LaughingDove Goes Travelling - SE Asia and Australia

[Chlidonias]

I’ve got the fruithunter and the bald laughingthrush which I think are more difficult species and in the forest just around the Timpohon Gate I managed a couple of the species which generally occur higher up and thought I might miss due to not being able to go past the gate: Montane Blackeye and Island Thrush. The latter especially I thought I would miss by not being able to go above the gate.

The fruithunter is a fantastic bird. I've seen them above and below the Gate, but above is definitely easier.

The Bald Laughing Thrush is a very good bird too - took me a few visits to definitely nail that one onto my list.

I am extremely surprised at the Island Thrush - I've always been told it is only possible well above the Gate, basically even higher than Layang-Layang.

 

[LaughingDove]

The fruithunter is a fantastic bird. I've seen them above and below the Gate, but above is definitely easier.

The Bald Laughing Thrush is a very good bird too - took me a few visits to definitely nail that one onto my list.

I am extremely surprised at the Island Thrush - I've always been told it is only possible well above the Gate, basically even higher than Layang-Layang.

I was expecting the bald head on the Laughingthrush to be much more conspicuous than it actually was. What really stood out was the red of the beak.

I was also very surprised to get Island Thrush and I though I would completely miss it. I was actually trying for Everett's Thrush but this definitely wasn't that (and also wasn't the oriole which could be a confusion species I think).

 

[Chlidonias]

I was expecting the bald head on the Laughingthrush to be much more conspicuous than it actually was. What really stood out was the red of the beak.

I was also very surprised to get Island Thrush and I though I would completely miss it. I was actually trying for Everett's Thrush but this definitely wasn't that (and also wasn't the oriole which could be a confusion species I think).

You won't confuse the oriole for one, but Everett's Thrush is quite possible. Did it definitely have a bright yellow beak? (Not wanting to impugn your reputation of course! Just checking).

I thought the same about the Laughing Thrushes.

 

[LaughingDove]

You won't confuse the oriole for one, but Everett's Thrush is quite possible. Did it definitely have a bright yellow beak? (Not wanting to impugn your reputation of course! Just checking).

I thought the same about the Laughing Thrushes.

I got a view of the thrush from below and got a clear view of distinctly yellow legs without the large white patch that should be present for Everett's based on the field guide and I didn't notice any distinctive wing pattern when it flew off (though it was obscured as it flew but I think based on the illustration I should still have seen white on the underwing).
It was just in the trees by the path that goes from the road to the gate. I thought I might have managed to get something in the photos but they don't really show anything clear.

The field guide says that Island Thrush occurs down to the HQ area during drought so I don't think one in the forest around Timpohon is hugely exceptional or unheard of?

I've still not got Everett's Thrush though despite spending most of the day today in the area around the gate.

And got another particularly good view of the bald Laughingthrush today right by the road as they moved down along it. The bald head looks really bizarre once you see it up close!

 

[Chlidonias]

I've still not got Everett's Thrush though despite spending most of the day today in the area around the gate.

I've seen Everett's Thrush every time I've been at Mt. Kinabalu (and Rail-Babbler every time at Taman Negara except the last visit). Both birds which are supposed to be typically difficult for most people. Still can't find Slow Lorises though...

There's an Everett's Thrush which has a territory around the top of the Liwagu Trail, which is basically a few metres downhill of the deck, but it is mainly seen in the forest itself (i.e. on the trail). Last two times I've been there I've seen one also down on the trails nearer HQ, which was unexpected. I saw partridges and a trogon down low last visit as well.

 

[LaughingDove]

I've seen Everett's Thrush every time I've been at Mt. Kinabalu (and Rail-Babbler every time at Taman Negara except the last visit). Both birds which are supposed to be typically difficult for most people. Still can't find Slow Lorises though...

There's an Everett's Thrush which has a territory around the top of the Liwagu Trail, which is basically a few metres downhill of the deck, but it is mainly seen in the forest itself (i.e. on the trail). Last two times I've been there I've seen one also down on the trails nearer HQ, which was unexpected. I saw partridges and a trogon down low last visit as well.

