When asking around, I was told that February was not the best time of year to be visiting Sabah. The rainy season was likely to be in full flood (literally), the birds would all be silently sitting on their eggs and impossible to find, and the leeches would be out in full force.
Well, it did rain, but only very occasionally, and only once was it properly torrential. And true, some of the birds (notably the pittas and pheasants) were pretty hard to find. But I only saw three leeches in 8 days of rainforest-ing, and none of them got a bite. And otherwise, the trip was a great success. Definitely one of the best wildlife weeks I've had...
And so, to the beasts.
The first three nights were spent at the Borneo Rainforest Lodge, in the Danum Valley, famous as probably the single best surviving area of lowland rainforest left in south east Asia. Not a cheap destination by any means, but on this occasion well worth splashing out...
Getting any photos at all in the rainforest is a hard task, what with most things either being in the shade of the forest or high up in the canopy against a bright sky, and I'm amazingly impressed by the people who come back from Borneo with frame filling shots of some of the specialities: I pretty much gave up after the first afternoon. Although, as it happens, one of the real standout highlights of my stay here, and indeed of my time on Borneo, was on that first afternoon, in the form of Abu, a big adult male Orang Utan who was hanging out (literally) just around the corner from my cabin. 14 years after I first visited Asia with the specific intention of seeing Orang Utans and somehow got sidetracked along the way.
Other highlights were a group of Bornean Bristleheads making their way noisily through the canopy, a bizarre bird that is the only member of a family endemic to Borneo; my first pittas in the form of two Black-and-Crimson Pittas, again endemic to Borneo, at opposite sides of the road, calling to each other; a family group of Maroon Langurs, a handsome, brightly-coloured monkey that is, again, only found on Borneo; a decent crop of trogons, broadbills and hornbills; and some eventful night drives, with two Slow Loris and a Binturong being the cream of the crop, two strange animals that, for some reason, I have long wanted to see.
The Canopy Walkway, a good place to spend a morning or two...
Scarlet-rumped Trogon
Black-and-Yellow Broadbill
My first view of a Rhinoceros Hornbill, one of a pair making a racket as they called from the canopy.
The male, with a dark red eye
and his mate, with a white eye, wondering what all the fuss is about. Unfortunately, the nearby pair of Helmeted Hornbills didn't pose for photos: one of the most weirdly beautiful/hideously ugly birds I've ever seen!
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