LaughingDove Goes Travelling - SE Asia and Australia

At least I know with whom I will be doing nightwalks if both you and @Chlidonias are around

 

After how many attempts though?

Our esteemed friend LD is positively attracting them. I think he must have a stash of loris pheromones that he rubs on before he goes out at night!

 

I hadn't looked into the langur split at all, I'd just head that they'd been split and listed it, so I'll have to look into that later.

The loris split within Borneo did strike me as a bit odd but aren't the 'species' sympatric at the edge of the ranges? I don't think they integrade on a cline do they?
It's definitely a good split between the Bornean and Peninsula Malaysian slow lorises though isn't it?

 

Slow Loris pheremones and a high-powered spotlight sounds like a great night out to me!

It's the best way to find females (assuming it's female slow lorises you're looking for).

 

Slow lorises aren't generally regarded as tricky mammals to find. I think Chli's ratio of spotlighting hours per slow loris sighting is more unusual than mine.

Maybe lorises are just allergic to kiwis? I've heard that a kiwi allergy is a thing.

 

Relaxed Wildlife Watching at Sepilok

I started the morning with a slightly different approach and rather than going straight onto the canopy walkway, I decided to try birding the ground-level pathways because there were a couple of endemic babblers that I hadn't seen yet. It seemed to be a quieter birding morning anyway and I didn't find the babblers, but I did still find a few interesting things including a couple of endemics and Grey-headed Bulbuls which is a bird I've been looking at longingly in the field guide whenever I'm identifying nondescript brown bulbuls for something more interesting looking and they are nice birds. The field guide describes them as 'widespread but very scarce' anyway so that's good.

It was already getting hot when I went for breakfast but I went out again afterwards anyway because it doesn't get really blistering until about midday ish (after which point it's pretty pointless to be out until 4/5ish). There wasn't much around though, even before 9 still.

After lunch in the afternoon I had intended to pop around and visit the Bornean Sun Bear Centre and the Orangutan Centre (both hold captive animals, not countable for the wild list) but I decided I would rather just relax a bit that afternoon having had the day out yesterday and I have all day tomorrow and the next day still and I think I’ll visit those places tomorrow. It also occurred to me that I haven't had any rain in Sepilok at all and I haven't really had a storm since Bukit Fraser weeks ago. I thought this was supposed to be a rain forest? Certainly not complaining though, and I've probably jinxed it now. I also enquired about their laundry service but they want 10 ringgit per kilo which is an unjustifiable expense here because I am in a position where I can wash my own clothes here.

I started the afternoon birding with some Little Green Pigeons in the B&B grounds but there weren't so many birds around in the evening after that, apparently the lack of rain is making it stay extra hot and decrease bird activity, and I still haven't seen the supposedly common Black and Yellow Broadbills. But I did finally get a brief view of the "easily seen at the RDC" Bornean Pygmy Squirrel which is such a cool little squirrel and it is really tiny. A Bornean endemic too so one of the top mammals on my hit list.

It's really nice that I'm not sneaking around at night for the spotlighting, despite the 8PM restriction. And as a result of my, erm, persistence, or possibly stubbornness, with getting permission to go in at night, I am now very well known to all of the staff at the RDC. After dark I stayed on the canopy walk until later rather than going into the forest straight after dark and just after the Red Giant Flying Squirrels come out which was a good move because on a distant tree of the end of the walkway I found a Black Giant Flying Squirrel which is smaller than the red and, naturally, black. One of the information signs in the park actually suggests that Black Giant Flying Squirrels can be seen from the walkway coming out later than the reds. The signs do generally seem to be of top notch quality actually, from a zoo-nerd type perspective. I was hoping for an up close view of a slow loris from the walkway, but no such luck. Just a distant "I'm 90% sure this can only be a slow loris based on how the eyes are moving and what I can just about see of the animal but wouldn't count it as my first sighting" type view.

