More ancient history, poorly illustrated with scanned slides of dubious quality and heavily reliant on half-forgotten memories. If that works for you read on ...
Introduction. Nick
Preston and I decided to visit Malaysia for five weeks in summer 1987. We were inspired by a detailed report of a
trip to Sabah by Graham Speight, Mick Turton and Richard Rowland who had spent
several weeks there in spring of the previous year. I’d been to Peninsular Malaysia before but
the closest Nick had been was Nepal. A
lot of new and exciting birds awaited both of us and we set off with a feeling
of anticipation. We flew with Singapore
Airlines from London to Kuala Lumpur via Singapore arriving after dark on 21
July. We found a quiet place at the
airport and attempted to get some sleep, not very successfully, ahead of our
early morning Malaysian Airlines flight to Kota Kinabalu. We arrived in Kota Kinabalu and immediately bought
tickets on the next flight to Sandakan.
This went smoothly although coming into land it was quite depressing to
see how far out to sea silt from the rivers was being carried. Almost certainly the result of substantial
forest clearance up-river.
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Field Guides in 1987 were not always what one might have hoped for, the best thing to be said for this one was that it truly was pocket sized |
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flying over a silt discharging river on the way to Sandakan |
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Sandakan |
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the entrance to Sepilok, our home for the next week |
Sepilok (22-28
July). At Sandakan
we got a local bus to the turn off to Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation
Centre. We walked the 3 miles down to
the Headquarters where we arrived mid-morning.
We persuaded someone in authority to let us stay in a room in the Field
Centre for a week or so, we would have had to camp otherwise and were pleased
not to need the tent. The Field Centre
had three double rooms and a kitchen which was equipped with a stove and
cooking utensils. Our room even had a
fan - luxury. The only downside was
there were no shops in the immediate vicinity, and in our haste to get to the
forest we’d not thought to stock up with supplies in Sandakan. It wasn’t an immediate problem as we had a few
‘emergency’ packets of biscuits and dried fruit & nuts so we headed into
the forest. We birded the Waterfall
Trail seeing Diard’s Trogon, Rufous Piculet, Orange-backed Woodpecker and
Grey-chested Jungle Flycatcher. Early
afternoon Nick decided to go into town to but some supplies. I can’t remember if I offered to go too,
probably not(!), but he was happy doing it.
I stayed in the forest, not seeing an awful lot in the heat of the day
to be honest. I stayed out until dark, a bit concerned not to have seen Nick on
the trail, so was quite relieved to find him back in our room. He’d had a successful shopping trip, got back
with an hour of light left, wandered along the trail and virtually walked into
a male GIANT PITTA!! Probably my most
wanted bird, I couldn’t believe it.
I looked
for the pitta the next morning to no avail, perhaps surprising as it turned
out, and we then concentrated on the Mangrove Trail seeing 4 Black-throated
Wren-Babblers and a Blue-eared Kingfisher.
Another couple of days mainly on the Mangrove Trail produced Storm’s Stork, Red-bearded
Bee-eater, Black-backed and Blue-eared Kingfishers, Grey & Buff and Great
Slaty Woodpeckers, Black & Red Broadbill (new for Nick ‘what’s this amazing barbet’, amazing
indeed), White-crowned Forktail and Striped Wren-Babbler. Despite the latter we were not seeing many
ground birds and I’d not seen a single pitta.
Some periods of heavy rain were making the forest damp and there were
few dry leaves for them to rustle in, at least that was my excuse.
