Melaka okay, now that I have some internet time, I shall continue with my story: After Taman Negara (where I saw tapirs....just reminding you) I had given myself a couple of spare days to go to Melaka. If you are old like me, or have some older books, you may know this town better as Malacca. Its about two hours south of Kuala Lumpur. The reason I was going there was partly because I can't stand KL and partly because I wanted to visit the Melaka Zoo. So I took the earliest bus from Kuala Tahan (at Taman Negara) to the Pekeliling bus station in KL. I didn't know where the buses to Melaka left from but a helpful taxi driver told me it was from the TBS station and it would only cost me 50 Ringgits to get there. Surely there's some other form of public transport there, I said, but no apparently taxi was the only possible way. As soon as he said that I knew there was another way, so I went into the train station next door and got a train there for 1.70. The TBS station (or in full, Terminal Bersepadu Selatan) was completely unexpected after the low-tech Pekeliling -- there were touch-screens to buy your tickets, coffee shops, and departure lounges....it was more like an airport than a bus station! Melaka turned out to be an exceptionally nice little town, far superior to Kuala Lumpur. Plus it has a maritime museum inside a giant ship. I found a very nice backpackers called Le Village (er, situated in Chinatown) where a single room was only 20 Ringgits. My plan for Melaka was to visit the zoo, visit the Butterfly Park which despite its name also contains a good variety of vertebrates, and also visit a place I'd recently found out about called the Air Keroh Hutan Rekreasi (that's "Recreational Forest" in English). When I had flown into the KL airport from Bali en route to Taman Negara I had found a free glossy A4-sized booklet on birding sites in Malaysia. It was a magnificent find and it made me question why New Zealand doesn't do the same at its airports. Then I remembered that birdwatching isn't socially acceptable. Anyway, in the booklet I discovered this Hutan Rekreasi which was apparently abundant in birdlife and situated just outside Melaka by the A'Famosa Resort. As it turned out the booklet was a bit misleading in its directions (well, plain wrong in fact) but fortunately I got that sorted out in the backpackers before actually going out and getting lost. Ayer Keroh is a district nowhere near A'Famosa and in fact the Recreational Forest is almost opposite the Melaka Zoo which was nothing if not handy. The next morning I took a bus to the forest, which was as it happened also the Botanic Gardens. I can't say I found too many birds there at all -- only common tailorbird was new for the trip-list -- although there were a lot of squirrels (Low's, slender and plantain), and then I got distracted by a Dinosaur Park. Sadly none of the dinosaurs were alive, only statues. It was getting a bit hot by late morning, so I walked down the road to the zoo. I have been to a lot of really bad zoos in Asia, but the Melaka Zoo isn't one of them. My review of the zoo is here: Melaka Zoo Forums (and photos in the gallery) I was flying to Perth the next day from KL but the flight wasn't till midnight so I still had most of the day free. In the morning I went to the Butterfly Park, which is just up the road from the zoo. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say I tried to go to the Buttterfly Park. It was a bit confusing how on the way there there were signs for the Butterfly Park pointing to the left, to the right, and straight ahead. The bus driver dropped me where he was turning off into a side-road and said the Butterfly Park was just up the highway a little way. The map on the park's leaflet showed it right before the toll gates. It wasn't there. I scratched my head a little, then asked some nearby people. They didn't know what I was talking about. I walked back down the highway and found a sign for the park pointing up a side-road. That road just lead to another highway. I spent about an hour wandering around aimlessly trying to find the place then just gave up and caught a bus back to Melaka. The KL airports are halfway between KL and Melaka, and there are buses straight there from either town. I had a ticket for the last direct bus from Melaka Sentral to the airport. It was leaving at 2.50pm, although the ticket itself said 3pm. I'd been told I needed to be at the station at 2.30. All very simple. I left the backpackers in plenty of time and waited for a bus from there to Melaka Sentral. One came by...and didn't stop. That was annoying, but its alright because they go every half an hour and it should only be ten minutes to get to the station. Waiting, waiting, waiting....Eventually a bus arrived, I jumped on, and off we went, but not straight to Melaka Sentral, instead on a slow crawl around the city and because I didn't have a clue where I was I didn't know how long it was going to take. Not that it mattered anyway because eventually my watch ticked past 2.50. Ten minutes later we arrived at Melaka Sentral. I was hoping the bus would be leaving late but I wasn't holding my breath, and curiously I wasn't really all that bothered anyway because it would be (or should have been) a simple matter to get another bus to KL and then a bus from there to the airport and still arrive in plenty of time for the midnight flight. Nevertheless I made a bit of a dash for the stop my bus would be at, and quite surprisingly it was still there. I got on and off we went. What a boring story. See, this is how cruisy things became since leaving Indonesia -- I have to pad out my blog with a tale about almost missing a bus!!! Oo-er, as they would say in Beano.
Apologies if this is a joke that I'm not getting, but is birdwatching really not popular in New Zealand? I know many people who have gone to New Zealand primarily as a birding destination (and hope to get there at some point myself).
Of all the words in the English language, "boring" would be the last I'd choose to describe your account of your journey. It's been a joy to read from start to end. A couple of questions, if you don't mind:- When did Sumatran rhino disappear from Taman Negara, and iis there any word of them still surviving in peninsular Malaysia in viable numbers? And what's the position for the three bigger cats (tiger, leopard, clouded leopard)? Thanks again for your time and effort. Have you ever had anything published?
there are probably still some rhinos in Taman Negara, but no more than a handful and none anywhere near the parts of the park where tourists go. I think the last survey at the park (at least the last one I know of) was in 2003 or 2004 and while they didn't obtain any camera-trap photos of rhinos they did find a few footprints. A report in 2005 stated that the rhino was now extinct in one of its former peninsular strongholds, Endau Rompin, through poaching, and official estimates of the total population on the peninsula were put at 80 to 100 (which to me sounds much too high). As for tigers, apparently they are doing relatively well there. A three year survey from 1998 to 2001 estimated between 70 and 112 tigers in Taman Negara, and found no evidence of poaching (of any animals, not just tigers). Leopards are common -- in fact one was seen at the tapir hide not long before my stay there; and they have been seen right by the village there as well. Clouded leopards seem to be still fairly common. On the wall of the HQ they have some framed photos from camera traps, one of which is a clouded leopard; when I asked how often they are seen I was told "sometimes".