Missed rail babbler at Taman Negara and none of the (many) birders around had seen one either.

There are only a couple of other birders around here at Kinabalu but none of them have seen Everett's Thrush either. I have still got all day tomorrow though to try. Not got Orange-headed Thrush yet either.

You seem generally to have much better luck with birds than mammals.

 

[Chlidonias]

Missed rail babbler at Taman Negara and none of the (many) birders around had seen one either.

There are only a couple of other birders around here at Kinabalu but none of them have seen Everett's Thrush either. I have still got all day tomorrow though to try. Not got Orange-headed Thrush yet either.

You seem generally to have much better luck with birds than mammals.

Yeah, well mammals suck.

At Mt. Kinabalu I see the Orange-headed Thrushes quite often along the road (the road up to the Gate) in the late afternoons. They come out of the forest to search along the roadside for insects.

Have you seen the forktail yet? Also remember to look around the HQ for the flowerpecker too.

 

[LaughingDove]

Yeah, well mammals suck.

At Mt. Kinabalu I see the Orange-headed Thrushes quite often along the road (the road up to the Gate) in the late afternoons. They come out of the forest to search along the roadside for insects.

Have you seen the forktail yet? Also remember to look around the HQ for the flowerpecker too.

Got both the forktail and flowerpecker.
I think the only montane Kinabalu species that I'm missing are those two thrushes, shortwing, serpent eagle, the other less common partridge (got Crimson-headed on the Mempening Trail today but a most dissatisfying view of a species that i really want) as well as the scops owl and owlet, frogmouth, rufous-tailed jungle flycatcher, and high altitude birds that I think are too uncommon for me to have a decent chance at. I think I've got all the other montane species.

 

[LaughingDove]

And Bornean Barbet (the small uncommon one) too but the altitudinal range for that given in the field guide overlaps with the Crocker HQ too.

I've also not yet seen the ''frequently seen" Malay Weasel either, but I don't think you're the best person to ask about finding that

 

[Chlidonias]

I've also not yet seen the ''frequently seen" Malay Weasel either, but I don't think you're the best person to ask about finding that

Heck no. I'm not sure how they determine "frequently seen" - I've only met one person who has seen one (around their cabin at the DVFC), and I've only irregularly seen mention of it in trip reports from Mt. Kinabalu. But it is diurnal so not as difficult as something like Slow Loris....

Anyway, it is (I think) one of the mammals which you'd find through random chance rather than being able to specifically go out looking for it.

 

[TZDugong]

What kind of food have you been eating on this trip? Is it good?

 

[LaughingDove]

What kind of food have you been eating on this trip? Is it good?

A very varied selection of either fried rice or noodles

I'm exaggerating of course, the food has been generally good and I've managed to be entirely vegetarian for this trip too with no difficulties whatsoever. I also eat predominantly SE Asian food at home anyway with at least one fried rice meal per day so it's not much of an adjustment for me and I don't find myself craving Western food like some other travelers I've met.

The thing I've been really enjoying is the fresh fruit and fresh fruit juices/smoothies as I really love tropical fruit and the sort of tropical fruit you get here is my absolute favourite thing to eat/drink.

 

[LaughingDove]

I've seen Everett's Thrush every time I've been at Mt. Kinabalu (and Rail-Babbler every time at Taman Negara except the last visit). Both birds which are supposed to be typically difficult for most people. Still can't find Slow Lorises though...

There's an Everett's Thrush which has a territory around the top of the Liwagu Trail, which is basically a few metres downhill of the deck, but it is mainly seen in the forest itself (i.e. on the trail). Last two times I've been there I've seen one also down on the trails nearer HQ, which was unexpected. I saw partridges and a trogon down low last visit as well.

This Everett's Thrush tip worked! Thanks!

 

[LaughingDove]

Stop Photographing the Fluffy Animals! : Mount Kinabalu Days Four and Five


I really need to stop taking so many pictures of all the squirrels and laughingthrushes and yuhinas and things. All the common animals are really awesome/adorable/cool looking and they’re pretty much all endemic to the mountain, but the problem with such cool animals being everywhere and really conspicuous is that I keep taking lots of pictures of them. The ground squirrels and the yuhinas in particular are really funny in their behaviour but I really have to stop taking pictures of them all. I’ve been doing well lately, but at this point I’ve taken a lot of pictures. I’ve nearly filled my third SD card which will make 96GB of pictures from this trip so far. That’s a lot of data. And I don’t even have the excuse of shooting in RAW. I know that I really should be in RAW for getting the best pictures, but if they were RAW I would run out of memory space even quicker and I would never get around to processing them. With JPEGs I at least have a chance of getting around to sorting the pictures out and there are lots of pictures that I’m really pleased with from this trip and lots of unusual taxa that I would like to upload.

As for the birding, these last two days have gone really rather well and I have seen the *vast* majority of what I wanted to here and I’ve almost entirely cleaned up on Kinabalu endemics/special montane species and five days feels like just the right amount of time to thoroughly bird the mountain thoroughly. I completed Whitehead’s Trio yesterday with a flyover view of a Whitehead’s Spiderhunter and got an even better flyover view today where I could clearly see the distinctive colouration and the call is very cool too. I also finally got a bird that I have been looking for for years now as it lives at a huge range of altitudes and is found across a wide area of Asia: Velvet-fronted Nuthatch. I got a lovely prolonged view of a pair feeding just within the HQ area itself and I’m very happy with that. I also got Crimson-headed Partridge which is an endemic species and a particularly neat looking and interestingly coloured partridge with a nice call too. I do particularly like ground birds, although I often miss them. I got my first view of them yesterday when I heard them calling quite close to the path and eventually saw what must have been the partridges really obscured and only identifiable because of the call and the partridgey ‘jizz’. Really a frustrating view and I hate it when I know that I have seen the bird so technically I can count it, but I really have seen them very poorly. Luckily, I didn’t have to face that quandary because I got a very nice view of a pair today (in case it’s unclear, yesterday refers to my fourth day at the park and today my fifth and final day) and they really are a very nice partridge so I’m super pleased to have seen them properly. I missed the second, less common, partridge species that occurs here though but I’m very happy to have seen one.

It’s also worth noting that there are absolute heaps of Hair-crested Drongos around. In the forest itself, they’re much more common than the Ashy Drongo and this I think is unusual because Ashy Drongos are the only drongo that is regularly around here and the field guide says that Hair-crested is ‘sometimes recorded’. Other particularly good birds were an Everett’s Thrush seen skulking in some undergrowth at a location based on a tip from ZooChat which is a tricky species I think. I also spent ages yesterday on the deck of the Timphon Gate and just looking in the forest around there for high altitude species, and as well as another blackeye, I also got a Pale-faced Bulbul which I thought I might miss but apparently they can be seen in the forest around there without too much difficulty, they just become much easier higher up. Also while I was on the deck at Timpohon Gate yesterday, a man there with his family got a phone call and then spent ages talking very loudly on the phone giving instructions on how to perform a shear force test on a mud sample according to Indian structural engineering regulations. I assume he was some kind of engineer or something, but it was quite a surreal thing with the backdrop of Mount Kinabalu and a deck covered in endemic squirrels wanted you to feed them. I got another Whitehead’s Pygmy Squirrel from the deck too which I think is my favourite of all the squirrels here because it’s so teeny tiny with white ear-tufts and just goes up and down the trees eating bark. I’ve seen four of them on this visit. There are a lot of squirrels here though, I’ve seen seven species on Mount Kinabalu which I believe is all of the montane endemic squirrels. Also at the Timphon Gate is a small shop selling things like chocolate and drinks and I decided to go and buy a bar of chocolate… how much?! 6 ringgit for a tiny little mars bar? They’ve got to be joking. It’s not even like they have to bring it up by porter, it’s at the end of a road.

