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Zooboy28 Goes to Borneo

Discussion in 'Malaysia' started by zooboy28, 29 Feb 2016.

  1. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

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    I haven't been in the museum. I might try to see it next time I'm there - mostly I'm just wanting to get out into the forest and find birds. I haven't ever seen a tufted ground squirrel though, so I'd like to see how big they are (just in case I see a live one!).

    Do you have a plan to return to Borneo? Or is it just a desire?
     
  2. zooboy28

    zooboy28 Well-Known Member

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    They do have an interesting range of species on display in there, just not necessarily in the best condition.

    We don't have plans, but a strong desire. It would probably be more likely than going to a different part of Asia, although I'd replace some parts of Sabah with a visit to Sarawak. If we went back to Peninsular Malaysia, we would likely skip KL in favour of the Cameron Highlands. This won't be in the immediate future however.
     
  3. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

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    I've only been to the Cameron Highlands once, against my better judgement, and I did not like it. The forest is retreating rapidly - being replaced with hotels and cultivation - and the town and surrounds swarm with backpackers of the low-browed variety. Bukit Fraser is far preferable if you are wanting to look for wildlife.
     
  4. zooboy28

    zooboy28 Well-Known Member

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    Right, I'll change that then.

    Did you have any thoughts on the Plover species in photo in the previous post?
     
  5. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

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    they all look like golden plovers.
     
  6. zooboy28

    zooboy28 Well-Known Member

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    Day Five:

    Today was our last free day in Kota Kinabalu, and we spent the morning exploring the Gaya Street Market. This large market was along one of the city’s main streets and featured a pile of stalls, selling all sorts of things, from souvenirs and food, to clothes and pets. Pets were the most interesting part, but were mostly puppies and rabbits, with a few fish too. There were also turtles (Red-eared Sliders and a Flat-shell? species), and some small rodents I didn’t recognise. The wildlife in the city was fairly minimal, a few Spotted Doves and Feral Pigeons, and also a couple of pairs of Zebra Dove. We specifically looked for House Swift colonies along Gaya Street (not just when the market was on), but couldn’t spot them.

    We then headed to the northern end of the CBD, and the jetty from which boats were ferrying people to the nearby islands. Tickets had to be bought in a large, noisy and confusing building, where vendors attracted travellers by being as loud as possible. There were various options, and I’m not entirely sure how the system works, but we got tickets to Pulau Manukan and Pulau Sapi, and back to the city. The islands are all part of the Tunku Abdul Rahman National Park, Malaysia’s first marine national park. The boat was fast and we also saw the other three islands in the area, as the ferry made a circuit around the Park. Again, we didn’t spot much in the way of birdlife, just egrets, although one new species: a Pacific Reef Egret.

    Our first stop, Pulau Manukan, is relatively well developed, with a tourist complex at one end that includes accommodation and food outlets, as well as water-based activities such as snorkelling, parasailing and kayaking. Upon arrival, we paid a small entry fee to the National Park, obtained a map and cold drink, and set off to walk around the jungle on the western end of the island. The first species we encountered was the Asian Glossy Starling, a common bird on Borneo, and in large numbers here. We also saw a skink and a feral cat, and then (after clambering over ridiculously numerous fallen trees and collapsed paths) gave up and went back to the main tourist area. We explored this for a while, and saw nothing new or interesting, before we had a swim in the warm water.

    Just after noon we caught a second boat to the smallest island of the Park, Pulau Sapi. This was very close to the largest island here, Pulau Gaya, and there was even a zipline between the two. The jetty took us to a crowded beach, with food stands and equipment hire in the middle, and a steep forested hillside behind. We rented masks and fins, and set out to the snorkelling side of the beach. We’d never been snorkelling before, nor explored tropical reefs, so this was a very new experience. The small reef we snorkelled over was fairly degraded, lots of broken coral from people standing on it, and a bit of rubbish around, but the fish were incredible. Lots of species and colours, some darting away while others came close, with one species being particularly inquisitive and biting us. This was a great introduction to tropical reefs for us, but I think it would be less interesting to experienced divers, given the crowded and degraded nature of the site.