The other things of interest seen were a tickable Dusky Fruit Bat (there don’t seem to be too many similar megabats around so I’m confident with my ID, unlike the possible Dusky seen at Taman Negara) and something gliding over the path that I just saw out of the corner of my eye and couldn’t find in the trees. I think the most likely thing would be a Colugo, it didn’t seem very bat like, but I can’t be sure enough to count it. Still no tarsiers though, and speaking to the night tour guides, they’re not seen very often here. There were a few fireworks every now and again too which must be because today is the first day of Eid or Hari Raya Aidilfitri as it’s called here. (that’s the reason that I had to stay another night at Sepilok and only stay two nights instead of three at Kinabatangan, as I mentioned a couple of posts ago – the place I had booked closes for Eid but the person who made my booking a few months ago hadn’t realised – I’m still doing a 3 day 2 night standard tour at Kinabatangan, just not adding an extra day, so it’s fine. I like it here at Sepilok anyway, I could happily stay longer.)

Because this is not a very long post, I may as well write a bit about my spotlighting set up because I'm quite happy with the set up at the moment and it seems to be producing decent results. I've got three torches as well as my phone torch which is useful for looking in field guides. My weakest torch is just 70 lumens which is just about powerful enough to get obvious eye shine but it has the advantage of having a wind-up dynamo to charge it so I can potentially use it without electricity indefinitely. My two main torches are one 220 lumen one that I've used for ages with an adjustable beam to be focused or spread. I'm not sure what the manufacturer is, it says 'Light S7" on it. My final torch is my newest one bought especially for this trip. It's a Fenix UC30 which goes up to 1000lumens at max setting giving a central circle of 1000lm and a wider 200lm circle. It does get very hot at max power but can be used at lower power as well and it has a built in battery that is charged inside the torch and it seems to last a good length of time on one charge and maintain very high brightness for a long time before running out rather than slowly dimming. It's a really good, small, torch for spotlighting and water proof too in theory. Oh, and another advantage is that it charges through a USB cable and doesn't need a wall socket so I can charge it from the power bank that I have for my phone anyway.

Note: Just as I am about the post this, it has started raining absolutely torrentially. Like, having to shout to be heard because of the rain sounds on the roof torrential. I knew I’d jinxed it, and I didn’t even have to post anything. This is my first storm since Bukit Fraser though, which really is surprising. Hopefully this brings the temperature down a couple of degrees.


New birds seen:

Yellow-rumped Flowerpecker

Bornean Spiderhunter

Grey-bellied Bulbul

Grey-and-buff Woodpecker

Yellow-eared Spiderhunter

Fluffy-backed Tit-babbler

Plain Sunbird

Scarlet Minivet


Mammals:

Bornean Pygmy Squirrel

Black Flying Squirrel

Dusky Fruit Bat

 

Very jealous of that Stink Badger sighting.

 

Did you mean Grey-bellied?

And I know how challenging that can be!

I don't think the Phillips' book helps in this regard because the colours are a bit more garish than they should be.



Hix

 

Yep, meant to write Grey-bellied (actually, my phone just autocorrected that to Grey-headed which explains it. Odd).

 

You really can't trust these Chinese phones

 

Day Five at Sepilok: Orangutan and Sunbear Centres and More Wildlife

It did seem a bit cooler following the rain, although the birds didn't seem any more active and the only thing seen from the canopy walkway first thing in the morning was one of the resident Wallace's Hawk Eagles, as well as loads of Pig-tailed Macaques. Walking around on the trails though, I did find my first tree shrew on Borneo, a Large Tree Shrew. Given how many species there are present and how many are supposed to be common, I was expecting to see more. Large is a nice species to see though.