Perth, Western Australia My plane from KL touched down in Perth at the entirely reasonable hour of 5.10am. The first bird I saw was a magpie-lark on the airport runway (this is what I call an "airport bird" -- the first species seen from the plane when entering a new country/state). This was my first time in Western Australia and I was looking forward to seeing a lot of new birds and mammals. I was staying at my brother's place (where there were red-tailed black cockatoos in a tree outside the window!) so I didn't need to worry about accommodation, but of my two weeks in WA I would only be in Perth for a few days. First stop, naturally, was the zoo, of which my little review is here: http://www.zoochat.com/24/perth-zoo-visit-october-2011-a-243233/ (and photos in the gallery). Apart for the captive animals at the zoo, another species there that I was supposed to be looking out for, but forgot to, was the five-lined palm squirrel from India. These aren't in cages, they are wild in Perth. They were released by the zoo back in 1898 and have been living and breeding in the area ever since. The zoo released kookaburras at the same time and they were even more successful -- all the kookaburras all over Western Australia descend from the zoo's releases. The rainbow lorikeets all over Perth are also introductions from the east, but this time by the University of Western Australia (or so I was told); now they are considered a pest and a possible threat to the native purple-crowned lorikeet. Anyway, I completely forgot to look out for squirrels and instead caught a bus over to Lake Monger to look for ducks. Lake Monger is a small roundish lake surrounded by lawns which are popular with cyclists and dog-walkers. The lake itself is popular with ducks and also the oblong snakeneck turtle which is endemic to Western Australia. Most of the waterfowl found in WA occur around Lake Monger and I saw most of them quite easily. There were a couple missing but I'll find them some other time. There are also great crested grebes on the lake which was nice. The next day I had been planning on going to Lake Herdsman, just by Lake Monger, because its better for birds, but I had been reminded about the squirrels and also been told that there were bottlenose dolphins living in the Swan River which flows through Perth. These are IndoPacific bottlenose dolphins, smaller than regular bottlenoses (about six foot or so), and more of an inshore species. Apparently they are common in the river and easily found. Sounded good to me. I borrowed my brother's bike and went searching. First stop was a golf course just along the road from the zoo where the palm squirrels are regularly seen. There were none. I went to the river and cycled along it for a few hours where the dolphins are regularly seen. There were none. Feeling like the King Of Fail, I drowned my sorrows in birds at King's Park, a big expanse of bushland in the heart of Perth. This is a great place. I even managed to find western gerygone, which was good because this little bird is a common western endemic and if I'd failed to find it, well, that would have been truly tragic. Feeling better, I returned to the river and cycled along its banks to Pelican Point. There's a viewing platform here overlooking a small lagoon reputed to be good for watching waders. Not so good now though because trees have grown up between the platform and the lagoon making the water all but invisible. However there's a scout building or something like that next to it from which the river can be watched (although the lagoon is still mostly hidden). An osprey flew past and a couple of pied stilts foraged in the shallows. There was something on the far side of the river and when I checked it out through the binoculars I realised it was a dolphin. I couldn't see much because it was so distant and it was really just a dorsal fin appearing and disappearing, but it was still a dolphin. Keeping my binoculars trained on the far side of the river, I was musing on whether I should count this as a sighting. I mean, I knew it was an IndoPacific bottlenose because it couldn't be anything else but at the same time I couldn't really see much. Suddenly there was a splashing in the water right in front of me and I took my eyes from the binoculars to see a dolphin literally ten feet away, right at the beach! Now that one counts! The dolphins here do tend to hunt right along the shore in very shallow water, but they move fast and continuously. I grabbed the bike and took off after it, basically following it all the way along the river. Sometimes there was one dolphin, sometimes a whole group, but I never managed to get any good photos because they were just too fast and unpredictable with their surfacing. Brilliant afternoon though, and later when checking my photos I realised that what I had thought was a little plastic ball or something similar which the dolphin was playing with was actually a small pufferfish, blown up into a globe, being used as a throw-toy (photo in the Australian Wildlife gallery). Before calling it a day I returned to the golf course by the zoo and, what do you know, I found two palm squirrels in a bottlebrush tree. Two new mammals in one day is always good, especially if I haven't even left the city.
Another nice report. Strange to read about Great Crested Grebe in WA; my walk to London Zoo when I worked there as a volunteer took me through Regent's Park, and I quite often saw one on the lake. Dolphins weren't quite as common..
I also enjoy seeing crested grebes because the subspecies down in my part of the world (australis) is not at all common. The NZ population is only a few hundred and almost all of them breed on mountain lakes -- I'm pretty jealous of being able to see them floating around on city lakes with the mallards like you can in London! The Australian population is more common than that of NZ but there's still not a lot of them and they're only found down in the south of the country. They are more conducive to spotting than the NZ ones though, as I found out in Perth.
They're even more laid back in Amsterdam, where they can be seen nesting on canals yards away from houseboats. The bird of Regent's Park, though, is the Grey Heron. A wild heronry has been on one of the lake islands for about forty years, and the birds are bolder than anywhere else I've ever seen them in Britain. They're quite frequently seen inside the Zoo; heaven knows why the latter don't make more of them. Lord's Cricket Ground is about fifteen minutes' walk away from the Zoo. I remember once, about a dozen years ago, seeing a bird flying slowly across the ground from the Park early during the day's play. Some time close to the final over, once again a heron flew over the ground, this time in the opposite direction. I like to think it was the same bird, a commuter retracing his steps after a hard day's fishing...
Dryandra Woodlands There were really only two places I was visiting while in Western Australia, Dryandra Woodlands and Cheyne Beach. Both are birdy spots, and Dryandra has the added attraction of numbats. The reason for only going to two places was due to limited time and more importantly because I travel by bus and in WA you can't get anywhere interesting on a bus. They run between the main centres and will stop at towns along the highway routes but anywhere else you're out of luck. Still, I never let little things like that stop me. I had organised my stay at the Lions Village at Dryandra, and the caretakers there, John and Lisa, had kindly agreed to pick me up from the nearest bus stop in Cuballing. They have been the caretakers there for eight years and I was only the second person to need a pick-up: that's how unusual it is for travellers here to be without a car. They also loaned me a bicycle to get around the woodland while I was staying there. I honestly can't say enough good things about Dryandra; it was simply a fantastic place to stay. The cottages there are, despite fooling me with their excellent state of preservation, actually the original cottages from the late 1920s/early 1930s when the Lions Village was a real working village of wood-cutters. A lot of history there and I won't bore you with it all but definitely worth a bit of googling to find out about. My cottage (Magpie) was only $30 per night and was fully-equipped with fridge, freezer, stove, cooking utensils, wood-burner, air-conditioning, shower, everything! Now that's value for money! Most people visiting Dryandra are birders, followed by wildflower enthusiasts, and then mammal and reptile watchers. I was sort of a bit of everything but the main animal I was after was the numbat, a marsupial equivalent of the anteater which feeds solely on one species of termite which itself feeds solely on one type of eucalyptus tree. Australia is the home of picky eaters. Numbats used to be found across most of the southern half of Australia, there were probably millions of them, but within less than a lifetime they have been reduced to two tiny populations of a few hundred animals. Even at their stronghold of Dryandra the population has recently crashed; I think the statistic I was told was that the population there is now equivalent to just one every hundred hectares. If you imagine a shy little animal the size of a squirrel that lives on the ground amongst fallen timber and you're cruising around trying to see one on the off-chance that it will be near the road when you're passing by you can probably see the odds. I didn't see any. Most of the mammals at Dryandra are so rare as to be impossible to see, apart for western grey kangaroos and brush-tailed possums. I had seen my first western grey kangaroo on the road out of Perth. To be strictly accurate it was only half a western grey kangaroo and it was dead, but beggers can't be chosers. At Dryandra real live ones are common around the village at night, as are the possums which here have white tail brushes instead of black like in the rest of the country. Tammars and western brush wallabies are supposed to be common but I didn't see a single one which was very unusual. I went on a trapping run with John which enabled me to see a woylie (brush-tailed rat-kangaroo in layman-speak); again, these used to be common -- in fact some fairly recent books note that they can reliably be found right around the Lions Village at night -- but all the populations have now collapsed. John and Lisa were also hand-raising a baby quenda (aka southern brown bandicoot) which was one of the cutest things ever. There's a small fenced enclosure at Dryandra called Barna Mia where some hand-raised marsupials live so people can see them on night tours. The species in here are woylie, boodie, mala, quenda and bilby. Translations from Lewis Carol are brush-tailed rat-kangaroo, burrowing rat-kangaroo, rufous hare-wallaby, southern brown bandicoot and, um, bilby. I'd seen the woylie at Perth Zoo and in the live-trap earlier, but for all the others it was first time. They don't count as wild sightings of course but they are fabulous animals and for the first time I saw why rat-kangaroos are called rat-kangaroos -- they actually do look like giant hoppy rats. So mammal-watching had rather disappointing results, and it was a tad too early for reptiles (I only saw a couple of stumptail skinks and a couple of reticulated velvet geckoes), so it was up to the birds to come to the rescue. Australian ringneck parrots were all over the village, I saw a few elegant parrots and western rosellas out in the bush, and I finally found a red-capped parrot, so ridiculously colourful that it looks like someone gave a little kid a box-full of paints and told him to go nuts. The scientific name of the species is spurius so I guess its colours were considered a little suspicious even when first discovered. Among many birds of somewhat more subdued colouring there was the rufous treecreeper which for some reason prefers the ground to trees, and the white-crowned babbler which in a nice change from the skulking Asian babblers hops around in the open in groups so you can't possibly miss it. The red-capped robin kept up its end in the colour show, but it was competing with the blue-breasted fairy wren. There are 119 species on the Dryandra bird list, 23 of which are rarely-occurring species (including barking owl, which I unexpectedly saw one of during the daytime when it flushed from under a bush and flew into a tree where it sat glaring at me); I saw 49 species while there, so roughly half the total. Good for me I say. I was at Dryandra Woodlands for four nights which wasn't nearly long enough and I must go back. The main reason is because I still need to find a numbat. My obsessive nature means the numbat is my new Flores giant rat and I will not rest till I have found one. Well I might rest a little because it will be a while before I get back there. Hopefully the population will pick up before I try again. As the state mammal of WA it would be a pretty poor show if the government allowed the numbat to become extinct! I also found out whilst there that thorny devils live at Dryandra so a summer visit is definitely in order, and even more excitingly -- turtle frogs!! You probably haven't heard of a turtle frog, few people have, but they are very weird turtle-shaped frogs that live more or less entirely underground and feed on termites. I have no idea how you would go about trying to find one, but it is the frog at the top of my list of frogs I want to see (along with hairy frog and goliath frog).
Albany and Cheyne Beach Next stop after Dryandra Woodlands was Cheynes Beach Caravan Park at Cheyne Beach (note the lack of an S), which is a fixed point in the itinerary of birders visiting Western Australia, largely because here you can supposedly find three extremely devious endemic birds called the noisy scrub-bird, western bristlebird and western whipbird. Not only are they devious but its quite likely they don't even really exist, having been dreamed up by government tourism departments to fleece foolish birdwatchers of their money. As I said in the previous blog its well-nigh impossible to get anywhere in WA with public transport. Getting from Cuballing (by Dryandra) to the southern town of Albany is easy enough, but then from there to Cheyne Beach about 67km distant is a bit of a thinker. The owners of the caravan park weren't too helpful in this regard when I was booking, simply saying a taxi would cost about $120. I didn't really want to pay that much money, no matter how many noisy scrub-birds were involved, so when I got to Albany I went into the Info Centre to see if they had any info and managed to sort out a free lift out there with some people heading that way. I can't say I was particularly enamoured of the Cheynes Beach Caravan Park. My two weeks in Western Australia coincided exactly with the school holidays and the caravan park was full of yobbo redneck Australian families. For $32 I got a square of grass to pitch my tent on. I thought back to Dryandra and wished I was there. Looking on the bright side, there were brush bronzewings wandering around the campground, as well as splendid and red-winged fairy wrens. I never saw the former, and the latter looked very much like the blue-breasted fairy wrens of Dryandra. The kangaroos were much friendlier here though. There were sleeping boxes hung up for pigmy possums but they appeared to be unoccupied, or at least no possums showed themselves when I was waiting. There's no forest at Cheyne Beach, mostly just low thick heath growing on sand. The birds like to stay inside the heath, only occasionally popping up to the surface to catch a breath of fresh air. How anyone actually sees birds there I have no idea. Its like sneaking around with binoculars inside your house trying to see the birds that are lurking under the floorboards. Then when a bird does pop up to the top of a bush it becomes like Whack-A-Mole, trying to guess where a bird will appear, then get your binoculars onto it, focus, and try to identify it, all in about one-tenth of a second. That's right, its impossible. There are birds flying around, its true, but they're all honeyeaters. Basically if you can see a bird its a New Holland honeyeater. Don't even bother looking at it because I've just told you what its going to be. The bird I was particularly interested in at Cheyne Beach was the noisy scrub-bird. It was discovered in 1842 south of Perth but only a handful of specimens were collected in the next fifty years and by the end of the 1800s it was generally considered to have become extinct. Why anyone would care I don't know, its pretty boring. But anyway, it was unexpectedly rediscovered in 1961 at Two Peoples Bay just outside Albany (also, interestingly enough, the site of the rediscovery of another "extinct" animal, Gilbert's potoroo which is a type of rat-kangaroo; dibblers were also rediscovered in the general area after being thought extinct). The recovery programme for noisy scrub-birds has gone quite well and now they number about 1000 or so and have been moved around to some more sites, including Cheyne Beach. There's a dirt track just near the caravan park where a bird or birds seems to be seen regularly in the morning crossing from one side to the other. I dutifully headed over there in the morning and took up a position where I could see both branches of the track at the same time. While focussing the binoculars a southern brown bandicoot scuttled across the road right through my field of view which was an excellent start -- I'd been looking for them at Dryandra where they are rare and around the caravan park site where apparently they are common. So I'm standing there for maybe twenty minutes, and I'm starting to think that this was really stupid, just standing there hoping a small bird is going to run across the track in front of me. And then one ran across the track in front of me. The annoying thing was that it was so fast that I never even got a good look at it beyond that it was a brown hoppy bird. I waited, not actually expecting a repeat performance, but after just five minutes the bird went back the other way, paused in the middle of the track and then again at the edge, so I did get a good look at it. I kept waiting and it reappeared briefly at the edge but didn't come out. A flock of red-eared firetail finches dropped onto the road, a beautiful little bird that I had wanted to see, and then another western endemic -- white-breasted robin -- turned up, followed not long after by another bandicoot which spent some time foraging along the side of the track. I was going to keep waiting to see what else showed itself but then a group of about ten birders appeared at the far end of the track on the sealed road and huddled in a cluster staring towards me through their binoculars and scopes waiting for the scrub-bird. It was an uncomfortable place to be so I left, looping round the other way back to the road because I didn't think they'd appreciate me walking straight up the path they were hoping the scrub-bird would appear on! From the road the huddle of birders looked absolutely ridiculous staring en masse through their lenses at something that wasn't even there, and its no wonder people mock birding when you see something like that. I'm so glad I bird alone and not in tours. I went down to tell them there'd been a bird there half an hour ago, just to give them some hope, but they just acted snooty in an American sort of way (can Americans even act snooty, or is that the preserve of the British?). I guess it takes all types. I returned to Albany, getting a lift back with a woman from the caravan park in exchange for having helped her put her tent up. Once back at the backpackers there I got hold of a bicycle and cycled out to Lake Powell Nature Reserve which is about 10km west of town. In an older book I have its called the Lake Grasmere Nature Reserve. The sign is set back from the road as if they want to keep the place hidden. Apparently it works because it doesn't look like anyone has been to the hide for a long time. The track and boardwalk to the hide is overgrown and the hide itself is pretty unkempt. The water was high though so there were no waders and apparently the ducks don't like the place either because there were few of them. I did finally manage to see some splendid wrens, the blue-ist bird on the planet -- probably the blue-ist anything on the planet that isn't man-made. I cycled back to Albany and took the Marine Drive Scenic Walk to Lake Seppings. There were uncountable numbers of huge black King's skinks along the way (more fingers than I have anyway and that's about as high as I can count). Mammal of the day was a New Zealand fur seal lolling on an offshore rock. It may seem strange seeing a New Zealand fur seal in Australia but the species is found in both countries and a recent paper makes the case that they're actually South American fur seals anyway. The water level at Lake Seppings was too high as well and there weren't many birds around, but there were lots of oblong snakeneck turtles and also a tiger snake. The tiger snakes in WA are glossy black with bright yellow bellies. When I saw the first one at Cheyne Beach I thought it must be a yellow-bellied black snake (a name which I cannot say without wanting to add "sleeping on a red rock, waiting for the stranger to go") but it turns out that yellow-bellied black snakes are an inland species and don't look like that. I had been hoping to find some Albany pitcher plants while at one of the lakes but the water levels were too high. The Albany pitchers are really interesting little plants, not related in any way to the Asian Nepenthes but superficially similar. The coolest thing is that there is a species of fly found only in association with the pitchers which mimics ants, to the extent that it has lost its wings entirely. The fly larvae live inside the pitchers feeding on the insect corpses inside. Another species I was hoping for in Albany was a possum called the western ringtail which is endemic to WA. It feeds on the leaves of the peppermint tree which is likewise endemic. The possums are particularly common around Albany apparently. I had spent one night in Albany before Cheyne Beach but it was pouring down so I didn't go out, but I had found a nice bit of forest near the backpackers in which half the trees were peppermint trees. So on this night I went out searching. I figured it would take about five or ten minutes. A forest filled with peppermint trees in a town filled with ringtail possums. How could I possibly fail? I failed. I truly am the king of wildlife spotting. But I have to come back to WA anyway to find the Flores giant numbat, so I'll get the ringtail then. I'm ever-optimistic; hope springs eternal; etc etc.
Rottnest Island One of the best things about Perth is that there's an island right off the coast full of quokkas. There's an island off Cheyne Beach full of quokkas too but no-one's allowed on there (that's Bald Island, which is also full of Gilbert's potoroos). A quokka is a type of little wallaby, once common on the western mainland but now largely exterminated by foxes and cats. They were first seen by Europeans in 1658 when Samuel Volkerssen, skipper of the Dutch ship Waeckende Boey (which looks like it translates as "Weekend Boy" -- exactly what sort of cruise was this?), spotted some on Rottnest Island. He thought they were a kind of civet, which sounds a bit odd but they actually do have a pointy civet-y sort of face, even if the hoppiness isn't exactly a distinguishing feature of civets. They were next recorded in 1696 by another Dutchman, Willem de Vlamingh, who thought they were giant rats, again not a bad guess if it weren't for the hopping. But it was de Vlamingh who gave Rottnest Island the name it still holds today in slightly changed form -- Rattenest is Dutch for "rat nest". Its not all that cheap getting to Rottnest Island but its a bit hard to see a quokka otherwise. There's also the added bonus of some nice birds. Some of those were on the boat trip across to the island with a couple of albatrosses being sighted, likely to be yellow-nosed albatrosses but I didn't see them well enough to tell for sure. I hired a bicycle to get around the island for a ridiculous $27. The bike hire shop on Rottnest is apparently the largest in the Southern Hemisphere, said to have 13,000 cycles. It opens at 8.30am -- why it doesn't time its opening for the arrival of the first ferry escapes me -- and it closes at 4pm. You have to have the bike back by 3.30. Their 24-hour hire period thus becomes 7 hours. You might think 7 hours would be plenty but for a while I didn't think it would be: I was on the island for three hours before I saw my first quokka! Seriously. No wonder I couldn't find any numbats at Dryandra if I can't even find quokkas on Rottnest! All was well though because after spending the day not seeing quokkas, at around 3pm I found absolutely loads of them coming out to feed. And that's right about when I dropped my camera and broke it. D'oh. At least it was on the last day of the trip. Quokkas are the only land mammal on Rottnest but there are lots of birds, especially waders around the salt lakes in the centre of the island. The birds I mostly wanted to find were rock parrots, red-necked avocets and banded stilts. Rock parrots are supposed to be common here. Couldn't find any. I think the avocets might be visitors rather than residents. Either way I couldn't find any. But banded stilts I did find. There was a sign there that said they form huge "rafts" on the water but the ones I saw were more like a small flock and then some other scattered individuals. They look much like the regular pied stilt really, just with less black on them. Somehow they seemed much more attractive though. Banded lapwings were also new for me. There are quite a few reptiles on the island as well, including King's and stumptail skinks. I was hoping to see a dugite which is a venomous snake, but no luck there. A nice day all up, but I'm not sure if the cost of getting to Rottnest is really worth it for just a day-trip. I think staying on the island -- and there's ample accommodation there -- would make it a more profitable trip and you'd have a lot more freedom and time to look for the wildlife. I must do that next time I think.
