LaughingDove Goes Travelling - SE Asia and Australia

[LaughingDove]

Danum Departure and Journey to Mount Kinabalu

My morning birding at Danum was quite productive and the French guys also found it more productive than usual completely independent of me. This seemed to be a common trend with occasional days of great birding and others with almost nothing in the same areas. I added quite a few new species actually, see the list below which were all from only a couple of hours this morning, as well as a great and first-photo view of a Large Green Pigeon being worth noting.

I've refined my breakfast strategy by this point too so I don't miss out on birding. Breakfast is officially 7-8:30 but if you're not there at 7 on the dot there will be no food left and you'll be stuck behind a long queue and waste loads of birding time so the best technique is to go in quickly, grab the food and be out within 10 minutes so no problem with birding time. If it's a boiled egg day then that's even better because you can just grab some eggs, bread, and bananas and not waste any morning birding at all.

The scheduled transfer left at 8:30 (it's 3x a week, otherwise you have to spend a fortune on a private transfer) and it was rather full. And by rather full, I mean 11 people (including the French guys leaving that day) + luggage in a 9 seater minibus for 2 and a half hours on dirt tracks. The minibus was riding quite low to the ground. We did see an orangutan in a moderately distant emergent tree though which was nice.

We got back to Lahad Datu around 11 as expected and looking at my bus options, the best thing seemed to be a bus direct to Kota Kinabalu (and they would drop me off at the park on the way - the highway goes right past the entrance and it's about 2 hours before the city) leaving at 3:30. I could have left for Sandakan at 1 and changed to a KK bus from there, but with the extra distance back and forth and potentially time waiting in Sandakan, I decided that waiting in Lahad Datu for 4 and a half hours in a restaurant and going straight to Kinabalu was my best option.

The bus is more expensive than I was expecting: RM52 per person. And that's the real price which all the locals (i.e. everyone else on the bus apart from me) were paying too and what it said on the ticket. Not expensive in absolute terms for me, but it must be a decent amount of money for many lower-to-middle income locals and is only a little less than a quarter of the price of the 55min flight from LD to KK. The coach was absolutely full too and they had some extra cargo they were carrying. The bus operator must make quite a bit of money off this

I will get to Mt Kinabalu quite late, it's 6-7 hours I think by bus but I don't think that number includes the regular toilet/refuelling/buying food/extremely long for reasons entirely unknown stops, but I've called ahead to the accommodation so hopefully it will be fine (I'm writing this on the bus on my phone). It's palm oil plantations all the way it seems with sunset over the palms as far as the eye can see. I did see a storms stork from the road though in the palm fields which was quite surprising though looking on Google maps, we were just passing the Kinabatangan then which was about 5km away as the crow flies or as the stork flies. Occasional SFM (Sustainable Forest Management) reserves and selectively logged areas too though, which is a reminder that Sabah isn't doing a bad job at preserving forest. Better than Sarawak or Kalimantan I believe.

After quite a long drive in the dark, the bus dropped me off at Kinabalu Park just before 11 and a few hundred metres down the road in pleasingly cool temperatures was my accommodation, a place called the Mountain Resthouse with RM30 dorms, which I got to just after. Given that I started the journey at 8:30 this morning with the transfer out or Danum (and woke up at 5:30 for sunrise birding) that's a long travel day. Much longer than I'd ideally like and I would rather arrive at places in the day, but this day was always going to be a really long day of travel across Sabah.

I won't make it up for sunrise birding tomorrow because I got in far too late and am rather in need of a proper nights sleep, but I was half expecting not to make it to Kinabalu tonight anyway and stay a night in Sandakan or somewhere on the way so I'll still get to the birds earlier than I would have and I'm pleased I made it here from Danum in a single day.

New birds:
Moustached Hawk Cuckoo
Malaysian Honeyguide
Red Throated Barbet
Dusky Broadbill

 

[TZDugong]

In The Middle of The Forest: Danum Days Three to Five

I’m including these three full days in one post because my routine was much the same for all three of these days (and much the same as for my previous post which covered the first of my four full days at Danum) just looking for wildlife in the rainforest. It really is an amazing place here: it’s just right in the heart of a vast area of virgin primary rainforest with lowland forest stretching as far as you can see which is about as close to the natural state of Borneo as you can get. Borneo never had any open land or grassland naturally, just rainforest stretchinv to coastal mangroves. It does feel remote too, it’s two and a half hours along dirt roads to the nearest civilisation and there’s no other connection: electricity is from a generator and what little phone signal there is is provided by a dedicated mobile telecoms tower on top of one of the hills.

It’s also crawling with leeches here. The terrestrial leeches aren’t that bad, certainly no worse than Taman Negara or Bukit Fraser and maybe not as bad as the former, but the forest is full of tiger leeches which sit on leaves and latch onto your upper body as you walk past and their bite is actually slightly painful, you certainly feel it unlike the terrestrial leeches which means you do get them off before they do much blood sucking. I’ve stopped bothering with leech socks for the terrestrial leeches though. Literally everyone, even the locals who live here, wear them when going off the road but not wearing them I find that I will only get one or two leeches after a whole day in the forest and I think that’s less annoying than dealing with the socks and taking them on and off whenever you go in any buildings. It’s definitely more tiger leeches than normal ones.

It’s very hot too. Really, extremely hot, and the dorm gets very hot during the day with a corrugated iron roof and insufficient ventilation. I’ve actually found that I’ve had to go through two shirts a day: the morning shirt just stinks of sweat by lunchtime. I also found myself getting extremely dehydrated despite drinking loads of water and I’ve been taking electrolyte powder sachet things that I had with me in my first aid kit. Normally just having salty food is sufficient for me in the tropics though I suppose I have been outdoors doing things in lowland forests for quite a few weeks now and I’m actually over a month into the trip at this point. Salt dehydration is quite interesting though because I found myself getting headaches and feeling lethargic and a couple of sachets of electrolytes made me feel much better and that’s purely due to salt loss from sweating. The plastic of my glasses has also been getting so hot that it’s actually malleable so they keep getting bent but it’s ok because I can just bend them right back.

Being very hot and primary rainforest with tall trees and a dense canopy naturally makes the wildlife watching very difficult, but with perseverance the sightings slowly trickle in and there are lots of wonderful species here to see. It’s just a matter of finding them. I’ve got great views of gibbons though on multiple occasions, Bornean, or North Bornean if you’re feeling splitty. Lots of maroon langurs around too which are wonderful and orangutans too. I got a tip off from the French wildlife watchers about where they had seen a mother and baby making a nest but when I got there, they were already in the nest with just some orange fur sticking out. But I went down early next morning and got an absolutely amazing up-close and clear view of the mother and baby coming out of the nest and sitting on an exposed branch before moving off. The same French wildlife watchers also managed to find a day sleeping slow-loris. I’d love to take credit for finding it to boost my loris-finding street cred but I don’t know how they found it. It took me twenty minutes to find it searching in the patch of trees where I knew it would be. Quite cool though, a ball of fluff with some feet sticking out rolled up on a tree.

Speaking of loris though, I do seem to be quite good at finding them at night. I’ve been spotlighting on foot and from the night drive, both with the French guys,e and I do seem to be quite good at finding eyeshine and I think I can fairly say that now because they’ve got spotlighting torches and know what they’re doing too and I seem to be finding the vast majority of the eyeshine.

Nights at Danum have generally been slow though, it’s much tougher here then any of the places I’ve been so far on this trip, even Taman Negara which was hard. People write lots of good things about these night drives, but they don’t seem particularly great. The two people spotlighting certainly don’t know what they’re doing: they’re just looking for shapes and apart from a roosting fireback pheasant, which is cool, they found nothing on the night drives that I was on. You’d be just as successful hiring your own vehicle and driving around but there is certainly the potential for amazing mammals here. On the nights drives I did, I found Red Giant Flying Squirrels, Slow Loris, Malay Civets, Palm Civets (the arboreal species), Mouse Deer, and Sambar, but that was it. One of the night drives apparently saw nothing but Sambar which is definitely believable given the spotlighting abilities of the spotters but the thing is that driving along the road at night there’s always a (low) chance at the really cool species, including cats, but I didn’t think the night drives were as good as I had heard. So I did a few night drives on days when there were lots of other people so the cost was split making it very cheap but most of my success has come from long hours of spotlighting on foot, not hiring a guide, but just walking around, sometimes with the French guys but generally I kept going longer. Until 1:30AM one night, but staying out until after 11 is annoying because that’s when the generator is turned off and you have to shower in the dark otherwise.

The night were I stayed out to 1:30AM was good though, eventually. I did the first couple of hours with the French guys and saw a small black-and-white banded snake and a couple identifiable bats, as well as hearing a Barred Eagle-owl in the distance but it was very slow. I continued for quite a few more hours after them though because it was an ear that seemed like perfect tarsier habitat and I could hear them jumping around as at Sepilok and I knew that here, without time limitations, it was just a matter of keeping going until eventually I would have to find one. It was edging towards midnight but finally I did get a tarsier moving about in the understory which I could actually see properly. Fleetingly, but fleetingly a few times before it moved off. Wonderful animal. A lot of work, but really a super target mammal species. And the day before, I had managed to find a group of Hose’s Grey Langurs in the forest, also a fleeting view of them (and barely countable if I’m honest, good enough to ID and tick but a bit borderline. Apparently they're better and more reliable at Tabin which is a place I won't make it to on this trip) and with those two, I’ve got 10 primate species in Sabah which I believe is all of Sabah’s primates. Apparently Hose’s Langur is scare in areas where Maroon is common which is the case here at Danum.

That same night though after 1AM as I was heading back, I did get a rather interesting sighting on the road just before the turn off for the road to the hostel area (the hostel is a little bit of a way down the road from the main area, 600 metres maybe) but I don’t know for sure what it was. It had bright, bold, orange eyeshine, was noticeably bigger than a Malay Civet but not much bigger and was holding its head up as I walked across not down. I obviously went up to try and see it, but it vanished into the forest before I got anything of a view other than eyeshine. I really don’t know though. Orange is normally a carnivore and that size and shape… hmm… (as judged only by the position of the eyes and the way they were moving across the road – it was just too far to see anything else). Both birding and mammal watching does leave you quite tired though because with birds you've got to be up first thing and with mammals you need to spotlight as much as possible so obviously you don't get much sleep. Most people seem to focus on either one or the other but the French wildlife watchers are in the same position as I am, trying to do both to the detriment of sleep.

Plenty of cool stuff during the day too, including lots of Hornbills which are very conspicuous flying over the forest and across the road when viewed from the open area of the centre, two species of pitta (both endemics) – Black-hooded (as at Sepilok) and Blue-headed (new) – and various other cool birds around. Often difficult to actually see though. There’s a Rufous Piculet which lives around the dorm and is an awesome little bird but very difficult to photograph. And really fun are the funky looking Whiskered Treeswifts that sit on the railing of the suspension bridge across the river. There are two of them, and they just sit on the railing as you walk past and you can get insanely close, like 20cm away and they just sit there funny and really cute looking as they stare right back at you. They only fly away if you really are about to touch them and they will just circle right back to the bridge a few metres down.

No one seems very fussed about guides here either. There’s lots of posters and people saying how you have to have a guide/ranger for any walks on the trails but no one actually cares and once you’ve realised that you can just go off and walk quietly on your own at a birding pace. There are theoretically dangerous animals at Danum: elephants, sun bears, and clouded leopards. But the only one of those I’m actually worried about would be elephants and they’ve not been seen anywhere near here in a very long time. Nor have the bears or leopards unfortunately and I don’t think cats are actually as commonly encountered here on the night drives as e.g. trip reports on mammalwatching.com suggest. That’s definitely the impression from the night drive spotters and guides. I suppose it gives plenty of employment for guides anyway and the people who will go into the forest on their own after they've been explicitly told that it's not safe and guides are needed for 'safety' either know what they're doing or probably deserve a Darwin Award for removing themselves from the gene pool. I like to think that I fit into the former category. I'm not entirely sure what the guides intend to do to protect tourists if they suddenly encounter a large herd of elephants in the forest anyway.

It is very relaxing here at Danum though and there’s so much cool wildlife around that the longer you spend here the more you’ll eventually see and I would spend longer here if it wasn’t so ridiculously expensive. Five nights, full board, including the transfers, in a dorm, is costing me RM1350. They charge 130 ringgit per day for food and 95 ringgit per night in the dorm. Where’s all this money going? And I managed to book directly through the office as well as I managed to get the email of the person who works at the reception at the office so that’s the actual price, there’s no tour-operator middle-man (which is the case for most visitors). I don’t get why it’s quite so expensive. Even bringing everything in, running a generator, and paying staff to live in the middle of nowhere, there’s no way it’s costing them a third of that price. Oh well. It is amazing though. It really is a wonderful forest with so many cool plants and invertebrates and things as well.

I’ve written all the above on my last afternoon here while I wait for it to cool down a bit before I go out for some more birding and I’ll update this if there’s anything hugely exciting on my last afternoon and night.

The last afternoon wasn't very productive and there was nothing new at night, but worth mentioning are a roosting Black-crowned Pitta and a particularly wonderful close-up slow loris sighting on par with the one at Bukit Fraser at the beginning of the trip. Lorises are pleasingly common at Danum and even the normal non-wildlife people are seeing them on the walk from the main area back to the hostel. Although I'm a bit disappointed with nights at Danum generally with the exception of tarsier. I think my expectations were too high from trip reports on e.g. mammalwatching.com but I guess they mostly hire a vehicle and drive around all night. Spotlighting is particularly random and luck-based possibly to a larger extent than birding. Still plenty of amazing sightings in general though and for a wildlife watcher/naturalist, Danum is definitely very high up on the list of must-visit places.


The list below includes all four of my full days at Danum, including the last post (which was written ages ago but I never managed to get posted). There will be a separate list in the next post covering the final morning.

New birds:
Spotted Fantail
Blue-rumped Parrot
Bornean Crested Fireback Chestnut-bellied Malkoha Bornean Wren-babbler
Great Slaty Woodpecker
Rufous Piculet
Bar-bellied Cuckooshrike Rufous-fronted Babbler
White-necked Babbler
Grey-headed Canary-flycatcher Chestnut-naped Forktail
Banded Broadbill
Dark-throated Oriole
Scarlet-rumped Trogon
Blue-crowned Pitta
Maroon-chested Philentoma

Mammals:
Bornean Yellow Muntjac
Bornean Gibbon
Hose’s Langur
Slender Treeshrew
Masked Palm Civet
Cantor’s Roundleaf Bat
Short-nosed Fruit-bat
Long-tongued Nectar-bat
Western Tarsier

What a fantastic post! Your mammal list is making me extremely jealous, I mean who wouldn’t be jealous if someone else saw Tarsiers, Hose’s Langur and Bornean Gibbon?

 

[LaughingDove]

First Day On the Mountain!

It's really cold here! I knew it would be cold, but it's dramatically colder than I was expecting. It was definitely in the low teens last night and the high for today is supposed to be 24. Apparently it's generally 15 degrees colder here than the lowland. It's fine because I don't mind the cold, but I wasn't expecting it to be quite that cold during the night and I ended up sleeping under two massive blankets.

The view this morning though (once I finally woke up after 9 - I needed that sleep) wow! Stunning! Amazing mountains, low cloud, and fantastic vegetation with tree ferns and pines and such. And from the accommodation I couldn't actually see Mt Kinabalu itself but that view in the gaps in the clouds is just something else. I should see it properly before the clouds gather tomorrow morning I think

Before going into the National Park though, I had to go for breakfast (the place I'm staying at doesn't do food) and I've found a rather good and cheap restaurant just opposite the park entrance so that should be good. I got an obscenely large amount of scrambled eggs and French toast for 14 ringgit and while I was eating, I saw a pair of Bornean Treepies outside through the window! A good start indeed!

I went into the park after breakfast and decided to just walk directly up the road to check everything out before doing some trails. It's 4.5 km which wouldn't be so bad, but I s really very steep at many points and often slippery. I don't think they intend for pedestrians to walk up because there's no pavement and I didn't see anyone else walking. I think I was more out of breath than I would have been because of the altitude too (Timpohon Gate is at almost 1900m above sea level. Just for relative scale, the summit is just over 4000m and the park HQ and area where I'm staying is 1500-1600 which is around the altitude of the highest point at Bukit Fraser) There were some minibuses going up though so I wonder if there's a minibus service available somewhere. There were a few nice Montane endemics on the way but it think the trails are better and I'm going to try and avoid walking directly up the road in future if I can.

Basically the road goes up from the HQ to the Timpohon Gate where the climbs start and there are various trails going off from the road and the HQ. The forest does slowly change as you go up, becoming more and more different to lowland forest. It does seem more different than the Montane forest at Bukit Fraser. If you want to go past the Timpohon Gate it's considered a summit attempt and and you need guides and permits etc. Which will cost quite a few hundred ringgit, probably close to a thousand at the very least. And I've been told that they only sell the limited number of permits to people staying the night at one of the lodges halfway up which would push the price well into the thousands. I think there's only one bird species that is not usually found lower than Timpohon Gate though, the endemic Kinabalu Friendly Warbler which I think I will have to miss unfortunately and a couple that are a bit easier further up but still possible around Timpohon Gate. I believe everything else occurs lower. It's already quite strange forest by the gate. Quite low growing odd looking trees.

Unfortunately it started raining just before I got to Timpohon Gate but a light drizzly rain.sbd I couldn't see up to the mountain because it was covered with cloud. I'll be up earlier tomorrow to see it. There are various squirrels and birds around the gate eating nuts left for them which is fun. It started raining quite heavily at the Timpohon Gate but apparently it rains loads on Kinabalu.

Through occasional gaps in the cloud at Timpohon Gate was a breathtaking view up the mountain with the strange Montane forest around the gate continuing a little way then turning into low scrub and then bare rock up to the summit. It was an impressive view looking down the mountain over the forest too.

I did some trails on the way back down. There's no problem being in the forest all day here because it's nice and cool and there are endemic Montane birds everywhere. There's not a massive diversity here, but pretty much everything you see is endemic. The trial map isn't very good though. There's supposed to be an entrance to the Liwagu Trail near the Timpohon Gate but I couldn't see this at all. (Are there any trails near the Timpohon Gate apart from the Summit Trail? There are a few marked on the map but I couldn't actually see any. There are a few species that I need from around the Timpohon Gate altitude but there don't seem to be any trails to get them from? I’ll try the Liwagu Trail from the bottom tomorrow and see where it comes out at the top.)

I got a great view of a Whitehead's Pygmy Squirrel from the road with its funny bird-like sound and awesome ear tufts. They're supposed to be quite tricky so I'm pleased with that on my first day. I got Whitehead's squirrel before any of his birds (there are a number of endemic species named after Whitehead.) My first of 'Whitehead's Trio' of three endemic birds came on a trail with a flash of brilliant green. The Broadbill! That's the most difficult one to find apparently and the one that the French birders from Danum missed when they were here. Hopefully I'll get the rest of Whitehead's Trio later. The trogon is especially high on my list, probably my most desired bird from G. Kinabalu.

I stayed in the park for a while because I had a large and late breakfast and headed out in the early evening for a combined lunch/dinner. I wanted to check with the park office about getting permission to go past the Timpohon Gate without summiting but it was after 5 when I got back and the office was closed already. I'll have to ask tomorrow, but I'm not hopeful given what I've heard from other birders along this trip who have tried because apparently going past Timpohon Gate at all is always considered a full summit attempt (as I've described above).

After a 5:30 lunch/dinner I went back to the accommodation to pick up my torches which were charging then headed straight back into the park for a bit of spotlighting though I hadn't intended to stay too late because I wanted to be up very early for birding. I'm not intending to put too much effort into spotlighting here because I don't think there are any species at all that are likely that I haven't seen yet (if anyone knows of any nocturnal species for me to look out for, let me know. I don't think there's any chance for Hose's Civet here. Mountain Scops Owl maybe? Though I didn't hear any.), it's mostly birds and diurnal mammals I think.

(Actually, I've just remembered about the Kinabalu ferret badger.
That would certainly be a very good mammal to get although I can only see anything on the internet about a single sighting ever at Kinabalu by Dinets in 2003. Hmm... Maybe it is worth putting a big effort in on one of these nights)

With a couple of hours of spotlighting just until about 9, I saw a few Small-toothed Palm Civets and one poor view of what looked like a common (/Island or whatever you want to call the split). A low cloud did roll in at one point reducing visibility with the torch to almost zero giving just a wall of white but clouds seem to move in and out of the forest here. I'm planning to get up at 5 tomorrow morning to be in the park for the morning chorus and also because apparently in the early morning birds can be seen around lampposts at the HQ for months attracted during the night so I didn't want to do too late spotlighting. I did also have my watch strap completely disintegrate while I was spotlighting but I think I got all the pins so I should be able to fix it. These last over-four weeks have been quite tough on some of my things actually. My glasses and boots were both quite new before this trip with proper hiking boots and 'scratch resistant' glasses. Neither is faring terribly well...

