for the 90-minute ride back to Kota Kinbalu, got a quick taxi to the airport, and soon was notified that my noon flight to Lahad Datu was canceled--but no worries, I had alread been rebooked for the 3:50 flight, getting into Lahad Datu at 4:45. The problem is that the Field Center offers transfers (at a very high rate of about $22) only on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, departing their office near the airport at 3:00. There is no public transportation option, and a private transfer for the two-hour ride is about $120. The Malaysian Airlines agent was very helpful in trying to solve the issue, calling the Field Centre twice and giving me a voucher for lunch until she heard back from her supervisor. But in the end, the option of losing two valuable days in the Danum Valley (to be filled with what and where and at what cost?) wasn't a viable one for me. So with the second phone call to the Field Centre, it was arranged that a Mr. Noh would meet me upon arrival at Lahad Datu in his black Toyota Hilux. And in the end, when I submit the form given to me by the agent and a copy of the receipt, Malaysian Airlines may actually reimburse me.

I had never even heard of it before starting to plan this trip, but Lahad Datu is a bustling city, a wealthy center of logging and palm oil production. Unfortunately, both have led to the utter distruction of unimaginable riches of biodiversity. Upon approaching the city, all I could see for miles and miles was African Oil Palm plantations. Please, please read the labels of the food you buy, and don't buy anything with palm oil. Otherwise there is Oruangutan blood on your hands (and you'll get atherosclerosis or something and die an early death). And I learned that Lahad Datu is also the world's Toyota Hilux capital of the world. I waved at four or five of them at the airport curb before Noh found me (it turns out they have a habit of adding "Mr." as a title before your first name--I was often referred to as Mr. Rich). Every fourth vehicle in the city's congested streets is a Hilux.

After stopping at grocery store for my field breakfast and lunch food for the next week (eggs to boil, carrots, peanuts, and sardines), it took us a half hour to escape the rush hour traffic before we were on the highway. It became dark not long after we turned onto a dirt road, and it was clear that we were entering a very humid area as water continually condensed on the outside of the Hilux's air-conditioned windows (the tropical models don't have defrost or heating of any kind). Despite the bad visibility, it was hard to miss the six Bornean Pygmy Elephants on the road. Noh had warned me that there had been a lot around, but the enormous piles of dung along a 15-kilometer stretch of the road was kind of a giveaway before we saw them.

After arriving at 7:40 p.m. and checking in at the Field Centre's reception and receiving a brief orientation, Noh drove me and my bags to the "hostel" (the shared dorm, the cheapest of the accommodations here, other than camping) and then to the dining hall where they kept dinner ready for me. I met two other travelers staying here, also staying at the hostel, Ingo from Germany (though living in Switzerland) and Anita from The Netherlands.

It turns out that the building lights here are pretty good for attracting interesting insects. Back at the kitchen building between the men's and women's dorms (a full half mile walk from the dining hall, I was unhappy to learn) were this beetle and two moths.

Reflections on My Three Days At Mount Kinabalu

April 29, 2013

Apart from my layover day in Hong Kong on my way here (where I nonetheless saw eight lifers), the last four days we an amazing introduction to birding in Asia.

It wasn't all perfect, and I will always remember the frustration at missing Whitehead's Trogon, even though I knew a pair or two were breeding in areas where I birded. But I saw a ton of new things (families, even) and even got recordings of many of them. As I work my way to the Danum Valley for my next week of adventure, I thought I would try to boil down my experiences here into some good and not-so-good categories.

Delightful: The cool, moist, mountain air. The elevation here is just perfect, and I was prepared for hot and muggy. Very few biting insects.

Not so great: The two afternoons mostly lost due to rain that started around noon and continued into the late afternoon. It made walking the trails difficult...no, treacherous...and after a bit, even the birds give up. But this mountain, the largest in Malaysia and the highest peak between the Himalayas and New Guinea, makes its own weather when it wants to.

Awesome: The plantlife. I saw my first Nepenthes (the genus of amazing pitcher plants with the modified leaf tip), lovely Rhododendrons, many orchids, and some pretty amazing conifers. I was particularly surprised by the diversity of Melastomes, a family I know from the Neotropics.

A nuisance: The spiny palms. They have a ridiculously long, extended rachis covered in claws used to clamber up into the taller understory trees. Ok, it's pretty cool that a 15 meter tall palm tree can have a dbh (diameter at breast height) of less than a centimeter, but they grab, pull, cut, and tear with no provocation.

Bad: the leeches. Actually, on the first day in the park I was very careful. I tucked pants in my socks, checked frequently, and all day saw nothing. I was going even higher on the mountain the next day, so I was lax, and only back at my room noticed the ring of blood stains on my lower pant legs. Sure enough, right above the top of my sock line were three bleeding bites. In the shower and then for over an hour afterward, they continued to slowly bleed, as the leech saliva has a powerful anticoagulant. I never felt or even saw the buggers -- they obviously have a good anesthetic too.

Good: The rigorous 4-km hike up to the Layang Layang shelter early in the morning, with my lifer Blyth's Shrike-Babbler (recently reclassified as a member of the vireo family), and mixed flocks in the mossy forest. A Mountain Treeshrew was also pretty cool.

Not so good: I didn't see or hear the Friendly Bush-Warbler or Island Thrush, but I knew my chances were not so great here. They're a good reason to come back some time and hike in from Mesilau.

Bad: the hordes of hikers coming back from doing the whole climb to the mountain peak at dawn (another 2-3 km straight up), especially heaps of noisy (even singing loudly) older Koreans. The many young German backpackers were quiet in comparison. You have to pay a lot of money to reserve your spot, hire a guide, and stay in the shelter the night before to get an early start. You don't want to hike this mountain in the afternoon.

Astounding: Walking the Kilau View trail lower in the park (essentially deserted, as nearly all tourists are here to hike to the peak or just say they were in the park and saw the peak), and bumping into my friend Bill Talbot from Albuquerque. He had been on the road for months, mostly doing research for his doctoral thesis in the Kalahari, and had added a few weeks in Borneo to help out some of his colleagues doing similar bird physiology work here (from the University of Montana -- I saw their survey flagging and net lanes everywhere). I think I blogged about Bill's helping me out on the rugged Pine Canyon area on the Atascosa Highlands Christmas Bird Count three or four years ago. What a trip. I also met three of the biotechs (Ed, Tori [?], and a local guy whose name I didn't get) and the project leader Andy, all of whom were really nice and offered helpful birding info.

Really fun: all the fabulous moths at the lights each night at my hotel. I'll have to post a full gallery some time. Especially interesting was the extremely high diversity of pyraustine crambids; I'm used to seeing two or three simple ones in places like Peru or Costa Rica, but here there would be ten or more, some quite ornate.

Meh: Most of the bird songs here are rather uninteresting, either being dull or extremely high pitched, or both. The White-browed Shortwing does do a favorable impression of Winter Wren, and the gradual increase in volume is a nice touch, though it stops short and is still ridiculously high-pitched. Standing out as good songsters on the other hand were the duets of Red-breasted Partridge and Bare-headed Laughingthrush, but it wasn't like the haunting dawn choruses of Australia or Africa.

Very cool: Things named after Whitehead that I did see -- Whitehead's Spiderhunter, missed by many birders, and the adorable Whitehead's Pygmy-Squirrel. It's like an abbreviated chipmunk with the ear tassels of an Abert's Squirrel.

Even cooler yet: The several species of little squirrels that thought they were birds, running through the undergrowth and the canopy keeping up with mixed flocks of warblers, babblers, and laughingthrushes. I had never heard of such a thing, but the association was instantly obvious. And then there it was, stated in the Mammals of Borneo field guide that they do just that.

Now to the hot and humid tropical elevations of the Danum Valley in eastern Sabah. I made a week's reservation at the Field Centre, but I'm not at all prepared to know how to cover the place, let alone how to identify any of the birds I will see and hear. I've been told three days is a good amount of time to get the specialties of the area, so I'm hoping six full days will give me a good foothold.

Captions to the photos:

One of the more spectacular pyraustine crambid moths at my hostel.

The nasty, grabby rachis of one of the spiny palms.

A Mountain Treeshrew feasting on some noodles apparently upchucked by a hiker overcome with exhaustion on the hike up Mount Kinabalu. My camera battery died, so this is with my low-quality phone camera.

A view of the mountain with my hostel Mount Kinabalu Holiday Home ($10/night) in the foreground.

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Sent with my iPad

Departing Scene From Lombok

This was the morning scene from my two-star hotel in Batu Leong, Lombok, just before my ride to the airport arrived yesterday. That's Gili Nanggu behind the fisherman, where I did some snorkeling the afternoon before. The fish were amazing.

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Sent with my iPad

Last Days on Lombok

I'm on my way home after three interesting days in SW Lombok. I tried reaching a tract of remnant lowland forest, but it's very hard to get to. So I touched on the edges, mostly birding in secondary forest and scrub, and still having a good time. A serious effort to access the Batu Gendang forest reserve would take perhaps two full days of on-site planning and asking around, a day to get there, and then some camping. Another trip, probably for someone else.

But I did see some great things, perhaps most exciting an Orange-footed Scrubfowl; while known to locals, it had gone unreported by the ornithological community for over 100 years. There were no 20th century records.

Another good rarity to confirm from near Bangko-Bangko and even in poor habitat at Mekaki was Cinnamon-banded Kingfisher. I got recordings and even managed a digibinned image.

I spent the past two nights in the little Hindu village of Batu Leong, birded near Mekaki Beach by hiring a moped and driver, and spent an afternoon snorkeling at Gili Nanggu. It was great.I made friends with Madek from the hotel and his little friend Ketut.

Lombok Post Number One

Well, Borneo was amazing, and I had a daily series of blog posts all queued up to send out as emails to share my experiences. I had no Internet for a week, and on my way to Lombok, connected to the wifi signal at the Kuala Lumpur airport, and all my posts (plus a few other emails I had in the Draft box on my iPad) vanished without a trace. I might find time to rewrite (and therefore relive) some of them, but not any time soon, sorry.

I'm so lucky to be counted among Andrew Broan's friends. It's really a special group of people from tithe most diverse backgrounds who have gathered here at his friend Scott's luxury boutique hotel on the tropical coast of this little Indonesian island for his 50th birthday. There are guests from Shanghai, Hong Kong, Paris, New Zealand, New York, San Fancisco Bay Area, and of course Tucson. Andrew and Scott have four full days of activities planned for us, with plenty of time to relax as well.

Yesterday a sizeable chunk of the group took an excursion by boat to Gili Air ("Water Cay") for some amazing snorkeling. We rode out in three boats with outriggers.

Here's a view from the main island looking NW to the "Three Gilis."

Most of the group that went, with the birthday boy front left.

For this morning Andrew organized a 60-km, 3 1/2-hour bicycle ride starting at dawn,going up the coast and back over Monkey Pass. It was a beautiful ride and a great workout. Eight out of the 30 or so present took part. The pass is well named as I saw about 100 monkeys (I think they are Long-tailed Macaques) all along that part of the road. Not many birds, but at one stop I saw my lifer Pale-headed Munias and Lesser Coucal. Andrew impressed me once again by already knowing that the larger swifts overhead were Edible-nest Swiftlets, something no one else here knew. Oh, and last night I saw and recorded the recently-described (like three months ago) Rinjani Scops-Owl just across the street from the resort. It's the only species of bird endemic to the island. The resort grounds are stunningly beautiful but too manicured for much bird diversity.

Qunci Villas, Senggigi, Lombok

Borneo Blog: Three Days at Mount Kinabalu National Park

I finally got to Borneo, after about 60 hours of travel, with one night on the plane, another in a Hong Kong hotel, and the third in the Kuala Lumpur LCCT airport terminal. I hit the ground running and have just finished my first 3 1/2 days of birding the highlands at Mount Kinabalu, a national park right on the main highway just a couple hours from the city. Walking the roads and trails each day, I covered bewteen 8 and 12 miles in search of the endemics. It weighs on me that I missed Whitehead's Trogon (they are on nests now, so it's the worst time of year to see them), but I also saw a lot and can't complain.

The photos below include: a view of the mountain as the day's cloud buildup burns off, just one of the scads of gorgeous moths at the lights of my hostel ($10/night, just a km walk from the national park), one of the many poorly maintained trails during one of the two solid afternoons of rain, a Little Pied Flycatcher, a pitcher plant (the pitcher is an extremely highly modified tip of an extension of the leaf), and  a tiny example one of the few orchids I've seen in bloom; Borneo, especially the highlands here, is ridiculously rich in orchid species.

The Magical Morass

Here’s a total of some great birds from our less than two hours at the Elim Pools of the Upper Black River Morass yesterday evening:

Spotted Rail: 1 heard

Yellow-breasted Crake: 2 heard, 2 seen

Masked Duck: 1

West Indian Whistling-Duck: 11

Caribbean Martin: 1

All great birds, most often missed on this tour. The martin was perhaps the biggest surprise, since they have become so scarce on the island in recent years (none since 2009 for me). The Yellow-breasted Crakes had been seen by some groups recently, but they are always very difficult – I’ve seen it on only 3 of my previous 13 tours here. Thanks to John Parmeter’s great eyes and fierce persistence (it was one of his most wanted birds), we saw one foraging along the marsh edge not far away, then running when another came along and chased it. Two were also calling on the opposite side of the channel but in dense vegetation where nothing could be seen.

Other fun birds here were Purple Gallinule, Least Bittern, Osprey, Northern Shoveler, Northern Jacana, Limpkin, and Barn Owl.

West Indian Whistling-Ducks

Purple Gallinule

Masked Duck

Today was our last day, and with short work of a Grasshopper Sparrow a few minutes’ drive from Marshall’s Pen, we had seen all extant endemic species and subspecies of birds known from Jamaica, the first time I’ve ever done that. Plain Pigeon and Greater Antillean Elaenia are the two most difficult (recorded only on 3 and 4 tours, respectively); only once before I heard the pigeon and saw the elaenia on the same tour.

A couple shots from Marshall’s Pen this morning:

The endemic Jamaican Mestra

Vervain Hummingbird in the garden just a couple feet from me. It’s supposedly the world’s second-smallest hummingbird, after Cuba’s Bee Hummingbird. But considering individual variation in size, I’ll bet one could find a small Vervain smaller than a very large Bee Hummer, don’t you think?

I might be a bit quiet here on my blog for some time, as I’m about to embark on a completely different sort of trip in a couple days. With just one full day at home for post-tour work and last minute shopping, I leave for Sabah, Malaysia on the island of Borneo, where I’ll be birding and recording bird songs on my own for 13 days. It will take 3 full days to get there, and once there I’ll split my time between Mount Kinabalu and the Danum Valley (with also a quick stop in Sepilok, if there’s time). Then after Borneo, I’m headed to the Indonesian Island of Lombok where I’ll help celebrate Andrew Broan’s 50^th birthday for several days.