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a window into more open forest at Sepilok |
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trialing a new one-way system, Orang Utans down on the left, squirrels up on the right. No guesses which was moving the fastest |
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Bornean Gibbon |
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Teledu |
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On our fourth
day I headed down the Mangrove Trail again, I was concentrating on it as it was
where Graham Speight et al had seen
Blue-headed Pitta. I’m not sure why,
perhaps I’d heard something subconsciously, but at about 08:00 I suddenly
became extremely tense. I froze but
couldn’t see or hear anything. I took a
couple of small steps forward and noticed a slight movement of a large pitta
shaped bird behind vegetation just off the trail about 10m away. I don’t think the second it takes to raise my
binoculars has ever felt so long but what seemed like a lifetime later I was
looking at a male Giant Pitta. Was it
good! An amazing bird, it took a big hop
a bit more into the open and slowly turned its head to look at me. Another big hop and it looked at me again and
then it crossed the trail in a couple of bounds and was gone. It had been on view for about a minute but I
was completely mesmerized. My
inclination was to rush back and tell Nick, but he was going down the Waterfall
Trail and it might takes ages to find him so I continued on my way. I was walking on air and probably not being
very alert, although I did see a Black & Yellow Broadbill, a very confiding
pair of Chestnut-breasted Partridges and three Black-throated Wren-Babblers. On my return I saw the male Giant Pitta
again, at 17:50 just off the trail in the same area as before. Brilliant, but the day was not over as about
ten minutes later a female Giant Pitta was on the trail near the seat, in about
the same area Nick had seen the male four days previously.
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Pitta plate from the Pocket Guide. Giant Pitta are 2a (male) and 2b (female). My focus now switched to Blue-headed Pitta (3a and 3b). |
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the end of the Mangrove Trail |
Returning
to the area the next day I saw the female near the seat at 07:00 and Nick’s
original male at 18:00. As we had
suspected there appeared to be a pair in the area, hopefully taking turns
sitting on a nest. It also seemed very
likely that the male I had seen on the Mangrove Trail was different as it was
about a mile away. We were also
regularly seeing Great Slaty Woodpeckers in the area and discovered a nest hole
that they were visiting. August seemed
to be the middle of the nesting season, at least for some species. I saw the male Giant Pitta by the seat the
following day at about 07:00 and 18:00, the last sighting from the ‘bridge’. Two minutes later a Black & Crimson Pitta
was bathing in the stream near the seat – it looked very small compared to the
Giant! Another great day but we had now
been at Sepilok for a week and still not found Blue-headed Pitta so we decided
to head for Gomantong where they had also been seen.
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White-crowned Shama demonstrating how poor the light was for pre-digital photography |
At Sepilok we
also spent time in the first clearing near the entrance and on the Tree
Platform looking for Bristleheads but it was generally unproductive although we
did see White-fronted Falconets regularly near the former and Black &
Yellow Broadbill and Black Magpie from the latter. Before we left for Gomantong one session on
the Tree Platform was enlivened by the visit of a one-armed Orang Utan. It appeared from nowhere and grabbed my water
bottle from the seat beside me, held it in one foot, took the top of and tipped
the water into its mouth, extending its lower jaw to do so. As the Orang only had one arm I felt I could
outwit it by offering a biscuit in the hope of grabbing the bottle back when it
put it down. The Orang wasn’t so easily
fooled, held the bottle in its foot again, took the biscuit which it decided
was too salty (it was a Cheddar, part of my food supplies from UK) and
attempted to dip it into the water but as the opening was too small rather
scrunched it in. The Orang then tried to
take a bite out of the water bottle while I told it off and Nick was rolling
around with laughter. Another biscuit
worked and I grabbed the bottle back, an amusing episode once my bottle was
recovered and the bite mark found to be cosmetic. Almost a badge of pride and I was sorry
several years later when the water bottle finally had to be replaced. On our return to Sepilok we saw the Orang
climbing up the side of a massive tree trunk, its one arm seemed to put it at
no disadvantage at all. And to think I
was contemplating a tug of war with it over my water bottle. There would only ever have been one winner
there.
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canopy view |
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an immaculate Black & Yellow Broadbill, but they all are |
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Scarlet Minivet |
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a visitor to the Tree Platform |
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she soon made herself at home |
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with my water and biscuits |
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although it was hard to be cross with her for long |
Gomantong,
Sepilok and Kota Kinabalu (29 July-3 August). We were on
the main road soon after it was light and got an early bus back into Sandakan where
we bought some supplies and made for the waterfront. From there we caught the mid-morning ferry,
the Express Mahjur, across the bay to Suan Lamba, which took about 90
minutes. We hitched a lift with a truck
going to the Forest HQ, very handy as the last part was three miles down a dirt
track and by now it was very hot.