Melbourne -- end of trip! I had an overnight stop in Melbourne on the way back to New Zealand. The plane got in around midday, and after dropping my stuff at a backpackers I got myself over to the Melbourne Zoo where I met up with local Zoochat member CGSwans for a couple of hours. I haven't been to the Melbourne Zoo since 2007 and I really do need to go back again for a proper revisit. There wasn't time to go round the whole zoo this day so we basically just saw the bits that interested me most, namely the Treetop Walk, Platypus House (where the platypus was very active, and was fed on mealworms when we were in there; a most inefficient feeder is the platypus when faced with a handful of mealworms!), Reptile House, Frog House, the new Southern Oceans complex (which looked very nice but somewhat out of place in contrast to the rest of the zoo and with a lot of seemingly wasted space), the new coatis (well, one of the new coatis; and very big it was too!), and finally the new baboon enclosure which was excellent. CGSwans gave me the useful tip that there were little blue penguins and Australian water rats at St. Kilda, so after we parted company I took a tram over to the pier at St. Kilda beach where a breakwater made of boulders has been colonised by the penguins. There are 1000 of them living there now. Most of them come up at night of course to their burrows, but there are also quite a few sitting in amongst the rocks in the daylight hours. I waited around till dusk and saw two water rats, one in the rocks which didn't show for long, and the other actually hunting along the boulders, diving for prey and bringing it up onto the rocks to eat (their favourite food would be starfish, if the remains on their dinner tables are anything to go by!). I've seen water rats in the wild before (well, one anyway, in Tasmania in 2007), but they are fascinating creatures and a fitting mammal to end the trip with.
For people who like lists of things seen, here are some lists of things seen! (Species that were new for me are in bold) BIRDS: (333 spp - how's that for a perfect number?!) Southern crested grebe Podiceps cristatus - Australia Eurasian little grebe Tachybaptus ruficollis - Flores Australian little grebe Tachybaptus novaehollandiae - Australia Little blue penguin Eudyptula minor - Australia Bulwer's petrel Bulweria bulwerii - Komodo Australasian gannet Morus serrator - Australia Australian pelican Pelecanus conspicillatus - Australia Australian darter Anhinga novaehollandiae - Australia Black shag Phalacrocorax carbo - Australia Pied shag Phalacrocorax varius - Australia Little pied shag Phalacrocorax melanoleucos - Australia Little black shag Phalacrocorax sulcirostris - Australia Great white egret Egretta alba - Australia Intermediate egret Egretta intermedia - West Timor Eastern reef heron Egretta sacra - Komodo White-faced heron Ardea novaehollandiae - West Timor; Australia Purple heron Ardea purpurea - Sulawesi Great-billed heron Ardea sumatrana - Komodo Cattle egret Bubulcus ibis - Sulawesi; West Timor Javan pond heron Ardeola speciosa - Sulawesi; Flores Nankeen night heron Nycticorax caledonicus - Australia Australian white ibis Threskiornis molucca - Australia Straw-necked ibis Threskiornis spinicollis - Australia Black swan Cygnus atratus - Australia Australian shelduck Tadorna tadornoides - Australia Australian wood duck Chenonetta jubata - Australia Mallard Anas platyrhynchos - Australia Pacific black duck Anas superciliosa - Flores; Australia Grey teal Anas gracilis - Australia Chestnut teal Anas castanea - Australia Australian shoveller Anas rhynchotis - Australia White-eyed duck Aythya australis - Australia Blue-billed duck Oxyura australis - Australia Musk duck Biziura lobata - Australia Osprey Pandion haliaetus - Australia Australasian harrier Circus approximans - Australia Australian black-shouldered kite Elanus axillaris (formerly E. notatus) - Australia Black-winged kite Elanus caeruleus - West Timor Wedge-tailed eagle Aquila audax - Australia Brahminy kite Haliastur indus - Sulawesi; Flores; Komodo; Malaysia White-bellied sea eagle Haliaeetus leucogaster - Flores; Komodo; Australia Crested serpent-eagle Spilornis cheela - Malaysia Sulawesi serpent-eagle Spilornis rufipectus - Sulawesi Blyth's hawk-eagle Spizaetus alboniger - Malaysia Green junglefowl Gallus varius - Komodo; Flores Crested fireback pheasant Lophura ignita - Malaysia Purple gallinule Porphyrio porphyrio - Australia Common coot Fulica atra - Australia Dusky moorhen Gallinula tenebrosa - Australia Banded rail Rallus philippensis - Australia Barred rail Gallirallus torquatus - Sulawesi Australian pied oystercatcher Haematopus longirostris - Australia Sooty oystercatcher Haematopus fuliginosus - Australia Red-capped dotterel Charadrius ruficapillus - Australia Greater sand plover Charadrius leschenaulti - Australia Banded lapwing Vanellus tricolor - Australia Far-eastern curlew Numenius madagascariensis - Komodo Red-necked stint Calidris ruficollis - Australia Common sandpiper Actitis hypoleuca - Komodo Ruddy turnstone Arenaria interpres - Australia Australasian pied stilt Himantopus leucocephalus - Australia Banded stilt Cladorhynchus leucocephalus - Australia Beach thick-knee Esacus neglectus - Komodo Australian pratincole Stiltia isabella - West Timor Pacific gull Larus pacificus - Australia Silver gull Larus novaehollandiae - Australia Caspian tern Sterna caspia - Australia Great crested tern Sterna bergii - Komodo; Australia Feral pigeon Columba livia - Malaysia; Australia Flores green pigeon Treron floris - Flores Rose-crowned fruit dove Ptilinopus regina - West Timor Red-eared fruit-dove Ptilinopus fischeri - Sulawesi Black-naped fruit-dove Ptilinopus melanospilus - Flores Green imperial pigeon Ducula aenea - Komodo; Malaysia White-bellied imperial pigeon Ducula forsteni - Sulawesi Grey-headed imperial pigeon Ducula radiata - Sulawesi Brown cuckoo-dove Macropygia amboinensis - Sulawesi Barred cuckoo-dove Macropygia unchall - Flores Emerald (Green-winged) dove Chalcophaps indica - Flores; Komodo Common bronzewing Phaps chalcoptera - Australia Brush bronzewing Phaps elegans - Australia Spot-necked dove Streptopelia chinensis - Komodo; Flores; West Timor; Malaysia; Australia Island collared dove Streptopelia bitorquata - Flores Laughing dove Streptopelia senegalensis - Australia Zebra dove Geopelia striata - Malaysia Barred dove Geopelia maugei - Komodo; Flores; West Timor Red-tailed black cockatoo Calyptorhynchus banksii - Australia Carnaby's (Short-billed white-tailed) black cockatoo Calyptorhynchus latirostris - Australia Lesser sulphur-crested cockatoo Cacatua sulphurea - Komodo Galah Cacatua (Eolophus) roseicapilla - Australia Red-cheeked parrot Geoffroyus geoffroyi - Flores Golden-mantled racquet-tailed parrot Prioniturus platurus - Sulawesi Australian ringneck Barnardius zonarius - Australia Western rosella Platycercus icterotis - Australia Red-capped parrot Purpureicephalus spurius - Australia Elegant parrot Neophema elegans - Australia Rainbow lorikeet Trichoglossus haematodus - Australia Purple-crowned lorikeet Glossopsitta porphyrocephala - Australia Horsfield's bronze-cuckoo Chrysococcyx basalis - West Timor Gould's bronze-cuckoo Chrysococcyx russatus - West Timor Oriental cuckoo Cuculus saturatus - Flores Rusty-breasted cuckoo Cacomantis sepulcralis - Flores (Australian) koel Eudynamys scolopacea cyanocephala - Komodo Black-bellied malkoha Phaenicophaeus diardi - Malaysia Chestnut-breasted malkoha Phaenicophaeus curvirostris - Malaysia Raffles' malkoha Phaenicophaeus chlorophaeus - Malaysia Lesser coucal Centropus bengalensis - Sulawesi Short-toed coucal Centropus rectunguis - Malaysia Barn owl Tyto alba (or Tyto javanica if split) - Malaysia Barking owl Ninox connivens - Australia Moluccan scops owl Otus magicus - Flores Wallace's scops owl Otus silvicola - Flores Asian house swift Apus nipalensis - Malaysia; Sulawesi Fork-tailed swift Apus pacificus - Bali; Malaysia Sulawesi swiftlet Collocalia (Aerodramus) sororum - Sulawesi Edible-nest swiftlet Collocalia (Aerodramus) fuciphaga - Flores Glossy (White-bellied) swiftlet Collocalia esculenta - Sulawesi; Flores Cave swiftlet Collocalia linchi - Bali Scarlet-rumped trogon Harpactes duvaucelii - Malaysia Black-backed kingfisher Ceyx erithacus - Malaysia White-rumped kingfisher Caridonax fulgidus - Flores Common kookaburra Dacelo novaeguineae - Australia Sacred kingfisher Todiramphus sanctus - Flores; Australia Collared kingfisher Todiramphus chloris - Sulawesi; Komodo; Flores; West Timor White-throated kingfisher Halcyon smyrnensis - Malaysia Rainbow bee-eater Merops ornatus - Flores; West Timor; Australia Red-bearded bee-eater Nyctyornis amictus - Malaysia Purple-bearded bee-eater Meropogon forsteni - Sulawesi Red-knobbed hornbill Rhyticeros (Aceros) cassidix - Sulawesi Buff-necked woodpecker Meiglyptes tukki - Malaysia Buff-rumped woodpecker Meiglyptes tristis - Malaysia Sunda pigmy woodpecker Dendrocopos moluccensis - Flores Banded woodpecker Picus miniaceus - Malaysia Green broadbill Calyptomena viridis - Malaysia Black and red broadbill Cymbirhynchus macrorhynchus - Malaysia Banded pitta Pitta guajana - Malaysia Garnet pitta Pitta granatina - Malaysia Elegant pitta Pitta elegans - Flores Noisy scrub-bird Atrichornis clamosus - Australia Australian bushlark Mirafra javanica - Flores West Australian pipit Anthus novaeseelandiae bilbali - Australia Paddyfield pipit Anthus rufulus - Flores Welcome swallow Hirundo neoxena - Australia Pacific swallow Hirundo tahitica - Malaysia; Sulawesi; Flores Barn swallow Hirundo rustica - Sulawesi Tree martin Hirundo nigricans - Australia Black-faced cuckoo-shrike Coracina novaehollandiae - Australia Pale-shouldered cicadabird Coracina dohertyi - Flores Pigmy cuckoo-shrike Coracina abbotti - Sulawesi White-shouldered triller Lalage sueurii - Sulawesi; West Timor Scarlet minivet Pericrocotus flammeus - Flores Little minivet Pericrocotus lansbergi - Flores Yellow-vented bulbul Pycnonotus goiavier - Malaysia Cream-vented bulbul Pycnonotus simplex - Malaysia Red-eyed bulbul Pycnonotus brunneus - Malaysia Spectacled bulbul Pycnonotus erythropthalmos - Malaysia Sooty-headed bulbul Pycnonotus aurigaster - Sulawesi; West Timor Grey-bellied bulbul Pycnonotus cyaniventris - Malaysia Yellow-bellied bulbul Alophoixus phaeocephalus - Malaysia Ochraceous bulbul Alophoixus ochraceus - Malaysia Hairy-backed bulbul Tricholestes criniger - Malaysia Buff-vented bulbul Iole olivacea cryptus -Malaysia Asian fairy bluebird Irena puella - Malaysia Greater leafbird Chloropsis sonnerati - Malaysia Blue-winged leafbird Chloropsis cochinchinensis - Malaysia Tiger shrike Lanius tigrinus - Malaysia Long-tailed shrike Lanius schach - West Timor Orange-sided thrush Zoothera peronii - West Timor European blackbird Turdus merula - Australia Sulawesi thrush Cataponera turdoides - Sulawesi Oriental magpie-robin Copsychus saularis - Malaysia White-rumped shama Copsychus malabaricus - Malaysia White-crowned forktail Enicurus leschenaulti - Malaysia Pied chat Saxicola caprata - Flores; West Timor Malia Malia grata - Sulawesi Chestnut-winged babbler Stachyris erythroptera - Malaysia White-chested babbler Trichastoma rostratum - Malaysia Ferrugineous babbler Trichastoma bicolor - Malaysia Sulawesi babbler Trichastoma celebense - Sulawesi Rufous-crowned babbler Malacopteron magnum - Malaysia Scaly-crowned babbler Malacopteron cinereum - Malaysia Sooty-capped babbler Malacopteron affine - Malaysia Striped tit-babbler Macronous gularis - Malaysia Large wren-babbler Napothera macrodactyla - Malaysia Malaysian rail-babbler Eupetes macrocercus - Malaysia White-browed babbler Pomatostomus superciliosus - Australia Russet-capped tesia Tesia everetti - Flores Timor stubtail Urosphena subulata - West Timor Chestnut-backed bush-warbler Bradypterus castaneus - Sulawesi Australian reed warbler Acrocephalus australis - Australia Sulawesi leaf-warbler Phylloscopus sarasinorum - Sulawesi Flores leaf-warbler Phylloscopus floris - Flores Mountain tailorbird Phyllergates cucullatus - Sulawesi Common tailorbird Orthotomus sutorius - Malaysia Dark-necked tailorbird Orthotomus atrogularis - Malaysia Golden-headed cisticola Cisticola exilis - Flores Splendid wren Malurus splendens - Australia Blue-breasted fairy wren Malurus pulcherrimus - Australia Red-winged fairy wren Malurus elegans - Australia Southern emu-wren Stipiturus malachurus - Australia White-browed scrubwren Sericornis frontalis - Australia Western gerygone Gerygone fusca - Australia Plain gerygone Gerygone inornata - West Timor Golden-bellied gerygone Gerygone sulphurea - Sulawesi Western thornbill Acanthiza inornata - Australia Inland thornbill Acanthiza apicalis - Australia Yellow-rumped thornbill Acanthiza chrysorrhoa - Australia Yellow-vented whistler Pachycephala sulfuriventer - Sulawesi Fawn-breasted whistler Pachycephala orpheus - West Timor Golden whistler Pachycephala pectoralis - Flores; Komodo; West Timor; Australia Bare-throated whistler Pachycephala nudigula - Flores Rufous whistler Pachycephala rufiventris - Australia Yellow-flanked whistler Hylocitrea bonensis - Sulawesi Grey shrike-thrush Colluricincla harmonica - Australia Western yellow robin Eopsaltria griseogularis - Australia White-breasted robin Eopsaltria georgiana - Australia Red-capped robin Petroica goodenovii - Australia Scarlet robin Petroica boodang - Australia Northern fantail Rhipidura rufiventris - West Timor Asian pied fantail Rhipidura javanica - Malaysia Spotted fantail Rhipidura perlata - Malaysia Willy wagtail Rhipidura leucophrys - Australia Brown-capped fantail Rhipidura diluta - Flores Grey fantail Rhipidura albiscapa - Australia Rusty-breasted fantail Rhipidura teysmanni - Sulawesi Arafura fantail Rhipidura dryas - Flores; West Timor Black-naped monarch Hypothymis azurea - Flores; Malaysia Asian paradise flycatcher Terpsiphone paradisi - Flores; Malaysia Spectacled monarch Monarcha trivirgata - West Timor Flores monarch Monarcha sacerdotum - Flores Broad-billed flycatcher Myiagra ruficollis - West Timor Restless flycatcher Myiagra inquieta - Australia Flores jungle-flycatcher Rhinomyias oscillans - Flores Jacky Winter (Brown flycatcher) Microeca fascinans (formerly M. leucophaea) - Australia Yellow-rumped flycatcher Ficedula zanthopygia - Malaysia Black-banded flycatcher Ficedula timorensis - West Timor Snowy-browed flycatcher Ficedula hyperythra - Sulawesi Little pied flycatcher Ficedula westermanni - Sulawesi; Flores Island verditer flycatcher Eumyias panayensis - Sulawesi Pale blue flycatcher Cyornis unicolor - Malaysia Mangrove blue flycatcher Cyornis rufigastra - Sulawesi Timor blue flycatcher Cyornis hyacinthinus - West Timor Blue-fronted flycatcher Cyornis hoevelli - Sulawesi Citrine flycatcher Culicicapa helianthea - Sulawesi Black-winged flycatcher-shrike Hemipus hirundinaceus - Malaysia Large woodshrike Tephrodornis gularis - Malaysia Great tit Parus major - Flores; Komodo Varied sitella Daphoenositta chrysoptera - Australia Rufous treecreeper Climacteris rufa - Australia Striated pardalote Pardalotus striatus - Australia Golden-rumped flowerpecker Dicaeum annae - Flores Thick-billed flowerpecker Dicaeum agile - Flores; West Timor Yellow-sided flowerpecker Dicaeum aureolimbatum - Sulawesi Black-fronted flowerpecker Dicaeum igniferum - Flores Red-chested flowerpecker Dicaeum maugei - West Timor Crimson-crowned flowerpecker Dicaeum nehrkorni - Sulawesi Grey-sided flowerpecker Dicaeum celebicum - Sulawesi Mountain white-eye Zosterops montanus - Sulawesi; Flores Black-ringed white-eye Zosterops anomalus - Sulawesi Yellow-spectacled white-eye Zosterops wallacei - Flores Yellow-bellied white-eye Zosterops chloris - Sulawesi Ashy-bellied white-eye Zosterops citrinellus - West Timor Silvereye Zosterops lateralis - Australia Crested dark-eye Lophozosterops dohertyi - Flores Yellow-browed dark-eye Lophozosterops superciliaris - Flores Streak-headed dark-eye Lophozosterops squamiceps - Sulawesi Thick-billed dark-eye Heleia crassirostris - Flores Purple-naped sunbird Hypogramma hypogrammicum - Malaysia Olive-backed sunbird Nectarinia jugularis - Sulawesi; Komodo Flame-breasted sunbird Nectarinia solaris - Flores; West Timor Crimson sunbird Aethopyga siparaja - Sulawesi Little spiderhunter Arachnothera longirostra - Malaysia Grey-breasted spiderhunter Arachnothera modesta - Malaysia Western spinebill Acanthorhynchus superciliosus - Australia Streak-breasted honeyeater Meliphaga reticulata - West Timor Singing honeyeater Lichenostomus virescens - Australia Yellow-plumed honeyeater Lichenostomus ornatus - Australia White-eared honeyeater Lichenostomus leucotis - Australia Bell miner Manorina melanophrys - Australia Red wattlebird Anthochaera carunculata - Australia Greater Sulawesi honeyeater Myza sarasinorum - Sulawesi Lesser Sulawesi honeyeater Myza celebensis - Sulawesi Sulawesi myzomela Myzomela chloroptera - Sulawesi Black-chested myzomela Myzomela vulnerata - West Timor Scaly-crowned honeyeater Lichmera lombokia - Flores Indonesian honeyeater Lichmera limbata - West Timor Brown honeyeater Lichmera indistincta - Australia Yellow-eared honeyeater Lichmera flavicans - West Timor New Holland honeyeater Phylidonyris novaehollandiae - Australia White-cheeked honeyeater Phylidonyris nigra - Australia Western white-naped honeyeater Melithreptus chloropsis - Australia Brown-headed honeyeater Melithreptus brevirostris - Australia Helmeted friarbird Philemon buceroides - Flores; Komodo Timor friarbird Philemon inornatus - West Timor White-fronted chat Ephthianura albifrons - Australia Red-eared firetail Emblema oculatum - Australia Zebra finch Taeniopygia guttata - West Timor Black-faced munia Lonchura molucca - Flores Scaly-breasted munia Lonchura punctulata - Flores White-bellied munia Lonchura leucogastra - Malaysia Black-headed munia Lonchura malacca - Sulawesi Five-coloured munia Lonchura quinticolor - West Timor Timor sparrow Padda fuscata - West Timor House sparrow Passer domesticus - Australia Tree sparrow Passer montanus - Malaysia; Sulawesi; Flores; West Timor; Bali Fiery-browed starling Enodes erythrophris - Sulawesi Finch-billed starling Scissirostrum dubium - Sulawesi Short-tailed (Lesser glossy) starling Aplonis minor - Flores; West Timor Common starling Sturnus vulgaris - Australia Javan mynah Acridotheres javanicus - Malaysia Common mynah Acridotheres tristis - Malaysia; Australia Timor figbird Sphecotheres viridis - West Timor Dark-throated oriole Oriolus xanthonotus - Malaysia Black-naped oriole Oriolus chinensis - Sulawesi; Komodo; Flores; Malaysia Greater racquet-tailed drongo Dicrurus paradiseus - Malaysia Crow-billed drongo Dicrurus annectans - Malaysia Hair-crested drongo Dicrurus hottentottus - Sulawesi Sulawesi drongo Dicrurus montanus - Sulawesi Wallacean drongo Dicrurus densus - Flores; Komodo Magpie-lark Grallina cyanoleuca - Australia Dusky woodswallow Artamus cyanopterus - Australia Black-faced woodswallow Artamus cinereus - West Timor Ivory-backed woodswallow Artamus monachus - Sulawesi White-breasted woodswallow Artamus leucorynchus - Komodo; Flores; West Timor Grey currawong Strepera versicolor - Australia Australian magpie Gymnorhina tibicen - Australia Black magpie Platysmurus leucopterus - Malaysia Crested jay Platylophus galericulatus - Malaysia House crow Corvus splendens - Malaysia Piping crow Corvus typicus - Sulawesi Flores crow Corvus florensis - Flores Large-billed crow Corvus macrorhynchos - Komodo Australian raven Corvus coronoides - Australia MAMMALS: (37 spp) Short-beaked echidna Tachyglossus aculeatus - Western Australia Southern brown bandicoot Isoodon obesulus - Western Australia Western grey kangaroo Macropus fuliginosus - Western Australia Quokka Setonix brachyurus - Western Australia Woylie (Brush-tailed bettong) Bettongis penicillata - Western Australia Brush-tailed possum Trichosurus vulpecula - Western Australia Sulawesi dwarf cuscus Strigocuscus celebensis - Sulawesi Sulawesi fruit bat Acerodon celebensis - Sulawesi Black fruit bat Pteropus alecto - Sulawesi Large flying fox Pteropus vampyrus - Komodo and dozens of unidentified micro-bat species..... Dusky langur Presbytis obscurus - Melaka Zoo grounds White-thighed langur Presbytis siamensis - Taman Negara Crab-eating macaque Macaca fascicularis - Flores Moor macaque Macaca maura - Sulawesi White-handed gibbon Hylobates lar - Taman Negara Greater tree-shrew Tupaia glis - Melaka Zoo grounds European rabbit Oryctolagus cuniculus - Western Australia Australian water rat Hydromys chrysogaster - Melbourne (Australia) Dark-tailed tree rat Niviventer cremoriventer - Taman Negara Flores Giant Rat Papagomys armandvillei - Flores and several unidentified rats and mice Plantain squirrel Callosciurus notatus - Taman Negara Sunda black-banded squirrel Callosciurus nigrovittatus - Taman Negara Grey-bellied squirrel Callosciurus caniceps - Taman Negara Slender squirrel Sundasciurus tenuis - Taman Negara Low's squirrel Sundasciurus lowii - Taman Negara Sulawesi dwarf squirrel Prosciurillus murinus - Sulawesi Five-lined palm squirrel Funambulus pennanti - Western Australia Three-lined ground squirrel Lariscus insignis - Taman Negara Southern right whale Eubalaena australis - Western Australia IndoPacific bottlenose dolphin Tursiops aduncus - Western Australia Leopard cat Prionailurus bengalensis - Taman Negara Common palm civet Paradoxurus hermaphroditus - Taman Negara New Zealand fur seal Arctocephalus forsteri - Western Australia Rusa Cervus timorensis - Komodo Asian wild pig Sus scrofa - Taman Negara Bearded pig Sus barbatus - Taman Negara Malayan tapir Tapirus indicus - Taman Negara REPTILES: Komodo dragon Varanus komodoensis - Komodo Water monitor Varanus salvator - Peninsula Malaysia Heath (Rosenberg's) monitor Varanus rosenbergi - Western Australia various unidentified flying dragons Draco spp - Indonesia Eastern water dragon Physignathus lesueurii - Melbourne (Australia) Reticulated velvet gecko Oedura reticulata - Western Australia Tokay gecko Gecko gekko - Indonesia various commensal geckoes I haven't got round to ID-ing yet Stump-tailed skink Tiliqua rugosa - Western Australia King's skink Egernia kingii - Western Australia lots of unidentified skinks throughout Reticulated python Python reticulata - Flores Painted bronzeback Dendrelaphis pictus - Taman Negara White-bellied racer Zaocys fuscus - Taman Negara Tiger snake Notechis ater - Western Australia Russell's pit viper Daboia russelli - Komodo and a few other snakes unidentified Green turtle Chelonia mydas - Komodo Oblong snakeneck Chelodina oblonga - Western Australia AMPHIBIANS: Black-spined toad Bubo melanostictus - Sulawesi White-spotted burrowing frog Heleioporus albopunctatus - Western Australia various other species as yet unidentified