The following is part two of a series of daily diary-entries from a month-long
birding trip fellow young-birder Brandon Hewitt and I undertook in
Sabah, Borneo, during February 2016.
For anyone who has come to this page looking for a brief "went here, saw this" report, you've come to the wrong place! However just such a version of this trip report is now up on cloudbirders.com, and can be viewed HERE
If after reading this (and the following) posts you have any questions about birds we saw, places we visited or just generally birding in Sabah, feel free to leave a comment and I'll try to get back to you ASAP :)
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For anyone who has come to this page looking for a brief "went here, saw this" report, you've come to the wrong place! However just such a version of this trip report is now up on cloudbirders.com, and can be viewed HERE
If after reading this (and the following) posts you have any questions about birds we saw, places we visited or just generally birding in Sabah, feel free to leave a comment and I'll try to get back to you ASAP :)
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January 31st (Sunday)
The 3:30 wakeup wasn’t so bad.
The climb up the mountain was.
And we have to do it three more times…
The climb was cool, at least. We climbed to roughly 1820m, so it it was quite chilly at the top. It was dark too - the moonlight was enough for us to make our way up the roads, but when we reached the top at Timpohon Gate it was 5:30am and still pitch black in the undergrowth, only the faintest glow visible around the edges of the mountain peak. We sat down to wait for a while, knowing that the thrushes would start to become active when there was just enough light to feed by.
Everett’s Thrush is a bit of an enigma - one of the top targets of any Mt Kinabalu trip, Everett’s is a split from Island Thrush, endemic to Borneo and highly localised to the tops of a few mountains, of which Kinabalu is the most accessible. It’s also very shy and retiring. Not many people who stake it out end up seeing it, even though they’re resident on the mountaintop just below the gate.
We couldn’t justify a trip to the mountain without at least trying for it though, so there we sat.
The climb up the mountain was.
And we have to do it three more times…
The climb was cool, at least. We climbed to roughly 1820m, so it it was quite chilly at the top. It was dark too - the moonlight was enough for us to make our way up the roads, but when we reached the top at Timpohon Gate it was 5:30am and still pitch black in the undergrowth, only the faintest glow visible around the edges of the mountain peak. We sat down to wait for a while, knowing that the thrushes would start to become active when there was just enough light to feed by.
Everett’s Thrush is a bit of an enigma - one of the top targets of any Mt Kinabalu trip, Everett’s is a split from Island Thrush, endemic to Borneo and highly localised to the tops of a few mountains, of which Kinabalu is the most accessible. It’s also very shy and retiring. Not many people who stake it out end up seeing it, even though they’re resident on the mountaintop just below the gate.
We couldn’t justify a trip to the mountain without at least trying for it though, so there we sat.
Morning on the mountainside
As light began to spread though the trees, we paced the top of the road. Nothing much moving, the dawn chorus was much more active down in the valley than here on the mountainside. A thrush appeared, causing momentary panic before we realised it was a Bornean Whistling-thrush, completely dark blue-grey rather than the pale grey and orange of our target.
The sun peaked over the side of the mountain, and our chance for Everett’s was essentially lost for the morning. From what little is known about them, they appear on the roadside verges and at select sections of track (their favoured track is currently closed, which is a big blow to our plans) in the very early morning, then disappear deep into the forest for the rest of the day.
Disappointed, but not in the least surprised, we made our way down the mountain a few hundred meters to the Kiau Lookout to, once again, stake out the Whitehead’s Broadbills. To cut a depressing hour-long story short, no Broadbills appeared. I walked the stretch of road over and over, playing the calls, waiting, playing them again, but nothing. No response.
I was so focused on listening for Broadbills that I almost missed another sound emanating from deep within the undergrowth - a resonant hoot, repeated every few seconds. The call of Bornean Bald Laughing Thrush.
I played the tape in response, grudgingly shelving the hunt for Broadbills. The bird and I had a back-and-forth for about ten minutes, but he wasn’t coming any closer. It did sound like he had moved higher up in the bushes, though. I walked around the corner (uphill) to try and get a better vantage point into the treetops, ignoring my screaming thigh muscles as I pulled myself over the rise. I played the call again - and this time the response did seem to come a bit closer.
I stopped the call and waited, as sometimes the sudden disappearance of a rival will make birds come in to check out what’s going on. Turns out my calling probably made zero difference to what the bird was already planning to do though, as it erupted out of the bushes and across the road in the company of 10-15 Chestnut-hooded Laughing-thrushes, clearly all traveling in a mixed feeding flock. The Bald stuck around in an exposed position just long enough for me to get a few blurry frames, before disappearing into the thick bushes to continue its furtive hooting.
With this excellent tick under the belt, We gave up the search for Broadbills and walked to the entrance of the Mempaning trail, which leads from a few corners below the Kiau lookout back down the hill towards HQ. As soon as we entered we came across a feeding flock, again mostly Chestnut-hooded Laughing-thrushes, but this time with a few Sunda Laughing-thrushes mixed in, a very welcome tick with half of our time on Kinabalu gone.
We continued down the trail, stopping to look at a male Crimson-headed Partridge just off the track. By this time the sun was high, and the forest fell nearly silent. It remained this way even when birds were present. A flutter of movement roughly half an hour into the walk alerted us to the presence of a pair of Fruithunters - scarce montane/submontane thrush relatives, who are only really reliable in the Crocker Range. An excellent tick on Mount Kinabalu. Even the Fruithunters were absolutely silent, and for the five minutes we watched them neither so much as opened their beak.
Fruithunter
One bird that did break the silence was a distant Whitehead’s Spiderhunter. For what is generally considered the hardest of the Whitehead’s Trio, the Spiderhunters sure have been putting on a good show for us during the last few days. For them and the Fruithunters to have moved from their usual haunts in Crocker over to Kinabalu means it was probably an unusually good breeding season for montane birds.
The Mempaning trail exited onto the Silau Silau, and we cut across back to HQ, so we could visit the Liwagu restaurant for lunch. A serve of roti canai and possibly the best banana fritters on the planet later, replete, we had to make some decisions about what to do with the rest of our day.
Brandon tries out my camera at lunch
We brought up the trail map on my phone and plotted a course along the lower Liwagu trail, up one of the smaller trails to a shelter, and back the long way round to HQ. We set off at a slow pace, birding our way, coming across a minuscule and adorable Bornean Stubtail by the river. As it was about 2pm and nothing much was happening bird-wise, we decided to cut loose from birding for a while and take the opportunity to explore some of the forest. We came to a small wooden bridge over a pretty forest stream, and leaving our bags out of sight in the undergrowth, set off up it.
Exploring one of the many creeks on Mount Kinabalu
Eventually we returned to the trail and made our way up to the shelter - one of the simple wooden huts that dot the trails, offering a bit of respite after the inevitable preceding hill. Nothing much calling up there, either - so we came back down and joined the bottom of the huge Liwagu track, that runs essentially from Timpohon Gate to HQ. We didn’t get far. Our legs were too tired, and Brandon had spotted a way to get down to the river in the gully below, so down we went.
Panorama of a Mount Kinabalu stream
Tough gig this birding thing
The river turned out to be a good choice - a beautiful rushing mountain stream, clear as glass, flowing over smooth mossy rocks past wide pebbled beaches, rainforest forming a green wall either side. There were even birds down there, Bornean Flowerpeckers and Indigo Flycatchers made occasional forays out over the stream to hunt. Paradise. And we had it all to ourselves.
We hung about by the river for several hours, nearly until dusk, before regretfully deciding it was time to leave. We had to go back to HQ to buy some snack food for tomorrow’s repeat 3:30am start (skipping breakfast was getting old). We had just picked up a female White-browed Shortwing, and were making our way back onto the main path, when a ringing three-part call buzzed out from the forest ahead of us. Whitehead’s Broadbill.
We both scanned the forest, hardly daring to blink. No movement. No further calls. No response to playback.
We waited for twenty minutes to the tune of absolutely nothing, before deciding that Broadbills sucked. Time to go.
We had hardly gone thirty meters when “DNGG-BUZZZZZ-TINGGGGGG”
And there it was.
Swaying on a thin vine, a large bright glossy-green ball with a violet throat patch. Whitehead’s Broadbill was in the bag. It stuck around for a few minutes, bouncing bowerbird-like between the branches, before disappearing into the trees.
We hung about by the river for several hours, nearly until dusk, before regretfully deciding it was time to leave. We had to go back to HQ to buy some snack food for tomorrow’s repeat 3:30am start (skipping breakfast was getting old). We had just picked up a female White-browed Shortwing, and were making our way back onto the main path, when a ringing three-part call buzzed out from the forest ahead of us. Whitehead’s Broadbill.
We both scanned the forest, hardly daring to blink. No movement. No further calls. No response to playback.
We waited for twenty minutes to the tune of absolutely nothing, before deciding that Broadbills sucked. Time to go.
We had hardly gone thirty meters when “DNGG-BUZZZZZ-TINGGGGGG”
And there it was.