    After snorkelling for a couple of hours, we returned to the jetty, and watched large schools of small fish before the boat arrived and whisked us back to Kota Kinabalu. On the way we passed the extensive stilt village of Pulau Gaya, which houses some 6000 illegal immigrants and looks incredible. Several such settlements are dotted around the Sabah coast, and are being controversially managed by the state. Upon our return to the city, we did some shopping and chilled by the pool, before walking down the waterfront and dining at a great Indian restaurant.

    Overall, a fantastic and relaxing beach day, and an excellent introduction to tropical reefs. While I would have seen many new fishes, I didn’t have a camera capable of photographing them underwater, and nor do I have much interest in identifying them, so I don’t have much of an idea of what I saw. Bird-wise, I had hoped to see Philippine Scrubfowl on the islands, but no luck. We didn’t spend a lot of time in the forests, so I’ll have to have a better look next time. I think staying on the islands (Pulau Gaya has a resort) would be a good option too, more beach time and apparently there are also Bearded Pigs on Gaya, which is another priority species for me.

    Borneo Wildlife Species Lists:

    Birds:

    21 Zebra Dove Geopelia striata
    22 Pacific Reef Egret Egretta sacra
    23 Asian Glossy Starling Aplonis panayensis

    Photos below show: unknown rodents at the Gaya Street Markets; a boat unloading passengers at the Pulau Manukan jetty; the same jetty as seen from the boat; a school of fish off the Pulau Sapi jetty; and the massive stilt village off the coast of Pulau Gaya.
     

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  7. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

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    the rodents are dwarf hamsters. A couple of them (at the very top) look dead? They're pretty common in the animal markets in Asia.

    For bearded pigs the easiest place to see them is Bako National Park by Kuching in Sarawak, should you be going back to Borneo at a later point.
     
  8. zooboy28

    zooboy28 Well-Known Member

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    I didn't see any dead ones, but there might have been. I wasn't too sure about photographing animals at markets, so I only took a couple of quick snaps. Maybe its not a big deal in Malaysia though, and everything seemed domestic so there didn't seem to be a reason for them to not like it (unlike the markets in e.g. Thailand).
     
  9. DavidBrown

    DavidBrown Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    When do we get to the elephants, proboscis monkeys, and flying lizards and snakes?
     
  10. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

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    maybe they're just sleeping. Right at top are two on their backs with their legs sticking straight upwards.
     
  11. zooboy28

    zooboy28 Well-Known Member

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    Yes, I saw the ones you mean, but I'm not sure if they are dead or sleeping. Seems a weird sleeping position though, and a loud, busy market isn;t the best sleeping environment.

    What species are these then?
     
  12. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

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    I don't really know anything about hamsters. In Thailand I've seen loads of dwarf and Syrian hamsters for sale in the markets, but I wouldn't know which dwarf species is which or how to tell them apart by their colour mutations. I'd imagine hybrids are common too (amongst the dwarf species).
     
  13. zooboy28

    zooboy28 Well-Known Member

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    Soon! Only one day to go before we see the first wild specimens of one of the species you listed, while some captive specimens of another appear in tomorrow's blog (which should be up this weekend). :cool:
     
  14. zooboy28

    zooboy28 Well-Known Member

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    Day Six:

    After another impressive breakfast, we were picked up for a day tour to the Crocker Range National Park, Sabah’s largest, although with minimal visitor facilities. The Range runs north-south towards Mount Kinabalu, with most of the range 1200 – 1800 m tall. As it turned out, we were the only two on the tour, which had the same guide as our very first tour (Calvin). So we were able to leave Kota Kinabalu quickly, and headed south-east and up in to the mountains. The landscape was similar to the foothills around Mt Kinabalu, lots of rainforest interspersed with small farms and villages.

    After an hour and a half, we reached our first stop, the Rafflesia Information Centre. This small centre includes a brilliant little museum that provides a lot of information on the world’s largest flower, including detailed models of all species found on Borneo. The Centre is part of the state-run Rafflesia Forest Reserve, which aims to preserve the local species. From the centre, we walked down with some rangers to a plot where they had been monitoring a pair of blooming Rafflesia pricei. These were much smaller than the Rafflesia keithii we had seen at Poring, but very pretty. The forest here was unexpectedly open, especially the forest floor, and there was very little in the way of birdlife around.