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Sandakan Harbour |
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on board the Express Mahjur |
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leaving Sandakan |
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our hut by the headquarters at Gomantong |
At
Gomantong we were given an empty room in a nearby hut to sleep in but to say it
was basic was an understatement – it had absolutely nothing in it at all, no
electricity and no windows. We put
mossie nets up inside and spread our stuff out.
We were keen to get into the forest, so much so that I wasn’t paying
enough attention crossing a wooden bridge over a ditch and stood on the end of
a plank which broke. I fell and caught
my lower leg on the next plank causing a very deep painful gash which bled
profusely. It eventually stopped but
left a permanent scar. The first bird we
saw when we got to the forest was a Black & Crimson Pitta and I had eight
sightings in the three days we were there.
Nick found a superb Chestnut-capped Ground Thrush, came to find me and
it was still showing when we got back, a brilliant bird. Later I wasn’t so lucky with a Red-legged
Crake that Nick saw but had disappeared before I could get back to it (teach me
to wander off so often). Fortunately we
were together when Nick found a female Chestnut-collared Kingfisher, although I
found it for myself the next day. Other
highlights at Gomantong were Bat Hawk (up to 5 in the air over the caves at
dusk), thousands of swiftlets (the cave was amazing but smelly), male and
female Red-naped Trogons, Chestnut-collared and Black-backed Kingfishers, Black
& Yellow and Green Broadbills and swarms of bats running the Bat Hawk
gauntlet at dusk. It had been a nice
couple of days but we were no closer to seeing Blue-headed Pitta which was now
becoming rather a concern.
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Black and Crimson Pitta was almost the first bird we saw at Gomantong |
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Green Broadbill |
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Chestnut-capped Thrush |
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millipede |
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Black and Crimson Pitta |
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overlooking the forest at Gomantong from above the bat caves |
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bats leaving Gomantong at dusk |
After a final morning
at Gomantong we walked out to the main road.
It was very hot carrying a rucksack.
We got a lift to Suan Lamba and slept on the ferry which left for
Sandakan before dawn the following morning.
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leaving Gomantong |
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dawn between Suan Lamba and Sandakan |
We were
soon back at Sepilok where we concentrated on the Waterfall Trail. The highlight was a pair of Bornean Wren
Babblers until, at 18:00, the male Giant Pitta was again by the seat. We had hoped to see Nigel Redman at Sepilok
as he was doing a recce with Simon Harrop ahead of a Birdquest tour but unbeknown to us they
had changed their plans. We left them a note at headquarters about the
Giant Pittas and a few other things but they never got it. In hindsight a note on the Tree platform
might have been better, provided an Orang Utan didn’t run off with it! We decided we needed a change of scenery, and
a bit of coolness, and hoped that Blue-headed Pitta might be more evident if we
returned a week or so later into our trip.
We got an early
bus into Sandakan on 2 August and then another to Kota Kinabalu, the later
taking 9-10 hours. The forest had been
cleared as far as the eye could see virtually the whole way through the
lowlands. Everything was trashed with occasional
tree stumps standing out above it. Very
distressing and it brought home where all the topsoil we’d seen being carried
out to sea had come from. It made
supporting the protection of rainforests my main conservation priority.
We arrived back
at Kota Kinabalu where a look around one of the parks produced Green Imperial
and Pink-necked Green Pigeons. The
following morning we visited the Tourist Office, Post Office, Singapore Airlines
(to reconfirm our flights) and the National Parks Office to book a stay at
Kinabalu. Both the last two felt like
unnecessary hassle, especially the latter as our bus had gone right past the
entrance to the National Park an hour or so before we got to KK the previous
afternoon.
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Kota Kinabalu |
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