Another interesting thing today is that I bumped into a bird tour a couple of times, as in, one of those fancy bird tours run by the international/Western bird tour companies that costs tens of thousands of pounds each. I ended up on the Timphon Gate sheltering from the midday rain for quite a while with them and got lots of interesting information from their guide. Apparently, even they don’t go up beyond the Timpohon Gate normally because in practice, the only way you will be able to get a permit is if you spend a night at the Sutera lodge halfway up at Laban Rata. This isn’t an official rule, but in practice it may as well be. He also said that the Liwagu Trail, the long one which is closed, has been closed since June of last year because of a major landslides part way along completely taking out that section of the trail and making it impassable. Apparently Sabah Parks have absolutely no interest in trying to fix it or make an alternative trail around the landslide. Hardly anyone uses the trails anyway, they all just go straight up the mountain and back down. And they get driven halfway up too, they don’t actually have to do any walking until the Timphon Gate at which point they’re already halfway up at the mountain. I think to be allowed to say you’ve climbed a mountain, you ought to walk there from sea level. Anyway, that’s besides the point. The bird guide also said that Orange-headed Thrush (which I missed) isn’t regular at all anymore and a lot of birds that were easy even a few years ago like the trogon are becoming more and more difficult. But birders who’ve been birding a place for a long time always say that. More helpful, was a tip for an exact spot where I could find a White-browed Shortwing which worked perfectly (split by Birdlife/HBW as Bornean Shortwing, making it an endemic). He also said that most people struggle to find Kinabalu Squirrel but he sees it very often on the Kiau View Trail, which, funnily enough, is exactly where I saw it! And he also said that he’s never seen a Malay Weasel at Kinabalu in 20 years guiding. He’s only seen them at Poring and at Crocker. “Frequently seen” according to mammalwatching, yeah, right.

And this evening I added my final bird species from here which I thought I would miss which was when I was walking across just before sunset to the restaurant for dinner and I heard an unusual call which turned out to be a Kinabalu Serpent Eagle. Yay!

Another thing worth mentioning which is a bit of wildlife that I’m not happy to see are the leeches. I had been told that there were no leeches on Kinabalu apart from the worm-eating giant leech but this is not true at the moment. I started to suspect it when I found another leech around my ankles yesterday which I was sure couldn’t be a stowaway because they were the same trousers. I then found several more leeches and today there were quite a few leeches on the ground on the trails. There was even one on the deck at Timpohon. It seems that Kinabalu has, sadly, been invaded by leeches.

And finally, in terms of spotlighting. My mission to look for snakes has been entirely unsuccessful. Tonight I just had a very brief bit of spotlighting because I was tired, but I had a long go last night, going all the way up to Timpohon and back (4.5km up/down each way which was quite a long walk when starting at 7:30. Although I saw a number of really cool frog species, three species I believe and probably all endemic, I saw no snakes at all and, surprisingly, no palm civets all the way that night and given that they’re generally common that’s rather odd and shows how random spotlighting can be sometimes. Although there’s no longer a dumpster at Timpohon, there’s still a rubbish storage area which attracted some Long-tailed Giant Rats which I have seen before at Taman Negara so aren’t new unless someone’s split them (?) but they’re nice to see. No ferret badgers either, as expected. And no snakes. I’ve also been increasingly finding that I enjoy being in the forest at night. When I first started spotlighting two years ago it would seem scary sometimes, but now it just feels calming and relaxing looking for eyeshine and the night sounds.

So no snakes, but they must just be really uncommon, right? Well this afternoon I bumped into a herpetologist looking for snakes. He said he’d been here just under a week, basically as long as I have, and has seen 13 snakes of 10 different species along the road and then proceeded to show me some amazing pictures on his phone of the all highly venomous and gorgeous looking Malcolm’s and Sabah Pit Vipers and a Krait. Yeah, I clearly don’t know what I’m doing looking for snakes at night. I should just stick to mammals, I seem to be good at finding those. Snakes suck anyway. They’re basically just fancy looking worm things, who needs ‘em. I’ll go and find some rats instead. There is insane moth diversity at night though. Just under the light outside my room there must be at a bare minimum 20 species of moth, most of which look super cool.

Apart from the snakes, which I was only really looking for on a whim anyway, I’ve done extremely well here and got almost all of the species that I wanted, see the full list below.

I’m not going back into the park tomorrow morning, because I’ve got a bit of a journey tomorrow heading to my next stop, a two night stay at the Crocker Range.

Full Kinabalu Park List


Bornean Treepie
Bornean Whistler
Black-capped White-eye
Grey-throated Babbler
Chestnut-crested Yuhina
Bornean Whistling-thrush
Sunda Laughingthrush
Bornean Flowerpecker
Sunda Bush-warbler
Eyebrowed Jungle Flycatcher
Bornean Green Magpie
Bornean Bald Laughingthrush
Temminck's Babbler
"Kinabalu" Mountain Leaf Warbler (endemic Kinabalu subspecies, possible future split and armchair tick)
Pygmy Blue Flycatcher
Whitehead's Broadbill
Ashy Drongo
Chestnut-hooded Laughingthrush
Sunda Cuckoo
Hair-crested Drongo
Black-and-crimson Oriole
Fruithunter
Sunda cuckooshrike
Bornean Stubtail
Indigo Flycatcher
Mountain Barbet
Montane Blackeye
Golden-naped Barbet
Snowy-browed Flycatcher
Little Pied Flycatcher
Olive-winged Woodpecker
Island Thrush (unusual at this altitude)
Dark Hawk-cuckoo
Mountain Wren-babbler
Whitehead's Trogon
Blyth's Shrike-babbler
Velvet-fronted Nuthatch
Crimson-headed Partridge
Whitehead’s Spiderhunter
Pale-faced Bulbul
Bornean Leafbird
Everett’s Thrush
Bornean (White-browed) Shortwing
Kinabalu Serpent-eagle

Bornean Black-banded Squirrel
Brooke's Squirrel
Whitehead's Pygmy Squirrel
Jentinck's Squirrel
Bornean Mountain Ground Squirrel
Smooth-tailed Treeshrew
Mountain Treeshrew
Red-bellied Sculptor Squirrel
Lesser Gymnure
Kinabalu Squirrel

+Probably endemic frog x3 species

 

[CloudPardus]

As someone who is from Malaysia,reading this entire thread makes me feel wholesome knowing that my country is filled with unique wildlife and that other people enjoy seeing them is great! Well i’m a city guy living in Kuala Lumpur...but I’ve seen a my fair share of local wildlife like Asian Water Monitor,Macaques,Hornbills,Tree shrews and Squirrels...but seeing animals like Tapirs,Gaurs,Orangs etc. that is amazing!

 

[Chlidonias]

He also said that the Liwagu Trail, the long one which is closed, has been closed since June of last year because of a major landslides part way along completely taking out that section of the trail and making it impassable. Apparently Sabah Parks have absolutely no interest in trying to fix it or make an alternative trail around the landslide.

That's a real shame. The Liwagu trail is by far the best one for birding. And it won't take long for it to completely disappear into the undergrowth if it isn't being used.

Another thing worth mentioning which is a bit of wildlife that I’m not happy to see are the leeches. I had been told that there were no leeches on Kinabalu apart from the worm-eating giant leech but this is not true at the moment. I started to suspect it when I found another leech around my ankles yesterday which I was sure couldn’t be a stowaway because they were the same trousers. I then found several more leeches and today there were quite a few leeches on the ground on the trails. There was even one on the deck at Timpohon. It seems that Kinabalu has, sadly, been invaded by leeches.

This is even more of a shame! I've never seen or heard of leeches there apart for the giant one. I wonder if it's a consequence of global warming.

 

[LaughingDove]

I just had my TLD-style jealousy moment...

I met a wandering naturalist type guy at Kinabatangan who was going to Danum next but had to do a visa run to Indonesia first so was only getting to Danum on the 27th (I was there 20th-25th). He's just put a picture on Facebook of a Clouded Leopard he saw at dusk (but before sunset) walking along the entrance road at Danum quite close to the Field Centre.

The lucky bastard... All of the guides who I spoke to there had seen them 3-5 times in their lives.

 

[FunkyGibbon]

Jumping back slightly....

100Plus is good, but I prefer its slightly cheaper cousin, which I think is called Viva? If you get near Hong Kong, you also may come across the delightfully titled Pocari Sweat.

 

[Chlidonias]

Jumping back slightly....

100Plus is good, but I prefer its slightly cheaper cousin, which I think is called Viva? If you get near Hong Kong, you also may come across the delightfully titled Pocari Sweat.

Pocari Sweat is all through Indonesia too. Not so common in Malaysia or Thailand but it's there too. I quite like it.

 

[LaughingDove]

To the Crocker Range!

I started as early as I reasonably could with breakfast at the restaurant at 7:30 when it opened and then got my stuff and went to wait for a bus. There isn't actually a bus stop or timetable at Mount Kinabalu so getting out involves standing by the side of the road and waving at anything that looks like it might be public transport. I was on the road just after 8 and I got a minibus to stop for me just before 9:30. This was actually the second minibus to stop, the first one though was not public transport but a minibus being used by a group of high school students on a field trip who all decided for some bizarre reason that they wanted selfies with me. Is it normal to see someone in a camo shirt with binoculars on a harness around your neck and a big backpack trying to wave down a minibus?

Anyway, less than an hour and a half of waiting isn't bad I think, especially early in the morning (most of the transport going to KK is coming from Sandakan so must have left about four hours earlier). It's lucky I'm a solo traveler because there was only a single seat left on the minibus. I'm pleased that I left early too because the mist and cloud hadn't fully come in yet and there were stunning views on the mountain roads. Some of the driver's overtaking manoeuvres in the narrow, windy, lorry-filled, mountain roads though... Jeez how is he still alive?

Unlike in the lowlands, quite a lot of the initial part of the route at least is still natural Montane forest as far as the eye can see rather than plantations because of course it's too cold to grow oil palm at such high altitudes. The main threat to this environment is of course climate change.

The drive back to KK took about two hours and the minibus came in right next two another minibus for with Keningau-KK written on it which is just where I wanted to go (the Crocker Range HQ is about 15km before Keningau) and the driver said he could drop me off at Taman Negara Banjaran Crocker (=Crocker Range National Park) on the way. However this minibus is th sort that Ieaves once it's full, however long that takes, and I was only the second person on it, but it wasn't a particularly long wait, and we left after about an hour. For some reason I had expected it to be a big bus, but small minibuses are better for the return journey where I'll just be flagging one down at the roadside again and a small minibus every hour or so is going to make that much easier than a few big buses per day.

The minibus dropped me off at the park office which is about 4km from the accommodation (which is still within the work, just not right by the entrance). The accommodation here used to be run by Sabah Parks, but it's now the Manis Manis Rooftop Resort of Borneo and they're using the same buildings as the former accommodation, but they've fancied it up. Luckily they had a promotion and the dorm was only RM37 per night (though being a proper hotel means they charge the RM10 tourism tax too which the less formal places don't) and given how empty the place is, the promotion is probably in their best interest. I think I might be the only person staying here right now.

Of course being a mid-level fanciness resort, the restaurant is a bit pricy but it's not insane, maybe 50% more than a normal local restaurant which is ok for a short two-night stay. The view from the restaurant is stunning too but the most stunning thing about the view is a pair of Bornean Falconets that hang out on a dead tree visible from the decking! They really are super teeny tiny up close (world's smallest bird of prey) and when they catch an insect they get mobbed by little passerines!

It's about 1000m altitude here so hill forest rather than montane as the field guide refers to it, and you can tell by the wildlife too because the primary squirrel species here is Plantain and I am again seeing the bird species which I had seen every day on this trip apart from Mt Kinabalu which was Oriental Magpie Robin. Bornean Ibons (called Pygmy White-eyes by everyone except my rather 'special' Philipps Field Guide. But I rather like the sound of the word Ibon), one of the hill birds that I was looking for here, seem quite common even in the vegetation on the edge of lawns.

The advantage of being a fancy resort though is that when I arrived, I called them and they sent a man and a car around to come and pick me up. How good is that?

The forest here is more like lowland but it's not as big as primary lowland forest and there are more pine-like trees and ferns and bamboos and things.

Unfortunately this afternoon was rather rainy. But I had a bit of an explore nonetheless and there are a couple of trails here, the longest being the Crocker Nature Trail at 2.2km, which I will be birding thoroughly tomorrow, hopefully in the dry. There's a Rafflesia plot marked on the map too which I'll have to check out tomorrow. It's quite birdy around generally though and I'm not sure why it isn't higher on the birding radar. The bird guide at Kinabalu yesterday said the same thing and said that this area is interesting because it has the hill species that you would expect from that altitude but it's quite moist forest so you get many lowland birds too. This seems to be the case because today I saw both Bornean Ibon, a hill bird, and Asian Fairy Bluebird, a generally more lowland and lower levels of hills bird. Both Sunda Bush Warbler and White-breasted Waterhen are very common, at the bottom and top of their altitudinal ranges respectively. I like it here! Birdy, a nice range of species, with easy access to trails right from the accommodation without long walks or any walking along roads, and an empty dorm at a nice resort for backpacker prices! I don't need posh bed linen or a newly done up toilet or a fancy decking area to be comfortable and I don't miss it in the slightest when I don't have it, but I do appreciate it when I do. I should clarify. This place isn't like Hilton/Sheriton posh, not at all. It's the sort of place I would have though was decent prior to this trip, it's mostly that my standards have dropped and it's much nicer than an RM37 dorm would suggest.

Despite the constant rain throughout the afternoon, I birded the trail anyway, and I got a number of nice birds with the real jackpot bird being an unexpected flyby in the forest of a Cinnamon-rumped Trogon which is rather a tricky bird that I wasn't expecting here! Most birders go to a different part of the Crocker Range (which is a huge place, apparently the largest terrestrial park in Sabah) at a place called Rafflesia Centre near Tambunan, but the Keningau side where I am seems really good. The leeches worse than Danum though. I'll be getting out the socks tomorrow.

The view from the restaurant at dinner was rather different. Rather than being dominated by the forested mountains all around, it was a view of the lights at night of Keningau 20 minutes down the road from here (literally down - I'm on mountain looking down to Keningau in the valley). Still pretty, but in a very different way. What wasn't pretty was the aftermath of a forest jam packed with leeches on someone totally not expecting them. I removed about 300 million leeches from all over my body from ankles to wrists to neck (actually about 30 leeches, but for leeches that's a lot!) and I looked rather like I had been swimming in broken glass. The guy at reception says it's been raining a lot lately and there's normally only a few leeches. I got most of the leeches off, but found a few more in the shower and had to remove another lot after spotlighting. I also found several inside my shoes and even inside my socks that had drunk their fill of blood and fallen off but got stuck. Poor little things. They're almost cute when they're all big and fat and crawling away from you. (Except of course for the fact that that's my blood and I need it).

It was still raining lightly after dinner, but with only two nights here and such an easy track to get to, I decided to go spotlighting. I hadn't heard from anyone who had been spotlighting here, but you never know! There were some extremely shy and skittish Sambar around at the forest edge and in the forest there were loads of frogs. I also saw a really cool looking armoured larva of some kind with a bioluminescent back end and rather excitingly a smallish flying squirrel, though I can't identify it to species. There were quite a few rodents too and it's like I was saying yesterday, I can't find snakes at night but I can find rats. So I guess that basically makes me a snake? Anyway, there were Long-tailed Giant Rats as well as quite a few of the endemic Large Pencil-tailed Tree Mouse around (the same species as in my room at Sepilok all those weeks ago). I think this must be a particularly good spot for the latter species. I also got a new rodent which I am pretty sure must have been a Rajah Spiny Rat (Maxomys). It's very difficult to be 100% sure when it comes to small rodent identification when you just see one walk across a path without having it in the hand but based on appearance, behaviour, and location, that species fits much better than anything else so I'm going to count it.

And if a pair of trousers is quite clean in terms of not being smelly at all but is just plastered with mud and soaked with your own blood, can you wear them for a second day? Hmm...