After breakfast I went back to the RDC for a bit more birding and I got a lovely view of a group of Bushy-crested Hornbills up close from the canopy walkway. A bit later, I found a patch of trees which for some reason had a large number of bird species just there and an odd assortment too with drongos, babblers, barbets, malkohas, and woodpeckers, as well as a Lesser Tree Shrew. It was still very hot, and largely bird dead with almost no birds seen at all for the next few hours, but a bit cooler than it had been and it 'only' got up to a max of 33/34 degrees. It's obviously still super-humid of course, but it is a tropical rainforest so that goes without saying.

I decided to have lunch at the café/restaurant at the RDC because it was open for once as I walked past. I popped back to my room briefly after lunch and then headed out to visit the Sun Bear and Orangutan centres. It's about 2km each way and I looked at a grab which was only RM4 but I decided I fancied the walk.

I went to the sun bear centre first and it has a rather attractive aquarium with native fishes at the entrance. The centre itself is 'just' an area of natural forest fenced off with raised walkways through it for the visitors, and bears roaming around in the forest below. Simple, but very effective. There was a wild endemic Bornean Brown Barbet around too which is nice. A great little place.

I then popped across the road to the Orangutan centre where they made me leave my bag in one of their lockers which I wasn't keen on (but what if I have a sudden and desperate need for a field guide???). Th place is an area of forest with boardwalks through it and orangutans roaming around with a feeding platform where they gather, especially at the set feeding times twice a day (I was there at the afternoon time, quite a lot of people there at the feeding time). I don't think it's fenced at all though at the orangs are free to roam in the whole Sepilok forest? But I believe they were all brought here and rehabilitated and released though so I don't think they're countable as wild. There are trails through the forest at the Orangutan centre too which is the same block of forest that the RDC is part of, but I can't really bird properly without the stuff in my backpack so it's kind of annoying that you can't take it in. I did still see a tree shrew which may have been a Slender but I'm not sure, as well as a Prevost's and a showy Bornean Pygmy Squirrel. The most surprising wild sighting there was a flock of Wrinkled Hornbills that flew past and it's a good thing I had looked at the ID features recently because without my field guide I wouldn't have been sure of wreathed/wrinkled hornbills. There's an elephant enclosure at the centre as well with presumably Bornean Pygmy Elephants but you can't actually go up to it and I didn't see it advertised anywhere so I'm not sure what that's about.

I'm pleased I popped around to see the two places, they are the main touristy things to see at Sepilok after all and they are zoo-type facilities, though at RM30 each they are relatively expensive by the standards of this trip. Not really that expensive in absolute terms though. It started raining as I was walking back, which sucked but oh well.

I sat out the rain for an hour or so and thought it might continue through the rest of the evening, but at about 5:30 it stopped raining heavily and was just lightly drizzling but still very ominously overcast indeed. So I did the sensible thing and called it a night and stayed dry. Oh no wait hang on, I didn't do that. There might be animals. Instead, I put my rain coat on, wrapped up my gear, and headed back to the RDC for the evening. I did finally hear a definite Black-and-Yellow Broadbill but I still haven't seen any of this 'most common and easily seen' bird. The thunder and heavy rain starting at sunset made me wonder if I was being a bit stupid to go spotlighting but last time I went spotlighting in a thunder storm turned out well so... though the fact that the official night walk (that had been paid for in advance with the guide there and ready to go) was cancelled suggests that it's not generally recommended.

Many mammal watchers claim that you can't spotlight when it's raining because the water droplets on leaves look like eyeshine. I think this is rubbish and an excuse made up by mammal watchers who don't want to get wet because unless you're looking for spiders, water droplets look nothing like eyeshine. In fact, the point at which you can't go spotlighting is when the rain is so heavy that the falling rain water causes the entirety of the 1000lm torch beam to be reflected directly back into your own eyes and not in front of you. At this point I sat the rain out a bit in one of the shelters that are throughout the park. Lots of cool frogs through, including one that looked like a fallen leaf. Really high frog diversity though I'm not going to be able to identify any of them. I think I give up with trying to do a year list of wild herptiles. At best I'm identifying 10% of the species I see.