    It was now mid-morning, and very warm, so after a slog back up to the Centre, we were glad to be back in the air-conditioned van. We continued east, to the other side of the Crocker Range, and passed the town of Tambunan. Nearby, we walked along a forested stream up to the 17 m Tahua Waterfall, which was cool, with some spectacular dragonflies. We then drove back the way we had come, and had lunch at a roadside restaurant.

    Our last stop was the nearby Kipandi Butterfly Park, a small collection up in the Crocker Range, that benefits greatly from impressive surrounds. We were the only visitors, and it doesn’t look like they get many. There were three main areas, an insect museum with extensive displays of specimens; the butterfly walkthrough with a range of impressive plantings but relatively few butterflies (both in terms of numbers and species) and a small area with terrariums with live inhabitants – inverts and herps. The latter is the only part worth discussing, and indeed visiting. Species here included large stick insects and beetles, as well as scorpions and a beautiful orchid mantis, as well as two snakes. Both had been wild caught locally. One was a very small cobra, I think a King Cobra in a relatively large terrarium. The other was a quite large Malaysian Keeled Green Pit Viper (Tropidolaemus subannulatus), which was crammed in a small plastic cage, tied shut with copious amounts of twine. An impressive snake, but it clearly needed a much larger enclosure. Overall, Kipandi was an odd little place, which was not really worth visiting.

    We then headed back down the ranges to Kota Kinabalu. We were making good time and arrived back at our hotel around 2.30pm. We spent the afternoon exploring the CBD, including some of the heritage buildings on Gaya Street, and visiting the information centre. We really should have done much earlier in the week, as it was here that I finally realised that the aquarium at the university some way north of the CBD was a different aquarium to the Green Connection that was more or less in the CBD and we could have easily visited. Unfortunately, we had run out of time and energy, so didn’t visit either. We spent the rest of the afternoon poolside, and enjoyed the sunset one last time, before dinner at the buffet and packing for tomorrow’s departure.

    Photos below show: Rafflesia pricei at the Rafflesia Information Centre; the Tahua Waterfall; Orthetrum pruinosum, one of the attractive dragonflies inhabiting the rocks downstream of the waterfall; the juvenile King(?) Cobra at Kipandi Butterfly Park; the Malaysian Keeled Green Pit Viper also at the Park; and the view of the road winding its way up the Crocker Ranges.
     

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  15. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

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    I'm inclined to think the cobra is a Black Spitting Cobra rather than a King Cobra. But I could be completely wrong.
     
  16. DavidBrown

    DavidBrown Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    How many species of Rafflesia are there on Borneo?
     
  17. zooboy28

    zooboy28 Well-Known Member

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    So I think there are just two cobra species on Borneo - King and Spitting (Naja sumatrana). I based my ID on the banded pattern it had, which seemed more similar to what young Kings had. Why do you think Spitting?
     
  18. zooboy28

    zooboy28 Well-Known Member

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    According to the information at the Rafflesia Information Centre there are 18 species well accepted, of which 8 are found on Borneo (and I think 7 are endemic). The remainder are found on Suamtra, Java, the Philippines, and Peninsular Malaysia and Thailand.
     
  19. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

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    I noticed the banding too, but from what I've seen of juvenile Kings (in photos, not in real life) they are really boldly banded. This snake is also very black, and the face fits a Black Spitting Cobra better I think. The snake is clearly a young animal though (whichever species it is) and if you Google Image "juvenile naja sumatrana" you'll see some photos which look similar I think.

    It is just my opinion though - I'm not exactly an expert in cobras, so I'm fine for anyone else to disagree if they know more than me.
     
  20. zooboy28

    zooboy28 Well-Known Member

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    Thanks Chlidonias. I had a look again and I'm inclined to believe it is a spitting cobra, based on the relatively faint banding pattern. But I'm not 100% sure, especially given it is such a small specimen. I'll put a photo in the to be ID'd gallery and see if any further information is forthcoming. :cool: