devilfish
Well-Known Member
I'm enjoying this thread.
Did you make it to the aquarium in the zoo? Any sign of the Cantor's giant softshell turtle in the aquarium moat?
Enjoy Borneo!
LaughingDove Goes Travelling - SE Asia and Australia
- Thread starter LaughingDove
- Start date
I'm enjoying this thread.
Did you make it to the aquarium in the zoo? Any sign of the Cantor's giant softshell turtle in the aquarium moat?
Enjoy Borneo!
I had a look around the aquarium yeah, no sign of softshell turtles around there though. But there were a number of softshell turtles, including a rather large one, in a pond in the butterfly house so I'll have to check my pictures at some point for the species.
And Now I’m in Borneo!
People in other rooms were making a lot of noise during the night including a small child running around and screaming and being very much budget accommodation, the walls are very thin indeed so I didn't have the best night's sleep which does rather defeat the point of a private room.
I got the monorail to KL Sentral where I changed to get the KL Ekspres directly to the airport. I can't remember what I thought of the price when I got it on my first day, but it seems very expensive now at almost 50 ringgit. It's much cheaper than a taxi though and easier and more reliable than a bus which is important for catching a flight obviously.
I left plenty of time to get to the airport because I didn't know how efficient or not it would be getting to the airport and because officially you're supposed to be there three hours before your flight. I really hate it when airlines/airports do this and say three hours before. It was always two hours, and that has always worked fine. I get that they're trying to make sure people are early but people who are going to be early or on time will be whether it's two or three hours and even when they say three hours, people who are going to be late are still going to be late and any unexpected circumstances that make people late will still happen. It doesn't improve anything and is just annoying. I'm flying with Malaysian Airlines again because when booking reasonably far in advance as I did, the full fare airlines tend to I be cheaper and after adding baggage the MH flight was only slightly more than Air Asia and at a much more reasonable time in the mid-morning rather than stupid o'clock. It also has the added advantage of getting me One world frequent flyer points which will almost certainly never add up to anything useful but whatever.
Getting to the airport just over 2 and a half hours early (not even 3 hours like they say) obviously meant I was at the gate ages before my actual flight and I had almost two hours after getting to the gate before take off. Getting to airports this early is clearly unnecessary but I suppose it does facilitate their sales of overpriced airport tat by having people get to the airport way too early.
My flight to Sandakan was absolutely full with a very large number of families with small children on board. It's about a three hour flight from KL to Sandakan on the far Eastern side of Sabah and you couldn't get much further on a domestic flight in Malaysia. There was lots of turbulence throughout the flight, but I think that's normal for this region and I'm the least nervous flyer possible anyway so that's not a problem for me. The cabin was absolutely freezing though and that's not just because I'm getting used to the heat, they really had the cabin temperature too low.
Despite being a domestic flight, you have to go through immigration on arrival as if it was international. The Eastern States of Malaysia do like to keep apart from the Peninsula. I got a RM40 taxi direct from the airport to Sepilok which was extremely easy of course. I'm sure there must be some long and convoluted way to get there by public transport but I really didn't fancy trying to work it out in the midday heat with all my stuff.
I had booked a private room at the Sepilok B&B where I was staying because it was just 1 ringgit more per night on booking.com but they didn't have any private rooms when I got there and I'm staying in a dorm instead. They also wanted to charge RM50 per night for the room which is much more than the booking.com price which aims booked quite a way in advance but I paid the booking.com price. Apparently they have updated their pricing and an RM50 dorm if you were to book it now is very expensive indeed! I'm pleased I booked in advance. Everything is quite pricy around here with RM15 per day entry fee to the Rainforest Discovery Centre, which is where the wildlife watching is, and food is about 50% more than Taman Negara for example, though I think I have to accept that Taman Negara was particularly cheap.
I headed into the Rainforest Discovery Centre, RDC, at about 4 which I thought would be late enough for the start of the evening bird activity but it wasn't. The whole place was completely dead with no birds active at all.
Eventually the birds did start to come out though, along with a few unusual squirrel species, and although most of the common species like bulbuls and such are the same as at Taman Negara, I added some nice species including Walllace's Hawk Eagle and Blue-crowned Hanging Parrot. Best of all though was an all too brief flyover by Bornean Bristleheads! Already! They were one of the absolute top targets for here and the fact that I've already got a brief look is a great start. Hopefully I'll find a group them in a tree one of these days and get some pictures.
I headed back to the accommodation around dusk for dinner - food is only available at set times and I was very hungry by this point having not had a proper new at breakfast or dinner. Then at about 7:30 I headed back across to the RDC, which is 400m down the road, for spotlighting. There are lots of species possible at the RDC and my biggest target which is a species I've got a pretty good chance of seeing is tarsier. I really want to see a tarsier here.
So I was walking in and past a little bit with a guard in it at the entrance and he waved and said hello and I just waved back, no problem. I continued walking and he called me over so I went over and I was told I could not go in. So I just explained to him what I wanted to do and assured him that I knew what I was doing etc but he still wouldn't let me in and no amount of polite reasoning and discussion which turned eventually to what was essentially just grovelling and pleading would let me. They have official night walks too and I spoke to the night walk guide to try and persuade him to let me in but no. It's the official Sabah Parks rule. I really hope I won't have this problem throughout Sabah. He did say that the rules had changed recently but I'm pretty sure that was just to shut me up about people who I know visiting recently and being allowed in. I did persuade the guy that I knew what I was doing and that it would be safe (it's totally completely safe, there's no dangerous animals and you can't get lost. Taman Negara was more dangerous than this) and he did genuinely seem to want to let me in. But he couldn't break the rules and let me in, it is his job. I tried to persuade him that I would be fully responsible if anything happened (there's phone signal across the whole place for god's sake, there's no risk) but I was being completely brick walled and without sneaking through the forest around the hut (which I was unwilling to do) there was no way. I tried spotlighting a bit along the road but there was no point so I just had to call it quits. Really frustrating!
The obvious thing to do of course is go in before sunset and just stay in, then come out later although it will be difficult to get dinner then because the B&B stops at 9 and there's no other places or shops to buy food at all. I have got to go spotlighting in there though. I really want tarsiers! The other worrying thing is he said to come back when it opens at 8 the next morning. 8?! All the bird activity will be gone by 8!
I find these sort of things really frustrating. I come all the way here and get so close and for no reason I'm prevented from going into the forest. I seem to be taking other sorts of hiccups with traveling fine and I'm getting used to just rolling with the punches but getting right up to the entry of the tarsier and moonrat infested forest and being told to go away is killer
Speaking of rolling with the punches, I contacted the tour I had booked well in advance for the Kinabatangan River and it turns out they cannot do the dates I had booked and didn't think/forgot to tell me about it! I had originally booked 3 nights at Kinabatangan but they are closed for my first night so I have had no choice but to extend Sepilok to 6 nights here and cut Kinabatangan down to 2 nights because of fitting it in with the Danum Valley. Oh well. I'm more annoyed about being denied entry to the forest for spotlighting and I'm a bit concerned about what the guides will say tomorrow night when I walk past them coming out of the forest at about 9 but we'll see. I have got to see a tarsier. Grrr. Things like having to be in a dorm when I booked a room and missing buses and even my booked accommodation in KL not having a place so having to switch to a much grubbier odd place don’t bother me that much. They’re annoying, but I just accept them and move on, but aint nobody getting between me and my wildlife sightings! I have got plenty of time here at Sepilok though I suppose.
(I feel like the tone of the end of this post is a bit downbeat because obviously the spotlighting has annoyed me, but the Sepilok B&B where I’m staying is lovely and although it’s not cheap, it is actually a really nice place to chill out and although I’m in a dorm, it’s one guy in it and he seems a decent bloke just here chilling out and doing casual wildlife photography at the RDC. I am enjoying it here and as long as I get this issue with the ‘opening hours’ of the RDC sorted, everything will be great.)
New birds seen:
Red-throated Sunbird
Blue-crowned Hanging Parrot
Wallace’s Hawk Eagle
Bornean Bristlehead
Mammals:
Prevost’s Squirrel (all black above pluto subspecies)
Ear-spot Squirrel
People in other rooms were making a lot of noise during the night including a small child running around and screaming and being very much budget accommodation, the walls are very thin indeed so I didn't have the best night's sleep which does rather defeat the point of a private room.
I got the monorail to KL Sentral where I changed to get the KL Ekspres directly to the airport. I can't remember what I thought of the price when I got it on my first day, but it seems very expensive now at almost 50 ringgit. It's much cheaper than a taxi though and easier and more reliable than a bus which is important for catching a flight obviously.
I left plenty of time to get to the airport because I didn't know how efficient or not it would be getting to the airport and because officially you're supposed to be there three hours before your flight. I really hate it when airlines/airports do this and say three hours before. It was always two hours, and that has always worked fine. I get that they're trying to make sure people are early but people who are going to be early or on time will be whether it's two or three hours and even when they say three hours, people who are going to be late are still going to be late and any unexpected circumstances that make people late will still happen. It doesn't improve anything and is just annoying. I'm flying with Malaysian Airlines again because when booking reasonably far in advance as I did, the full fare airlines tend to I be cheaper and after adding baggage the MH flight was only slightly more than Air Asia and at a much more reasonable time in the mid-morning rather than stupid o'clock. It also has the added advantage of getting me One world frequent flyer points which will almost certainly never add up to anything useful but whatever.
Getting to the airport just over 2 and a half hours early (not even 3 hours like they say) obviously meant I was at the gate ages before my actual flight and I had almost two hours after getting to the gate before take off. Getting to airports this early is clearly unnecessary but I suppose it does facilitate their sales of overpriced airport tat by having people get to the airport way too early.
My flight to Sandakan was absolutely full with a very large number of families with small children on board. It's about a three hour flight from KL to Sandakan on the far Eastern side of Sabah and you couldn't get much further on a domestic flight in Malaysia. There was lots of turbulence throughout the flight, but I think that's normal for this region and I'm the least nervous flyer possible anyway so that's not a problem for me. The cabin was absolutely freezing though and that's not just because I'm getting used to the heat, they really had the cabin temperature too low.
Despite being a domestic flight, you have to go through immigration on arrival as if it was international. The Eastern States of Malaysia do like to keep apart from the Peninsula. I got a RM40 taxi direct from the airport to Sepilok which was extremely easy of course. I'm sure there must be some long and convoluted way to get there by public transport but I really didn't fancy trying to work it out in the midday heat with all my stuff.
I had booked a private room at the Sepilok B&B where I was staying because it was just 1 ringgit more per night on booking.com but they didn't have any private rooms when I got there and I'm staying in a dorm instead. They also wanted to charge RM50 per night for the room which is much more than the booking.com price which aims booked quite a way in advance but I paid the booking.com price. Apparently they have updated their pricing and an RM50 dorm if you were to book it now is very expensive indeed! I'm pleased I booked in advance. Everything is quite pricy around here with RM15 per day entry fee to the Rainforest Discovery Centre, which is where the wildlife watching is, and food is about 50% more than Taman Negara for example, though I think I have to accept that Taman Negara was particularly cheap.
I headed into the Rainforest Discovery Centre, RDC, at about 4 which I thought would be late enough for the start of the evening bird activity but it wasn't. The whole place was completely dead with no birds active at all.
Eventually the birds did start to come out though, along with a few unusual squirrel species, and although most of the common species like bulbuls and such are the same as at Taman Negara, I added some nice species including Walllace's Hawk Eagle and Blue-crowned Hanging Parrot. Best of all though was an all too brief flyover by Bornean Bristleheads! Already! They were one of the absolute top targets for here and the fact that I've already got a brief look is a great start. Hopefully I'll find a group them in a tree one of these days and get some pictures.
I headed back to the accommodation around dusk for dinner - food is only available at set times and I was very hungry by this point having not had a proper new at breakfast or dinner. Then at about 7:30 I headed back across to the RDC, which is 400m down the road, for spotlighting. There are lots of species possible at the RDC and my biggest target which is a species I've got a pretty good chance of seeing is tarsier. I really want to see a tarsier here.
So I was walking in and past a little bit with a guard in it at the entrance and he waved and said hello and I just waved back, no problem. I continued walking and he called me over so I went over and I was told I could not go in. So I just explained to him what I wanted to do and assured him that I knew what I was doing etc but he still wouldn't let me in and no amount of polite reasoning and discussion which turned eventually to what was essentially just grovelling and pleading would let me. They have official night walks too and I spoke to the night walk guide to try and persuade him to let me in but no. It's the official Sabah Parks rule. I really hope I won't have this problem throughout Sabah. He did say that the rules had changed recently but I'm pretty sure that was just to shut me up about people who I know visiting recently and being allowed in. I did persuade the guy that I knew what I was doing and that it would be safe (it's totally completely safe, there's no dangerous animals and you can't get lost. Taman Negara was more dangerous than this) and he did genuinely seem to want to let me in. But he couldn't break the rules and let me in, it is his job. I tried to persuade him that I would be fully responsible if anything happened (there's phone signal across the whole place for god's sake, there's no risk) but I was being completely brick walled and without sneaking through the forest around the hut (which I was unwilling to do) there was no way. I tried spotlighting a bit along the road but there was no point so I just had to call it quits. Really frustrating!
The obvious thing to do of course is go in before sunset and just stay in, then come out later although it will be difficult to get dinner then because the B&B stops at 9 and there's no other places or shops to buy food at all. I have got to go spotlighting in there though. I really want tarsiers! The other worrying thing is he said to come back when it opens at 8 the next morning. 8?! All the bird activity will be gone by 8!
I find these sort of things really frustrating. I come all the way here and get so close and for no reason I'm prevented from going into the forest. I seem to be taking other sorts of hiccups with traveling fine and I'm getting used to just rolling with the punches but getting right up to the entry of the tarsier and moonrat infested forest and being told to go away is killer
Speaking of rolling with the punches, I contacted the tour I had booked well in advance for the Kinabatangan River and it turns out they cannot do the dates I had booked and didn't think/forgot to tell me about it! I had originally booked 3 nights at Kinabatangan but they are closed for my first night so I have had no choice but to extend Sepilok to 6 nights here and cut Kinabatangan down to 2 nights because of fitting it in with the Danum Valley. Oh well. I'm more annoyed about being denied entry to the forest for spotlighting and I'm a bit concerned about what the guides will say tomorrow night when I walk past them coming out of the forest at about 9 but we'll see. I have got to see a tarsier. Grrr. Things like having to be in a dorm when I booked a room and missing buses and even my booked accommodation in KL not having a place so having to switch to a much grubbier odd place don’t bother me that much. They’re annoying, but I just accept them and move on, but aint nobody getting between me and my wildlife sightings! I have got plenty of time here at Sepilok though I suppose.
(I feel like the tone of the end of this post is a bit downbeat because obviously the spotlighting has annoyed me, but the Sepilok B&B where I’m staying is lovely and although it’s not cheap, it is actually a really nice place to chill out and although I’m in a dorm, it’s one guy in it and he seems a decent bloke just here chilling out and doing casual wildlife photography at the RDC. I am enjoying it here and as long as I get this issue with the ‘opening hours’ of the RDC sorted, everything will be great.)
New birds seen:
Red-throated Sunbird
Blue-crowned Hanging Parrot
Wallace’s Hawk Eagle
Bornean Bristlehead
Mammals:
Prevost’s Squirrel (all black above pluto subspecies)
Ear-spot Squirrel
If you can't get into the RDC at night, that's going to impact on my list of mammals I think you'll see in Borneo!!
It does sound like this has been a recent management decision, as I've never had trouble with the night guards there before. And if they are actually going to be enforcing the 8-5 opening times that's even worse because you entirely miss the most active bird times. It was always the case that the official times were 8-5 but in practice it was open 24 hours, and the guard would just give you a sticker as you went in (at, say, 6am) and you simply paid on the way out.
Tarisers are supposed to be pretty good at Danum too, btw.
It does sound like this has been a recent management decision, as I've never had trouble with the night guards there before. And if they are actually going to be enforcing the 8-5 opening times that's even worse because you entirely miss the most active bird times. It was always the case that the official times were 8-5 but in practice it was open 24 hours, and the guard would just give you a sticker as you went in (at, say, 6am) and you simply paid on the way out.
Tarisers are supposed to be pretty good at Danum too, btw.
FunkyGibbon
Well-Known Member
I think it's possible that you just have a weird guard, but only time will tell.
SabineB
Well-Known Member
Now this sounds crazy, I have been let into the RDC at night times and in the wee hours of the mornings always with no problems at all. In fact I have never even been approached or checked upon my stupid sticky entrance thing which basically always fell off due to sweat.
You may want to check out some of the Malaysian birders to find out what the heck the 'rule' actually is. They are pretty helpful and obviously know their way around....
You may want to go up to the Sepilok Forest Edge resort (btw. their dorm rooms are cheap and really cool) and talk to the staff over a beer or so, maybe even ask for the guy that owns the place, he is super nice and likes to show off his resort ;-) . Their back part of the premises is adjacent to the BSBCC land with a rather dense piece of uninhabited rainforest. They do impromptu night walks and that is actually where I saw Tarsirs the closest. The RDC tarsir I saw was like a mile away :-(
If push comes to shove, the night walks in the RDC are fairly ok and not too pricy and you can always veer off ..... mid walk.
Check out the food at the stall on the street en route to the Orang Utan Centre, the food is great and cheap for Sepilok!!
And boy do I envy you for this trip!!! Great stories you wrote so far!
You may want to check out some of the Malaysian birders to find out what the heck the 'rule' actually is. They are pretty helpful and obviously know their way around....
You may want to go up to the Sepilok Forest Edge resort (btw. their dorm rooms are cheap and really cool) and talk to the staff over a beer or so, maybe even ask for the guy that owns the place, he is super nice and likes to show off his resort ;-) . Their back part of the premises is adjacent to the BSBCC land with a rather dense piece of uninhabited rainforest. They do impromptu night walks and that is actually where I saw Tarsirs the closest. The RDC tarsir I saw was like a mile away :-(
If push comes to shove, the night walks in the RDC are fairly ok and not too pricy and you can always veer off ..... mid walk.
Check out the food at the stall on the street en route to the Orang Utan Centre, the food is great and cheap for Sepilok!!
And boy do I envy you for this trip!!! Great stories you wrote so far!
The RDC 'opening times' are a new rule apparently but I've managed to get something sorted out. More in the post to come.
And thanks for the information. I've got a while here at Sepilok so I'll check it out!
Is that a pitta I hear? And wow, what mammal is that?
It hadn't dawned on me (pun intended) how early sunrise was here until I checked on Google just before bed. It's still in the same time zone but because of how much further East it is, sunrise is more than an hour earlier.
With it being so hot in the middle of the day and so dead bird-wise, I wanted to make sure I was in as early as possible. Unfortunately, the Rainforest Discovery Centre only opens at 8, but I got to the entrance at about 6:45. There are no gates and the guard seemed to be asleep so I just gave him a wide berth and went in. Having not been told anything explicitly about the morning opening times, I could claim ignorance which is going to be much more difficult at night now. If I had known I was going to be stopped at night, then I would have been fine but it’s a bit tricky now.
Anyway, it was indeed much birdier in the morning with lot of babblers and sunbirds and things calling. Still quite difficult to see the birds though, even with the advantage of having a canopy walkway. Some nice things about nonetheless, but no more Bornean Bristleheads. I did find my second Bornean endemic bird though, and the most common of the sixty-odd Bornean endemics: Dusky Munias. And a bit later, I added another Bornean endemic: White-crowned Shama. I left just before the official opening time of 8, had breakfast back at the B&B and then headed back in for the morning, buying an entry ticket then. Last night, the night guard had said that what I should do is ask at the ticket office for permission to enter at night and if I could get permission from them, the guards would let me in. When I asked about it, I found out that the reason for this rule change was because recently some tourists had got lost in the forest at night in the RDC and they had to call search and rescue. How you can get lost is a bit beyond me because all the trails are thoroughly signposted and all eventually come back on each other anyway and the place isn’t very large at all. The RDC is connected to the main area of Sepilok rainforest but it juts out a bit and in itself is just a small area, though connected to the proper forest. I persuaded the ticket counter people that I would be fine, but they couldn’t give me permission and I would have to ask the manager who wasn’t there so I left my number and they would phone me if/when the manager arrives. This whole thing is a right pain but if I can get it sorted then that will be much easier than ‘accidentally’ leaving late in terms of fitting in dinner as well as not worrying about the guards.
Although it was getting hot a bit by this point, I decided to continue trying for birds and I headed up the ‘Pitta Path’. Generally, the names of paths in places like this aren’t actually correlated with the birds you see, but in this case it seemed that this is actually the best spot for pittas. It wasn’t long before I could hear the distinctive whistling call of a Black-headed Pitta but it was quite far away. Going down the trail I heard the whistles again occasionally but couldn’t see any of the pittas themselves. There was a group of birders/bird photographers also looking down the trail but they hadn’t seen any pittas either. After about 11:30 I decided it was pointless in the heat and I should turn back. I did have one scare walking on the way back down the trail though as I passed a group of Pig-tailed Macaques going the other way. There were three massive males with a large group of females and young and they really didn’t like me there. They started by just displaying their teeth and doing the threatening macaque bending down as well as eventually mock-charging and almost going for me. I just held my ground and walked slowly on the other side of the trail, trying to keep as far away from the females and young as possible, but it wasn’t a very wide trail and it did get very hairy as I was going past. Even once I was past the group, the males followed me down the path, mock-charging along the way, until I was well away from the group. I’m not sure what the right response is for macaques. For dogs you bend down to pretend to pick up a rock but I don’t think that would have been good for macaques. Do you make yourself look as big as possible? I imagine running would have been the wrong thing to do in this situation, it rarely is right with animals.
A bit further down the track, I heard a pitta that seemed quite close. I slowly followed the sound down the track and it seemed very close indeed. The bird photographer group who I had seen early seemed to have the same idea and a bit later they showed up too. The pitta really was close, and before long, I saw something shimmery red and blue in the undergrowth. The pitta! It was very obscured indeed in the undergrowth and it wasn’t the only one around. There was another pitta that sounded quite close coming from the other side of the track and they were calling at each other, presumably territorially. A bit later, one of the people from the bird photography group who had gone off came back and said they had found the other pitta! It was sitting up in a tree right by the path in a much more exposed position. In fact, without mealworms you’d struggle to get a pitta in a more open position than that. Absolutely stunning bird and pittas really are amazing. Even better that the Black-headed Pitta is endemic to this part of Borneo. The one in the exposed position didn’t hang around for that long and flew off to disappear into the undergrowth, but the first pitta, the one that was obscured in the undergrowth but just visible about 10m from the path was just sitting on a low perch calling. A pitta walkaway view!
As I left the RDC to go out for lunch, I checked to see if the ticket office people had heard from the management but the manager hadn’t arrived yet. I also asked about the guided night walk, making it clear that this was a last resort and I would much rather go on my own (the ticket people as well as the guard, both seem to want me to be able to go and spotlighting on my own so it’s not them being obtuse and unreasonable. They just can’t allow it without management permission) but they require a minimum of 4 people and there was no one else yet. They thought the manager might show up a bit later though.
So I went for lunch and it was far too hot to go birding so I just lounged around. I did find that I had a rather interesting room mate though, a wonderful Bornean endemic: a Large Pencil-tailed Tree-mouse. Two species of Pencil-tailed Tree-mice so far! This one seemed a bit distressed because it is supposed to be nocturnal and seemed to have got stuck in the room. It was climbing up and down the walls and mosquito mesh window to try and get out. It then ran around the room a bit and ended up sitting on my bedside table for a while before running across my bed and out the room. Apparently it had woken my human room mate up at night by running across his face during the night. Lovely little mammal.
Before going back out for the afternoon, I stopped at the reception to see if I could arrange for a taxi to visit the Labuk Bay Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary for a day trip. From what I've heard, it's a protected area of mangroves with wild proboscis monkeys but are fed at set times in set places each day so are habituated to humans. Anyway I'll hopefully see what it's like in person tomorrow as I've arranged for a taxi to pick me up tomorrow at 9 (I want to do it tomorrow because it's the last day before three days of public holiday for Eid). Apparently it should be 45 ringgit for the return trip which is less than I had feared.
Going back into the RDC in the afternoon I was stopped by the woman at the ticket entrance and told that she had asked her manager who said no. I then asked if it was possible to speak to the manager myself, expecting to be told no, but surprisingly she said yes and took me up to the main office. So I was walked up the big steps and through the security keyed door to the manager's secretary and finally the real big cheese and park chief herself. There was quite a bit of back and forth and polite discussions. Luckily, polite but relatively firm and assertive discussions is the sort of thing I'm happy to do and can do I think reasonably well, but the top manager was nice anyway and we discussed wildlife watching in Malaysia and the national parks etc. So I eventually got permission to stay in the RDC until 8 o'clock only (that was firm, but gives me an hour and a half to two hours of spotlighting time) and I had to have my picture posted at the guard office, agree to sign in and out, and sign a declaration saying I would be fully responsible, the park would have no liability, etc. I’m not sure why the required my picture at the guard office, to identify the body or something, but it really is overdoing it on the “safety”.
So that's a pain! Sort of fun though? And it is a recent management decision on her part because of idiot tourists who don't know what they're doing. So it's much more difficult now, but still possible. If anyone here wants to try and skip ahead a few steps, ask to see Ben in the office upstairs. 8 is quite early to end spotlighting but it's better than nothing and sunset here is almost exactly one hour earlier here than it is in KL.
I started on the canopy walkway where there’s a spot where you can easily see Red Giant Flying Squirrels coming out of their nest hole. I’ve been seeing them pretty easily throughout the trip, but I thought I could have another go. I got a fantastic view of a Red Giant Flying Squirrel Gliding above me just before sunset and then gliding between the trees after that. It would shimmy up the trunk of an emergent tree then glide down to the canopy below and repeat. I wasn’t fast enough and there wasn’t enough light to get a picture of one in flight though. I saw a number of Red Giant Flying Squirrels from the canopy walkway just after dark and then headed down for the spotlighting from the ground with about an hour and a half of proper full-darkness spotlighting with five nights including this night now that I hopefully have got it sorted.
I didn’t see any tarsiers unfortunately, though I did hear what can only be tarsiers bounding around near the forest floor and jumping up from the leaf litter. I think they must have been tarsiers because I can’t think of anything else that would have bounced like that. Based on the sounds, they seem moderately common but I couldn’t actually see any. Tarsiers don’t have eyeshine which makes them much more difficult to find. I think they evolved to not have eyeshine just to spite me personally. I did, however find a Common Palm Civet quite high up in a tree, I believe they’re a different subspecies to the ones in Peninsula Malaysia? I also got a great view of a Lesser Mousedeer, sitting quietly right by the path with a rather striking bluey-green eyeshine.
It was right around the mousedeer sighting however, that I got by far the best mammal of the night. I still can’t quite believe it. I was walking up the Ridge Trail a bit then turned back around just after walking past a spot with a particularly strong mammalian smell. And as I turned back around and shone the torch down the path, just near where I had the smell, there was very clear, bright eyeshine looking directly back at me from on the edge of the path. It was about 80-100 metres away and looked to be entirely black at first. I walked towards it as fast as I could without being startling for it, wondering what that could possibly be. Then I realised what it was… it had a bit of white on it too… a medium sized mostly black and a bit white mammal on the ground on the edge of the path quite near the edge of where the RDC meets the secondary growth on the edge of the forest. I couldn’t quite believe it and I think I had an audible sharp intake of breath when I realised what it was as it turned and went quickly away into the forest off the path. A stink badger! Wow! What an amazing mammal! It was a Sunda Stink Badger which is a mammal that I knew had a small possibility here but never expected to actually see. Amazing!
I was not too far from the exit of the RDC (for anyone interested in the details, the stink badger was near where the Tarsier Crossing joins the Ridge Trail) which was good because it was nearly 8 o’clock and if I was much after 8 leaving I’d probably have problems for future nights. I didn’t see anything else much until just near the exit there were some Large Flying Foxes overhead. I’m very pleased indeed to have been able to go spotlighting!
New birds seen
White-crowned Shama
Short-tailed Babbler
Brown-backed Flowerpecker
Javan Myna (should be on the list already I think but missed off)
Black-capped Babbler
Bushy-crested Hornbill
Dusky Munia
Fiery Minivet
Chestnut-winged Babbler
Black-headed Pitta
Oriental Darter
Temminck’s Sunbird
Hill Myna
Mammals:
Variable Giant Squirrel
Large Pencil-tailed Tree-mouse
Sunda Stink Badger
Large Flying Fox
It hadn't dawned on me (pun intended) how early sunrise was here until I checked on Google just before bed. It's still in the same time zone but because of how much further East it is, sunrise is more than an hour earlier.
With it being so hot in the middle of the day and so dead bird-wise, I wanted to make sure I was in as early as possible. Unfortunately, the Rainforest Discovery Centre only opens at 8, but I got to the entrance at about 6:45. There are no gates and the guard seemed to be asleep so I just gave him a wide berth and went in. Having not been told anything explicitly about the morning opening times, I could claim ignorance which is going to be much more difficult at night now. If I had known I was going to be stopped at night, then I would have been fine but it’s a bit tricky now.
Anyway, it was indeed much birdier in the morning with lot of babblers and sunbirds and things calling. Still quite difficult to see the birds though, even with the advantage of having a canopy walkway. Some nice things about nonetheless, but no more Bornean Bristleheads. I did find my second Bornean endemic bird though, and the most common of the sixty-odd Bornean endemics: Dusky Munias. And a bit later, I added another Bornean endemic: White-crowned Shama. I left just before the official opening time of 8, had breakfast back at the B&B and then headed back in for the morning, buying an entry ticket then. Last night, the night guard had said that what I should do is ask at the ticket office for permission to enter at night and if I could get permission from them, the guards would let me in. When I asked about it, I found out that the reason for this rule change was because recently some tourists had got lost in the forest at night in the RDC and they had to call search and rescue. How you can get lost is a bit beyond me because all the trails are thoroughly signposted and all eventually come back on each other anyway and the place isn’t very large at all. The RDC is connected to the main area of Sepilok rainforest but it juts out a bit and in itself is just a small area, though connected to the proper forest. I persuaded the ticket counter people that I would be fine, but they couldn’t give me permission and I would have to ask the manager who wasn’t there so I left my number and they would phone me if/when the manager arrives. This whole thing is a right pain but if I can get it sorted then that will be much easier than ‘accidentally’ leaving late in terms of fitting in dinner as well as not worrying about the guards.
Although it was getting hot a bit by this point, I decided to continue trying for birds and I headed up the ‘Pitta Path’. Generally, the names of paths in places like this aren’t actually correlated with the birds you see, but in this case it seemed that this is actually the best spot for pittas. It wasn’t long before I could hear the distinctive whistling call of a Black-headed Pitta but it was quite far away. Going down the trail I heard the whistles again occasionally but couldn’t see any of the pittas themselves. There was a group of birders/bird photographers also looking down the trail but they hadn’t seen any pittas either. After about 11:30 I decided it was pointless in the heat and I should turn back. I did have one scare walking on the way back down the trail though as I passed a group of Pig-tailed Macaques going the other way. There were three massive males with a large group of females and young and they really didn’t like me there. They started by just displaying their teeth and doing the threatening macaque bending down as well as eventually mock-charging and almost going for me. I just held my ground and walked slowly on the other side of the trail, trying to keep as far away from the females and young as possible, but it wasn’t a very wide trail and it did get very hairy as I was going past. Even once I was past the group, the males followed me down the path, mock-charging along the way, until I was well away from the group. I’m not sure what the right response is for macaques. For dogs you bend down to pretend to pick up a rock but I don’t think that would have been good for macaques. Do you make yourself look as big as possible? I imagine running would have been the wrong thing to do in this situation, it rarely is right with animals.
A bit further down the track, I heard a pitta that seemed quite close. I slowly followed the sound down the track and it seemed very close indeed. The bird photographer group who I had seen early seemed to have the same idea and a bit later they showed up too. The pitta really was close, and before long, I saw something shimmery red and blue in the undergrowth. The pitta! It was very obscured indeed in the undergrowth and it wasn’t the only one around. There was another pitta that sounded quite close coming from the other side of the track and they were calling at each other, presumably territorially. A bit later, one of the people from the bird photography group who had gone off came back and said they had found the other pitta! It was sitting up in a tree right by the path in a much more exposed position. In fact, without mealworms you’d struggle to get a pitta in a more open position than that. Absolutely stunning bird and pittas really are amazing. Even better that the Black-headed Pitta is endemic to this part of Borneo. The one in the exposed position didn’t hang around for that long and flew off to disappear into the undergrowth, but the first pitta, the one that was obscured in the undergrowth but just visible about 10m from the path was just sitting on a low perch calling. A pitta walkaway view!
As I left the RDC to go out for lunch, I checked to see if the ticket office people had heard from the management but the manager hadn’t arrived yet. I also asked about the guided night walk, making it clear that this was a last resort and I would much rather go on my own (the ticket people as well as the guard, both seem to want me to be able to go and spotlighting on my own so it’s not them being obtuse and unreasonable. They just can’t allow it without management permission) but they require a minimum of 4 people and there was no one else yet. They thought the manager might show up a bit later though.
So I went for lunch and it was far too hot to go birding so I just lounged around. I did find that I had a rather interesting room mate though, a wonderful Bornean endemic: a Large Pencil-tailed Tree-mouse. Two species of Pencil-tailed Tree-mice so far! This one seemed a bit distressed because it is supposed to be nocturnal and seemed to have got stuck in the room. It was climbing up and down the walls and mosquito mesh window to try and get out. It then ran around the room a bit and ended up sitting on my bedside table for a while before running across my bed and out the room. Apparently it had woken my human room mate up at night by running across his face during the night. Lovely little mammal.
Before going back out for the afternoon, I stopped at the reception to see if I could arrange for a taxi to visit the Labuk Bay Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary for a day trip. From what I've heard, it's a protected area of mangroves with wild proboscis monkeys but are fed at set times in set places each day so are habituated to humans. Anyway I'll hopefully see what it's like in person tomorrow as I've arranged for a taxi to pick me up tomorrow at 9 (I want to do it tomorrow because it's the last day before three days of public holiday for Eid). Apparently it should be 45 ringgit for the return trip which is less than I had feared.
Going back into the RDC in the afternoon I was stopped by the woman at the ticket entrance and told that she had asked her manager who said no. I then asked if it was possible to speak to the manager myself, expecting to be told no, but surprisingly she said yes and took me up to the main office. So I was walked up the big steps and through the security keyed door to the manager's secretary and finally the real big cheese and park chief herself. There was quite a bit of back and forth and polite discussions. Luckily, polite but relatively firm and assertive discussions is the sort of thing I'm happy to do and can do I think reasonably well, but the top manager was nice anyway and we discussed wildlife watching in Malaysia and the national parks etc. So I eventually got permission to stay in the RDC until 8 o'clock only (that was firm, but gives me an hour and a half to two hours of spotlighting time) and I had to have my picture posted at the guard office, agree to sign in and out, and sign a declaration saying I would be fully responsible, the park would have no liability, etc. I’m not sure why the required my picture at the guard office, to identify the body or something, but it really is overdoing it on the “safety”.
So that's a pain! Sort of fun though? And it is a recent management decision on her part because of idiot tourists who don't know what they're doing. So it's much more difficult now, but still possible. If anyone here wants to try and skip ahead a few steps, ask to see Ben in the office upstairs. 8 is quite early to end spotlighting but it's better than nothing and sunset here is almost exactly one hour earlier here than it is in KL.
I started on the canopy walkway where there’s a spot where you can easily see Red Giant Flying Squirrels coming out of their nest hole. I’ve been seeing them pretty easily throughout the trip, but I thought I could have another go. I got a fantastic view of a Red Giant Flying Squirrel Gliding above me just before sunset and then gliding between the trees after that. It would shimmy up the trunk of an emergent tree then glide down to the canopy below and repeat. I wasn’t fast enough and there wasn’t enough light to get a picture of one in flight though. I saw a number of Red Giant Flying Squirrels from the canopy walkway just after dark and then headed down for the spotlighting from the ground with about an hour and a half of proper full-darkness spotlighting with five nights including this night now that I hopefully have got it sorted.
I didn’t see any tarsiers unfortunately, though I did hear what can only be tarsiers bounding around near the forest floor and jumping up from the leaf litter. I think they must have been tarsiers because I can’t think of anything else that would have bounced like that. Based on the sounds, they seem moderately common but I couldn’t actually see any. Tarsiers don’t have eyeshine which makes them much more difficult to find. I think they evolved to not have eyeshine just to spite me personally. I did, however find a Common Palm Civet quite high up in a tree, I believe they’re a different subspecies to the ones in Peninsula Malaysia? I also got a great view of a Lesser Mousedeer, sitting quietly right by the path with a rather striking bluey-green eyeshine.
It was right around the mousedeer sighting however, that I got by far the best mammal of the night. I still can’t quite believe it. I was walking up the Ridge Trail a bit then turned back around just after walking past a spot with a particularly strong mammalian smell. And as I turned back around and shone the torch down the path, just near where I had the smell, there was very clear, bright eyeshine looking directly back at me from on the edge of the path. It was about 80-100 metres away and looked to be entirely black at first. I walked towards it as fast as I could without being startling for it, wondering what that could possibly be. Then I realised what it was… it had a bit of white on it too… a medium sized mostly black and a bit white mammal on the ground on the edge of the path quite near the edge of where the RDC meets the secondary growth on the edge of the forest. I couldn’t quite believe it and I think I had an audible sharp intake of breath when I realised what it was as it turned and went quickly away into the forest off the path. A stink badger! Wow! What an amazing mammal! It was a Sunda Stink Badger which is a mammal that I knew had a small possibility here but never expected to actually see. Amazing!
I was not too far from the exit of the RDC (for anyone interested in the details, the stink badger was near where the Tarsier Crossing joins the Ridge Trail) which was good because it was nearly 8 o’clock and if I was much after 8 leaving I’d probably have problems for future nights. I didn’t see anything else much until just near the exit there were some Large Flying Foxes overhead. I’m very pleased indeed to have been able to go spotlighting!
New birds seen
White-crowned Shama
Short-tailed Babbler
Brown-backed Flowerpecker
Javan Myna (should be on the list already I think but missed off)
Black-capped Babbler
Bushy-crested Hornbill
Dusky Munia
Fiery Minivet
Chestnut-winged Babbler
Black-headed Pitta
Oriental Darter
Temminck’s Sunbird
Hill Myna
Mammals:
Variable Giant Squirrel
Large Pencil-tailed Tree-mouse
Sunda Stink Badger
Large Flying Fox
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Was the stink badger one of your mammals @Chlidonias?
Maybe the tree-mouse as well (although it wasn't one of the ones I originally thought was part of the 10 - I hadn't realised there was an endemic species of Pencil-tailed Tree-mouse)
Maybe the tree-mouse as well (although it wasn't one of the ones I originally thought was part of the 10 - I hadn't realised there was an endemic species of Pencil-tailed Tree-mouse)
Well, that's just not fair.
It seems like I was really lucky on my first evening. I didn't see any all day today!
SabineB
Well-Known Member
along the canopy walk there is the bristlehead tower, from where you actually should see them if they are round which it seems they are and you can see lot of big red flying squirrels around six-ish, basically straight up the next high tree viewing outside the RDC and by the end of the canopy walkway, ca. 100m before it ends on the right hand side is a huge tree where around four-ish squirrels actually look out of there caves to check out if it is time to fly.
you may want to check out the bird trail down to the waterfall that starts in the orang utan center, still it does not save you the entrance fee for the center, but still, it is much less frequented by people and if you get in the morning and sign off the orang utan compound you can basically stay the entire day and as it is dense and shady everywhere, if you bring food and drinks, you may get lucky with lots of birds and mammals that you do not get to see as good as in the RDC.
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Yup, the Stink Badger was one of them. Nine to go!
Different species, even. The Common Palm Civet was split in three a few years ago based on genetics. It's a good split (unlike many!) and one I follow myself. IUCN hasn't caught up with it yet, still treating it as one species with several subspecies.
So the ones in Borneo are P. philippensis, while the ones in Peninsular Malaysia are P. musangus.
The Labuk Bay Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary
I got up for dawn birding at the RDC and tiptoed past the guard again. There is a guard in there, but it's the same guy as starts his shift at 6 the night before and he doesn't seem very lively at 6 the next morning which is a very good thing. I also get the impression that they're not concerned about people going in early, and there were a couple of other birders about. It's just the night which is an issue.
I started the morning with a wonderfully showy endemic: Bornean Banded Kingfisher, and continued with a number of other nice birds including two massive White-bellied Woodpeckers on an emergent tree. I was hoping for some broadbills though which are supposed to be easier to see in Borneo but no luck yet (also no pygmy squirrels yet)
After breakfast, I got the taxi to Labuk Bay at about 9 and it turned out that the RM45 was not per taxi but per person and for a minimum of two so he wanted RM90. Sigh. Of course it is. So we agreed on RM70 which is a lot more than 45 but still acceptable and the sanctuary is a good 25 mins drive and quite a long way through oil palm plantations. The entry ticket was pricey too at RM60 + an RM10 fee for the camera. Not cheap but I need to remember that the most expensive things like intercontinental airfares and travel insurance are multiple orders of magnitude more and if I didn't do it, I'd have regretted it.
The sanctuary itself appears to be entirely unconnected to any habitat from the land side and inland is surrounded by oil palm plantations but I think is connected along the coast by mangroves which I believe are relatively intact in Sabah. The sanctuary itself is a moderately large patch of high quality mangrove habitat with two feeding stations and a population of proboscis monkeys that is probably slightly inflated above natural levels due to the feeding. They are wild though and apart from coming down to the feeding platforms twice a day at each of two platforms for feeding time, they just sat up in the mangroves behaving as wild.
It was great to watch the proboscis monkeys leaping and the group interactions and noises. There are Silvered Langurs too which I think have been split as Bornean Silvered Langurs and some interesting mangrovey birds like kingfishers and such. I didn't see the langurs at the feeding platforms at all but I saw a small troop crossing the road and foraging naturally in the mangrove. But there are Oriental Pied Hornbills at the feeding times too, as well as the Proboscis Monkeys, which come down for fruit put out for them.
The main problem, other than the price, is that it's very hot and shade is limited but I had rather expected that so was prepared. Had it been near the start of the trip, I would have been horrendously sunburnt because I do things like standing in the sun whenever I see a bird, but it's late enough in the trip now that I'm used to being in the sun so it was not too bad. You also can't get into the mangroves as much as I would have liked but the road between the two feeding stations goes along the edge of the mangroves and there is the boardwalk going up to the feeding platforms as well as a short concrete slab type path going into the mangrove which I don't think had been walked on for a while but that gives another bit of mangrove access.
There is accommodation at Labuk Bay Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary too but I'm not sure that there's much point in staying really and it's not cheap.
I watched the 9:30 feeding at the first platform and then walked around a bit along the road that runs along the edge of the mangrove before watching the 11:30 feeding at the second platform (which has a different troop of monkeys) and then had lunch at the restaurant which is, naturally, overpriced but is a proper restaurant. I had arranged for the taxi to come at 3 giving me time for a bit more birding, though it was quite slow going being very hot and mostly along the edge of the mangroves rather than in the mangrove itself. This is where I saw the silvered langurs though so that's good. I also watched the second feeding at the first platform just before it was time for the taxi pick up at 3. I liked the Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary overall though and it is worth visiting in my opinion.
After a short bit of a sit down back at the B&B I went back to the RDC for the evening birds and then the spotlighting. It was still too hot at 4:30 when I got to the RDC so before starting the birding I went around their little 'Plant Discovery Garden's because I do like plants and they have a nice variety of interesting tropical plants.
There seem to be loads of Green Imperial Pigeons around now. There was a small flock this morning but now they seem to be everywhere. The spotlighting itself was pretty good given time limitations. Still no tarsiers though, but lots of Red Giant Flying Squirrels of course (so you'll never draw a complete blank spotlighting at Sepilok because of the squirrels) as well as a mouse deer, a roosting Oriental Dwarf Kingfisher (a local subspecies), and most excitingly the other night primate species: a slow loris! With recent splitting, there are four different species of Slow Loris in Borneo and the one in Sabah is the Philippine Slow Loris. Not quite as good as a tarsier, but a great sighting. It was quite high in a tree so it took a little while for me to see it well enough and watch its behaviour for long enough that I was confident it was a loris and not an odd-behaving flying squirrel or civet of some kind so I had to interpret the 8PM restriction more liberally but the guard knows me now so it was fine and I wasn't that late anyway.
So quite a full-on day today, but lots of cool stuff seen!
New birds
Bornean Banded Kingfisher
Green Iora
White-bellied Woodpecker
Green Imperial-pigeon
Greater Green Leafbird
Chestnut-collared Kingfisher
Lesser Coucal
Ruddy Kingfisher
White-breasted Woodswallow
Mangrove Blue Flycatcher
Streaked Bulbul
Little Green Pigeon
Intermediate Egret
Oriental Dwarf Kingfisher
Mammals
Island Palm Civet (from last night, split from Common Palm Civet)
Proboscis Monkey
House Rat
Bornean Silvered Langur
Philippine (Bornean) Slow Loris
+microbat photographed clearly hanging from a branch close by so possibly identifiable
I got up for dawn birding at the RDC and tiptoed past the guard again. There is a guard in there, but it's the same guy as starts his shift at 6 the night before and he doesn't seem very lively at 6 the next morning which is a very good thing. I also get the impression that they're not concerned about people going in early, and there were a couple of other birders about. It's just the night which is an issue.
I started the morning with a wonderfully showy endemic: Bornean Banded Kingfisher, and continued with a number of other nice birds including two massive White-bellied Woodpeckers on an emergent tree. I was hoping for some broadbills though which are supposed to be easier to see in Borneo but no luck yet (also no pygmy squirrels yet)
After breakfast, I got the taxi to Labuk Bay at about 9 and it turned out that the RM45 was not per taxi but per person and for a minimum of two so he wanted RM90. Sigh. Of course it is. So we agreed on RM70 which is a lot more than 45 but still acceptable and the sanctuary is a good 25 mins drive and quite a long way through oil palm plantations. The entry ticket was pricey too at RM60 + an RM10 fee for the camera. Not cheap but I need to remember that the most expensive things like intercontinental airfares and travel insurance are multiple orders of magnitude more and if I didn't do it, I'd have regretted it.
The sanctuary itself appears to be entirely unconnected to any habitat from the land side and inland is surrounded by oil palm plantations but I think is connected along the coast by mangroves which I believe are relatively intact in Sabah. The sanctuary itself is a moderately large patch of high quality mangrove habitat with two feeding stations and a population of proboscis monkeys that is probably slightly inflated above natural levels due to the feeding. They are wild though and apart from coming down to the feeding platforms twice a day at each of two platforms for feeding time, they just sat up in the mangroves behaving as wild.
It was great to watch the proboscis monkeys leaping and the group interactions and noises. There are Silvered Langurs too which I think have been split as Bornean Silvered Langurs and some interesting mangrovey birds like kingfishers and such. I didn't see the langurs at the feeding platforms at all but I saw a small troop crossing the road and foraging naturally in the mangrove. But there are Oriental Pied Hornbills at the feeding times too, as well as the Proboscis Monkeys, which come down for fruit put out for them.
The main problem, other than the price, is that it's very hot and shade is limited but I had rather expected that so was prepared. Had it been near the start of the trip, I would have been horrendously sunburnt because I do things like standing in the sun whenever I see a bird, but it's late enough in the trip now that I'm used to being in the sun so it was not too bad. You also can't get into the mangroves as much as I would have liked but the road between the two feeding stations goes along the edge of the mangroves and there is the boardwalk going up to the feeding platforms as well as a short concrete slab type path going into the mangrove which I don't think had been walked on for a while but that gives another bit of mangrove access.
There is accommodation at Labuk Bay Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary too but I'm not sure that there's much point in staying really and it's not cheap.
I watched the 9:30 feeding at the first platform and then walked around a bit along the road that runs along the edge of the mangrove before watching the 11:30 feeding at the second platform (which has a different troop of monkeys) and then had lunch at the restaurant which is, naturally, overpriced but is a proper restaurant. I had arranged for the taxi to come at 3 giving me time for a bit more birding, though it was quite slow going being very hot and mostly along the edge of the mangroves rather than in the mangrove itself. This is where I saw the silvered langurs though so that's good. I also watched the second feeding at the first platform just before it was time for the taxi pick up at 3. I liked the Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary overall though and it is worth visiting in my opinion.
After a short bit of a sit down back at the B&B I went back to the RDC for the evening birds and then the spotlighting. It was still too hot at 4:30 when I got to the RDC so before starting the birding I went around their little 'Plant Discovery Garden's because I do like plants and they have a nice variety of interesting tropical plants.
There seem to be loads of Green Imperial Pigeons around now. There was a small flock this morning but now they seem to be everywhere. The spotlighting itself was pretty good given time limitations. Still no tarsiers though, but lots of Red Giant Flying Squirrels of course (so you'll never draw a complete blank spotlighting at Sepilok because of the squirrels) as well as a mouse deer, a roosting Oriental Dwarf Kingfisher (a local subspecies), and most excitingly the other night primate species: a slow loris! With recent splitting, there are four different species of Slow Loris in Borneo and the one in Sabah is the Philippine Slow Loris. Not quite as good as a tarsier, but a great sighting. It was quite high in a tree so it took a little while for me to see it well enough and watch its behaviour for long enough that I was confident it was a loris and not an odd-behaving flying squirrel or civet of some kind so I had to interpret the 8PM restriction more liberally but the guard knows me now so it was fine and I wasn't that late anyway.
So quite a full-on day today, but lots of cool stuff seen!
New birds
Bornean Banded Kingfisher
Green Iora
White-bellied Woodpecker
Green Imperial-pigeon
Greater Green Leafbird
Chestnut-collared Kingfisher
Lesser Coucal
Ruddy Kingfisher
White-breasted Woodswallow
Mangrove Blue Flycatcher
Streaked Bulbul
Little Green Pigeon
Intermediate Egret
Oriental Dwarf Kingfisher
Mammals
Island Palm Civet (from last night, split from Common Palm Civet)
Proboscis Monkey
House Rat
Bornean Silvered Langur
Philippine (Bornean) Slow Loris
+microbat photographed clearly hanging from a branch close by so possibly identifiable
Not quite. The Selangor langurs have been split from the rest of the population (in Borneo and Sumatra). So the ones in Borneo haven't changed at all. However it's a split which isn't followed by many people even though primatologists are renowned for taking any split they can get. (Basically it seems like a split for the sake of publishing a paper).
The slow loris splits in Borneo are about as rubbish as one can get. I certainly won't be following it until they come up with something better than "they look different". Compare to something like the Silky Anteater multiple splits, for example, where the evidence was comprehensive, covering physical appearance, skull shape, genetics, etc.