The rain did die down a bit before my 8PM cut off, and the guard is more relaxed about 8-ish now anyway, so I went out again in the slightly less heavy rain. The rain did pretty much stop and the spotlighting was actually rather successful. First was a particularly good view of a slow loris in an exposed tree directly above me. Nothing like that first Bukit Fraser view, but I could see the body pattern and face pattern clearly and watched it for a while. I also got a few 'record shots' which are clearly recognizable as a slow loris though not great. I have a technique for photographing things that are directly above me at night with a spotlight now. I should probably patent it or something, but here it is for free: you hold the torch in your mouth and point your head directly up so gravity keeps the torch in and you have both hands free for the camera. Simples. The problem though is that moths and other night insects are attracted to extremely bright points of light so you mouth soon fills with moths and they completely cover your face and neck and chest which is not exactly conducive to photography to be honest, especially because some of them bite like hell and then they all go down into your shirt when you're done. Hmm, maybe I don't need to worry about my amazing technique being stolen.

I then got a bunch of cool sightings all in quick succession. First was a tree that was absolutely filled with Large Flying Foxes, then a Lesser Mouse deer right by the path that ran off, then I turned a corner and right by the path was a Malay Civet - not new because I saw one at Kumbang Hide in Taman Negara but new for Borneo, assuming no one has split them while I wasn't looking - and then just a bit further on was the biggest surprise of the night: a Bearded Pig! Just a single individual rooting around quite close to the path. There is an information sign about Bearded Pigs but I hadn't expected them in the RDC itself, just in the main forest block that the RDC is connected to, but what do I know. There really are Bearded Pigs, or rather at least one, in the RDC itself. I'll be darned.


New birds:

Pied Triller

Grey-chested Jungle-flycatcher

Red-billed Malkoha

Red-throated Barbet

Rufous Piculet

Bold-striped Tit-babbler

Bornean Brown Barbet

Wrinkled Hornbill



Mammals:

Large Treeshrew

Bornean Bearded Pig

 

Is this a buildup to your next Big Year post with the traditional "I know I said I wasn't going anywhere this year, but..." line?

 

Day Six of Sepilok Wildlife

There's wasn't much about in the morning but I did hear Bornean Gibbons calling. I'm hoping to actually see them at Danum. I also got my first leech at Speilok. I haven't been wearing my leech socks at all and hadn't encountered any leeches up to this point but the rain may have brought them out now. I was expecting more really. I did find another not-nondescript (descript?) bulbul: Black-and-white Bulbul, as well as a fruiting tree filled with Black Hornbills. Most odd though was a way overhead flyover by two White-bellied Sea Eagles extremely high above the forest flying past. An odd species to see here but nothing else as far as I can see has that tail shape, no particular long beak, and that pattern of white and dark on wings and body. I guess it's not that far from the sea here but still strange.

I've got into a routine now, morning birding, pop back for breakfast, then back into the forest while there's still some bird activity until lunch. Relax after lunch, then back in the evening for evening birds and spotlighting. I really could just spend weeks doing this, it's really relaxed and although the accommodation is more expensive than ideal, my overall costs are still well within what I need to average per day on this trip because my only other costs are two more meals at less than RM20 each and the RM15 RDC fee. I am ready to move on though to new places and new animals, there's a lot more to see in Borneo and today was my last full day with the Kinabatangan bus coming tomorrow afternoon (that’s the theory anyway)

While I was up in the canopy walkway at about 10 o'clock with the only bird being a Wallace's Hawk Eagle sitting motionlessly on an emergent tree surveying the forest, I was just thinking that it was as too hot and I should go down to the shadier forest floor, I saw a very small bird out of the corner of my eye. A small barbet or something I thought but no. It was the 'common' bird I keep mentioning not being able to find: a Black-and-Yellow Broadbill. It was tiny, much smaller than I had expected. I had been expecting a stubby-shaped Black-and-red in size but this was way smaller and it was right there, super close on the canopy walkway. It's possibly the cutest looking bird I have ever seen, but a long-awaited bird is always better than one seen easily once you finally get it. Amazing black and yellow patterning with the pink wash on the breast and comical looking head with yellow-on-black eye-ring and that massively oversized bright blue bill. Lovely bird, and showy too. I love broadbills. And that's broadbill species number 5 for the trip and there are a few more species still to get.

Later in the morning I found a group of extremely confiding Maroon Woodpeckers as well as a Raffles Malkoha which I spent ages trying to photograph but was only moderately successful because although it was very visible, it was just too deep in the vegetation for autofocus and it always moved to the next branch just as I had it manually focused. Really interesting chocolaty-beige coloured bird.

The afternoon/evening birding began with three Oriental Dwarf Kingfishers around one of the streams, lovely little birds. I also went back around the spot where the Bearded Pig was yesterday and the ground was an absolute muddy mess. I think there must have been more than a single pig later last night. I also got a Bornean Black Magpie showing very well and with a pair mobbing a Wallace's Hawk Eagle, presumably they must be nesting nearby somewhere. Even after six days here in the tiny patch of forest walking the same trails, I'm getting new endemics. The biodiversity here really is incredible.

The official guided walk had an insane number of people tonight. Probably more than 50. There was a different night guard as well who didn't want to let me in and wanted to 'call his boss's but confidently saying that I had spoken to Ben and pointing at the stack of papers saying they have a permission form did the trick. Now I'm not endorcing cheating but... Any mammal watchers here visiting in future may be able to use that line? (Unfortunately as I was walking away thinking I could get away with staying later, I looked back and saw the usual guard showing up so the 8PM limit still stood.) That's the one major annoyance here at Sepilok.

The night started with some very exciting eyeshine that turned out to be a domestic dog, quite far from the entrance actually but luckily it ran away. I saw a couple of slow lorises, the first was far away and not really countable but the eyes move in a distinctive enough way, and the second was close enough to see properly. A bit later, I heard what I think must have been a tarsier in the vegetation moving between trees. It seemed quite close and there may even have been more than one. They kept moving around in the dense vegetation but I just couldn't see them/it at all. They seemed really close and I'm pretty sure they were tarsiers but I couldn't see them at all and after a while the sounds moved away. If only the bloody things had eyeshine, I'm sure a would have seen one.

So no tarsiers, but as I was heading back (quite late because of how long I'd spent looking for invisible tarsiers) something rather interesting crossed the road in front of me. It stopped halfway across then continued and went into the forest. My first thought was a Malay Civet but after a few moments I could tell it was not. The 'jizz' was just completely wrong. It was rather elongated looking and was clearly a civet but almost seemed like a stretched out cat. Can you guess what it is yet? I had a guess. And as I got closer to it, just as it was about to disappear into the vegetation, a dark buffish colour with a long tail ending with black (and what seemed to be striped markings further up the body but which I couldn't see that well because of the angle)... A Banded Palm Civet!!! Amazing! No tarsiers (though I’ve still got a chance at Danum), but what a great ending to the spotlighting at Sepilok.

Speaking to some people on the official night walk afterwards (they didn't see a Banded Palm Civet but did see a loris, the I've spoken to the night walk participants every time and all but one night walk saw slow loris) and they mentioned that they had seen a pangolin in Kota Kinabalu outside Borneo Backpackers. A what? The look of incredulity on my face prompted them to get out a phone and show pictures of a pangolin along a roadside and under a lantana bush. Then a video of it walking across a lawn... Well then. I guess the roadside verge in a large city is the best place to find a pangolin.

Banded Palm Civet is amazing though!


New birds:

Black-throated Babbler

Black-and-white Bulbul

White-bellied Sea-eagle

Black-and-yellow Broadbill

Bornean Black Magpie

Bornean Blue Flycatcher


Mammal:

Banded Palm Civet

 

@Chlidonias another of your mammals I reckon?