(Note: I'll do a full mammal and bird list from G. Kinabalu in my last post from here because I think that's better and I'll probably combine many of the middle days into a single post because I'll be doing basically the same thing every day: birding in the forest. That's not a complaint though because this forest is really lovely and one of the most amazing places I've ever been. The whole forest is unique and jam packed with endemic birds and small mammals (squirrels and tree shrews; there aren't any large mammals here). It's also wonderfully cool with great quality but completely empty of people trails (everyone who visits just goes straight up and back down the mountain) and no leeches or biting insects! (Apart from the Kinabalu Giant Leech which eats worms. No large mammals means no leeches).

 

[TZDugong]

Would seeing Leopard Cats make you want to go spotlighting? I saw something online which said that they live in Kinablu National Park.

 

[Chlidonias]

There were some minibuses going up though so I wonder if there's a minibus service available somewhere.

They go from the HQ (book in the reception office). They ferry the people up and down because nobody wants to walk it, but I think it is quite expensive because it is run by Sutera. I usually walk up the Liwagu Trail and then down the road.

The trial map isn't very good though. There's supposed to be an entrance to the Liwagu Trail near the Timpohon Gate but I couldn't see this at all. (Are there any trails near the Timpohon Gate apart from the Summit Trail? There are a few marked on the map but I couldn't actually see any. There are a few species that I need from around the Timpohon Gate altitude but there don't seem to be any trails to get them from? I’ll try the Liwagu Trail from the bottom tomorrow and see where it comes out at the top.)

The Liwagu Trail comes out at the little car-parking area by the big dumpster. It's not obvious! There's another short trail (maybe a km long?) up there too, named after a snake (ular) but I forget the proper name - anyway, you walk down the narrow slot along the chain-link fence by the Timpohon Gate (off the road, not along it) and you'll get to the top of that trail. It comes out further down the road.

I got a great view of a Whitehead's Pygmy Squirrel from the road with its funny bird-like sound and awesome ear tufts. They're supposed to be quite tricky so I'm pleased with that on my first day.

That's excellent. I'm never sure if that's a rare squirrel or just difficult to see. I saw some on my first visit but not the other visits.

The trogon is especially high on my list, probably my most desired bird from G. Kinabalu.

Without wanting to jinx it, these are common, especially along the Liwagu Trail. I always find them without trouble (so you know they must be easy!!).

I'm not intending to put too much effort into spotlighting here because I don't think there are any species at all that are likely that I haven't seen yet (if anyone knows of any nocturnal species for me to look out for, let me know. I don't think there's any chance for Hose's Civet here. Mountain Scops Owl maybe? Though I didn't hear any.), it's mostly birds and diurnal mammals I think.

(Actually, I've just remembered about the Kinabalu ferret badger.
That would certainly be a very good mammal to get although I can only see anything on the internet about a single sighting ever at Kinabalu by Dinets in 2003. Hmm... Maybe it is worth putting a big effort in on one of these nights)

The Ferret-badger is the main one. There are Marbled Cats up there (not that I've seen one). Long-tailed Giant Rats and possibly other species in that big dumpster at night. Loads of nice herptiles at night too.

I did also have my watch strap completely disintegrate while I was spotlighting but I think I got all the pins so I should be able to fix it.

That'll be the DEET.

...and no leeches or biting insects!

Oh, just wait until you find the horseflies!

 

[FunkyGibbon]

The Liwagu trail is really stunning to walk as well. Obviously I never saw any trogons from it...

 

[LaughingDove]

They go from the HQ (book in the reception office). They ferry the people up and down because nobody wants to walk it, but I think it is quite expensive because it is run by Sutera. I usually walk up the Liwagu Trail and then down the road.


The Liwagu Trail comes out at the little car-parking area by the big dumpster. It's not obvious! There's another short trail (maybe a km long?) up there too, named after a snake (ular) but I forget the proper name - anyway, you walk down the narrow slot along the chain-link fence by the Timpohon Gate (off the road, not along it) and you'll get to the top of that trail. It comes out further down the road.


That's excellent. I'm never sure if that's a rare squirrel or just difficult to see. I saw some on my first visit but not the other visits.


Without wanting to jinx it, these are common, especially along the Liwagu Trail. I always find them without trouble (so you know they must be easy!!).


The Ferret-badger is the main one. There are Marbled Cats up there (not that I've seen one). Long-tailed Giant Rats and possibly other species in that big dumpster at night. Loads of nice herptiles at night too.


That'll be the DEET.


Oh, just wait until you find the horseflies!

The bus up to Timpohon is RM16.5 each way it turns out! It is possible (with some effort) to hitch up though.

The Bukit Ular trail is closed unfortunately. I think that's the one you mentioned in the advice thread as being good for partridges so hopefully I'll find the partridges elsewhere.

I have asked about going up to Layang Layang for a day and apparently to go at all past Timpohon Gate the cheapest would be RM530! (Unless I can get permission for a day pass from the director who is at KK. I reckon I would get the permission, but that would require actually going to the office at KK. There's no one here who is authorised to give me permission unless I get the minimum RM530 worth of guides and permits.) So I guess I'll miss the friendly warbler and probably that bulbul that's mostly at higher altitudes. But I know that the French birders who I met at Danum got both the black eye and serpent eagle lower than the Timpohon Gate so I'm still hopeful for those two.

Oh, and I've found some horseflies (and a mosquito! Must be climate change. There shouldn't be any mosquitos at all!)

 

[LaughingDove]

I think the money-grabbyness of the park and Sutera Sanctuary Lodges is a real shame. It's Sutera that has dramatically inflated the price of everything here, including the permits and guides. This is a national park! Why is it being controlled by Sutera like this and not Sabah Parks?!

 

[LaughingDove]

The Liwagu Trail is closed unfortunately (from both ends with official tape and a sign) so that sucks! (There's also no dumpster there anymore)

If I knew why and that it wasn't a real reason then I'd go around anyway, but I don't know if it's something serious like land instability. So that's a shame but I should still have a chance at everything on the other trails.

Whitehead's Pygmy Squirrels definitely seem more common than any of his birds so far!

 

[FunkyGibbon]

The Liwagu Trail is closed unfortunately (from both ends with official tape and a sign) so that sucks! (There's also no dumpster there anymore)

If I knew why and that it wasn't a real reason then I'd go around anyway, but I don't know if it's something serious like land instability. So that's a shame but I should still have a chance at everything on the other trails.

Whitehead's Pygmy Squirrels definitely seem more common than any of his birds so far!

It's pretty precarious in parts so I definitely wouldn't mess around with it.

 

[SabineB]

That'll be the DEET.

jupp, I hated that 'side'effect of DEET. Until I finally realised that it was the culprit I already ruined all and everthing plastic in my backpack .

The prices to get past Timpohon are absolutely unreal, I was not aware that it is this costly.....

 

[Chlidonias]

The bus up to Timpohon is RM16.5 each way it turns out! It is possible (with some effort) to hitch up though.

The Bukit Ular trail is closed unfortunately. I think that's the one you mentioned in the advice thread as being good for partridges so hopefully I'll find the partridges elsewhere.

I have asked about going up to Layang Layang for a day and apparently to go at all past Timpohon Gate the cheapest would be RM530! (Unless I can get permission for a day pass from the director who is at KK. I reckon I would get the permission, but that would require actually going to the office at KK. There's no one here who is authorised to give me permission unless I get the minimum RM530 worth of guides and permits.) So I guess I'll miss the friendly warbler and probably that bulbul that's mostly at higher altitudes. But I know that the French birders who I met at Danum got both the black eye and serpent eagle lower than the Timpohon Gate so I'm still hopeful for those two.

That's cheaper than I thought it'd be (for the bus).

I've seen the black-eye actually on the deck at the Timpohon Gate, so it's worth hanging around up there.

 

[Chlidonias]

The prices to get past Timpohon are absolutely unreal, I was not aware that it is this costly.....

It was always insanely expensive to go to the summit, but you used to be able to go up to Layang-Layang by yourself with only a minimal charge (I think it was five or ten Ringgit, something like that). Then there was a big earthquake a few years back, some climbers died, and the park introduced a guide-only requirement for all access above the Gate. Seems like Sutera has really gone to town with that now.

 

[SabineB]

It was always insanely expensive to go to the summit, but you used to be able to go up to Layang-Layang by yourself with only a minimal charge (I think it was five or ten Ringgit, something like that). Then there was a big earthquake a few years back, some climbers died, and the park introduced a guide-only requirement for all access above the Gate. Seems like Sutera has really gone to town with that now.

This must have been the 2016 earthquake (I just googled it) because I went in April 2016 and it did not even cost that much to go to the top then (which I did not even attempt, I am just not that much of an 'ibex').

So once you are past the gate you are in for a € 115,00-'ride'???? How is any local going to ever do that?

 

[LaughingDove]

It was always insanely expensive to go to the summit, but you used to be able to go up to Layang-Layang by yourself with only a minimal charge (I think it was five or ten Ringgit, something like that). Then there was a big earthquake a few years back, some climbers died, and the park introduced a guide-only requirement for all access above the Gate. Seems like Sutera has really gone to town with that now.

The person I spoke to was the Sabah Parks person (my impression was the he was the most senior person based in the office at the mountain but not actually very high up in Sabah Parks) and he sympathised and agreed that it was ridiculous. It's just an odd set-up with the permits and quotas

That RM530 breaks down into RM200 for a 2 day 1 night permit (the only kind available) RM230 for a 2 day 1 night guide (again, they won't let you book for any shorter) and RM100 for seems to be just ransom money for Sutera for nothing just so that they will release one of the quota which they control entirely. If you were staying in their lodge halfway up you wouldn't pay that (but would pay a lot more for the lodge) but you can't buy a permit unless it's whithin Sutera's quota and apparently it may be more than that depending on which price bracket still has quotas available so the guy I spoke to said 530 was the cheapest possible.

The guy I spoke to with Sabah Parks was very nice and reasonable and understood what I wanted to do but there's no way to get past Timpohon Gate without paying that fee unless you manage to sort it at the KK office.

Also btw @Chlidonias how often do you see vipers on the trails? I've decided that I really want to see one but I spent a while on the Silau Silau Trail at night and didn't see any.

 

[LaughingDove]

Is ZooChat loading particularly slowly for anyone else? I haven't got the best connection here, but ZooChat seems to be slower than any other website and it seems to have been getting slower and slower these last few days.

 

[lintworm]

Is ZooChat loading particularly slowly for anyone else? I haven't got the best connection here, but ZooChat seems to be slower than any other website and it seems to have been getting slower and slower these last few days.

No problems here, maybe try clearing your cache...

 

[Chlidonias]

Also btw @Chlidonias how often do you see vipers on the trails? I've decided that I really want to see one but I spent a while on the Silau Silau Trail at night and didn't see any.

Not commonly! They are well-camouflaged. However the road is also worth trying because the tarmac retains warmth after the sun goes down.

 

[LaughingDove]

Fluffy Squirrel; Fluffy Mouse: Mount Kinabalu Days Two and Three

My very scientific title refers primarily to the Bornean Mountain Ground Squirrel and the Lesser (Short-tailed) Gymnure. The former is very common and extremely cute and fluffy, the latter I’ve seen once very briefly dash into the vegetation by the side of the road near the top not far from the Timpohon Gate. They super cool and not actually mice or even rodents (they’re insectivores, in the hedgehog family). There are lots of different squirrels around though, many of which are very cool like the Whitehead’s Pygmy with its awesome white ear-tufts as well as the almost as small Red-bellied Sculptor Squirrel along with several other montane squirrel species. If you like squirrels, Mt Kinabalu is definitely the place to be! There are also lots of treeshrews that look confusingly similar to ground squirrels. But the most exciting squirrel was late this morning around the bottom of a trail called the Kiau View Trail when I saw a squirrel that looked rather like a Prevost’s moving quickly through the tree canopy but it wasn’t quite as pure black as the pluto prevost’s that occur in this area (and they’re lower down as well) with a distinctive red belly and stripe at the side which was only just about visible as it moved high in the canopy. A Kinabalu Squirrel! They’re supposed to be quite difficult to find and rarely seen so I wasn’t necessarily expecting to see one.

The other notable mammal was last night while spotlighting. I’ve decided that my spotlighting focus should be vipers because there’s a few cool endemic species that occur here and it should be possible to find them on the trail at night. An because… well, because vipers. I have to be careful not to get bitten though. Even with travel insurance, I’d rather not have to rush to hospital with a snake bite. Anyway, I haven’t found any vipers yet, but while I was walking along a trail contemplating the lack of vipers, a smallish rat ran across the path and into the trees on the other side and it seems like it was a Montane Bornean Niviventer which is cool. Or Long-tailed Mountain Rat if you want to be boring about the name.

Plenty of birds about in the day too and I’ve seen some species that I think are quite difficult in addition to the common and obvious species but they’re pretty much all montane Bornean endemics which is awesome! 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. This morning I also finally saw a Whitehead’s Trogon and it really is a stunning species. After two and a half days (half my time on the mountain) of not seeing it, I was just starting to worry that I might dip on my most desired species but I finally got one along the Silau-Silau trail. It’s a really conspicuous bird in flight or when it’s on an exposed perch with front or tail towards you, but then when it’s hunkered down on a mossy branch and you look at it from the side, it really blends in incredibly well. It would be very easy to walk past one just off to the side of the trail. I still haven’t got either of the two montane/ endemic partridges yet or the Whitehead’s Spiderhunter or the Serpent-eagle, as well as a couple of other minor bits and pieces still to get (like the other thrushes, leafbird, shortwing, etc.) but given that I’ve just had three days on the mountain and have another two I should be able to get quite a good chunk of the endemics. Five full days is a good length of time I think to tease out those last endemics and it really is a lovely place to walk around. Unfortunately a couple of the best trails are closed which is a shame (and will make the partridges more difficult) but there are plenty of nice trails still open. The other really cool birdy thing is that first thing in the morning just at sunrise, loads of birds are attracted to the lamp posts around the park HQ which are left on all night to hunt for months that are attracted to the light. Chestnut-Crested Yuhinas especially which are super fun birds to watch. A big group of them go up to a lamp post then all start jumping around excitedly and screeching when they find a moth.

I have asked about the situation with going past the Timpohon Gate to try for the very high altitude species that I otherwise will miss (three species I think: the Kinabalu Friendly Warbler, Fawn-breasted Parrotfinch and Pale-faced Bulbul are basically impossible below the Timpohon Gate. The latter might be possible, but I don’t think any of those three are guaranteed by any means above Timpohon and all the super-common-above-Timpohon birds like the blackeye are scarce but around near the gate.) but the absolute cheapest to go anywhere past the gate at all is RM530 which is rather insane. I went to the Sabah Parks office to try and get permission and spoke to the top person who is actually stationed here at the mountain and he was very nice about it and sympathised with what I wanted to do and the ridiculousness of the price (and when I explained why I wanted to just go up for the day he immediately responded with “Oh, so you’re a birder then. Which species are you looking for?” which suggests that I’m not the first person to try and do this), but all the real high-ups in Sabah Parks who could authorise me to go past the gate without a full summit attempt are in KK and I would actually have to go to the Sabah Parks office there to get permission.

Before the major earthquake on Kinabalu in 2015 when 18 people died, you used to be able to go up to a rest hut 4km past the Timpohon Gate (Layang Layang Rest Hut) which is all I wanted to do because that’s far enough up to have all the species and it’s a proper trail with steps up to there. But after the earthquake they made guides mandatory past the Timpohon Gate (I’m not sure why though to be honest: it’s not like having a guide stops an earthquake and four of the eighteen people who died were the guides) and I was willing to just hire a guide at an hourly rate but they’ve gradually been making it more and more restrictive and now the whole place is controlled by a resort company called Sutera Sanctuary Lodges who runs everything in the park (hence why I’m staying just outside the park and using restaurants that are just outside the park: everything is 10x the price inside). To go past the gate I’d need to pay Sutera to allow me to get a permit that is part of their quota and all the permits and guide fees are for two days 1 night now (the standard for summiting the mountain) and you can’t get them for a shorter time. So RM530 is the minimum to go past the gate at all (broken down into RM200 for a 2D1N permit RM230 guide 2D1N because neither is available for shorter and RM100 for absolutely nothing other than as a ransom to Sutera because they otherwise will only sell permits to those paying for their atrociously expensive accommodation halfway up. In fact the Sutera Bribe may well be more than that depending on what bits of the quota are still available and given the short notice, if I actually tried to do this it would probably be more). So that’s ridiculous and I’ll have to just miss those endemics.

Most people think there’s just one leech on the mountain: the endemic Kinabalu Giant Leech. But there’s actually two, the Kinabalu Leech eats earthworms and the Sutera Sanctuary Lodges Leech is a highly invasive species on Kinabalu and it sucks money. Is Sutera actually affiliated with Sabah Parks at all or is it actually a private company making a (presumably enormous) profit off the park? If the latter, then that really irks me. Unlike at Danum where the overpriced everything is actually funding the centre. And I actually found a third leech this morning, far more normal than the other two. A stowaway in my bag when I got out a new pair of trousers from Danum: a tiger leech had hitched a ride! It looked rather feeble and was presumably very cold but it was just about alive. I must admit I had definitely hoped that I was done with tiger leeches for a while! All of my stuff is really covered in mud and those plant seeds that hook onto your clothes and it turns out leeches too. I wonder what Australian Quarantine at Darwin Airport is going to think of it in a week and a bit…

So just to discuss the rest of my trip; I’ve decided that I’m going to skip Poring Hot Spring. There are a few birds there that would be really cool but the chance of actually seeing the particularly cool birds is quite low I think. The Hose’s Broadbill, two Banded pitta species, and Crested Partridge being possible at Poring but unlikely and I don’t have enough time at this end of the trip to put in a long enough visit to try for them. I’ll have to leave that for the next time I’m in Sabah. I’m also getting quite travel-fatigued and the thought of moving somewhere with all the buses etc. that involves for a single night is not very appealing. After Kinabalu though, I’m going to have a short but decent two night stay at the Crocker Range Park HQ near Keningau. I think it’s going to be a bit annoying getting there by bus going via KK but it should be doable to get there in a day hopefully. It’s lower altitude than here but still hill forest (i.e. not montane. I think it’s at a bit over 1000m while the bit of Kinabalu I’m at is 1600+. Just for informational purposes Poring which I won’t be visiting on this trip is around 500m and up from there and is also in Kinabalu Park but in the foothills about 40km from the bit of the park where I’m at). So there are a couple of species at that altitude at Crocker that I should be able to get easily but won’t get at here. After Crocker I’ve got three nights at Kota Kinabalu, with two day trips planned, before the end of the Bornean leg of the trip (and then on to Australia!). This is the one bit of the trip where being able to drive would be handy to get a car for a few days and go to some different sites dotted around the Crocker Range but I can’t unfortunately and I think a couple of nights around the park HQ area will be my best bet.

So two more days here at Mount Kinabalu and hopefully I’ll get a few more endemic birds and maybe find some mammals and herps, but it’s a really interesting mountain to walk around anyway with all the moss and orchids (though I’ve not seen any flowers) and streams with Bornean Hill Loaches and it’s a nice place to relax. I’ve not seen any pitcher plants at all though and there are supposed to be a few species around and it would be nice to see one. Though naturally the wildlife watching equation of morning birding + spotlighting = insufficient sleep still applies.

There are also some fairly small brown bats flying around and I was thinking that there can’t be that many bad species about 1700m on Kinabalu but I can’t find a bat survey at such a high altitude so if anyone knows what they could be please let me know. Also, are all the swiftlets that you see looking up from Timpohon Gate the endemic Kinabalu Swiftlet? That’s what I’ve been told but I don’t know. I know the ones at the entrance gate are the common Glossy swiftlet.

(I’ll do another post for the next two days where I’ll include the full Mount Kinabalu mammal and bird list)

Oh, and another thing. There’s one bird species that I had seen every day of the trip so far (including in Thailand and at high altitude at Bukit Fraser and in urban areas and remote rainforest areas in both West and East Malaysia) but that I have not seen at all at Mount Kinabalu. Any guesses?

 

[Chlidonias]

Also, are all the swiftlets that you see looking up from Timpohon Gate the endemic Kinabalu Swiftlet? That’s what I’ve been told but I don’t know.

No. The Kinabalu Swiftlet is only found up at high altitude, but the Glossy Swiftlet is everywhere and the two species basically look the same. You need to see them at the nest-sites to be sure of the ID (there's a nest-site for the Kinabalu Swiftlet at an abandoned hut off the trail up before Layang-Layang which I think is the only really accessible one [but not any longer with the cost of getting up there]).