Swaying on a thin vine, a large bright glossy-green ball with a violet throat patch. Whitehead’s Broadbill was in the bag. It stuck around for a few minutes, bouncing bowerbird-like between the branches, before disappearing into the trees.
Whitehead’s Trio: 2/3!!
I hadn't been this ecstatic in a while. Broadbills are such cool birds.
We left the park (the shop was closed, so it looked like another hungry morning for us) and went for an early dinner before returning to the resthouse. I went for my shower while Brandon ran back to the roadhouse, having had the bright idea of asking if they could pack us some sandwiches for our morning hike. He returned bearing two boxes.
Since I’d now seen both Laughing-thrush and Broadbill, I let him in on the secret to hot water. He was not amused.
February 1st (Monday)
Another early start, another starlight hike up to Timpohon Gate. This time I was starting to flag more often on the hill, although my leg muscles didn’t actually hurt as much as I expected they would. I needed to take more stops, but I felt fresher at the top.
Fresh is a good word to describe this morning, actually. Very fresh - downright cold, in fact. I had my jumper on, and still sought refuge in the deserted and dark toilet block before Timpohon Gate to get out of the wind. Brandon looked like he was regretting not bringing a jumper, not that he said anything (“We’re going to the tropics, aren’t we? I’ll be fine.” he had said when I suggested he pack a jumper).
Fresh is a good word to describe this morning, actually. Very fresh - downright cold, in fact. I had my jumper on, and still sought refuge in the deserted and dark toilet block before Timpohon Gate to get out of the wind. Brandon looked like he was regretting not bringing a jumper, not that he said anything (“We’re going to the tropics, aren’t we? I’ll be fine.” he had said when I suggested he pack a jumper).
We hung around around at one of the shelters about 200m from the gate until sunrise then wandered slowly up the road. A car passed us and parked at the top, and three birders got out - the first we’ve come across in our trip so far. They saw us and waved. “Which one of you is Julian Teh?” called the guide. It turned out that he was CK Leong, a member of the Borneo Bird Club facebook page, who had noticed the post I had made at 4am that morning, describing some of the success we’d had so far on the mountain. We chatted for a little while, we mentioned we were up there for Everett’s Thrush and he gave the slightly bitter smile of someone who’s tried many times. “On the road, after 5 or 6am you have no chance really” he said. He was right, it would seem. No thrush for us.
Sunrise vista from the Timpohon Gate power station
They walked over into the power station to the far fence (ignoring the rather graphic sign, featuring a silhouette of a man being marched off by a guard with a rifle and “No admittance, authorised personnel only” plastered over it in various languages. The guy who had just arrived at the power station, a worker, ignored them. I thought I could hear a Whitehead’s Broadbill in there, so I wandered in too. Didn’t get marched off, but didn’t get more than a fleeting glimpse at the Broadbill either. I looked over at the others, they were all pointing and looking down their scopes at something. “They’ve got something” I said to Brandon, nodding in their direction. He shrugged. In birding it’s generally considered pretty rude to just hang around people who are guiding other birders, it’s a bit like freeloading. So we left them to it, and went down to the gate to eat our pre-packed sandwiches Brandon picked up from the roadhouse last night. A slice of cheese between two pieces of white bread, with a side garnish of chewy last-night’s chocolate cereal (seemingly the standard side-dish for sandwiches at any time of day at the roadhouse), so it was nothing fancy but perfectly adequate for a birding breakfast.
Breakfast at Timpohon Gate
We walked over to the head of the Liwagu Trail, a 5.6km trail the leads from just below Timpohon Gate to within 500m of Park HQ (it connects with the Silau Silau which takes you the last stretch). On the way down the first stretch, a steep hillside, encountered quite a bit of birdlife - Red-breasted Partridges foraged in the undergrowth (although only I got a look at one, and even then only the head and neck poking above a log), small flocks of Eyebrowed Thrush were moving through, and the ever-present Chestnut-crested Yuhinas were putting on a show. We’ve probably seen more Yuhinas than any other species during our stay on Kinabalu. It takes a bit of the mystique out of finding the montane endemics when one of them is actually more common than the Tree Sparrows!
Eyebrowed Thrush
Not to worry though, we had a target list of montane specialists to find, and we heard the first one at the bottom of the hill: Sunda Cuckoo. It was calling loudly, seemingly right above us, for ages - Brandon was stubbornly waiting for it to show itself, but after 45 minutes of no bird (and not much other activity), I lost my patience and took off up the path, bumping into another of our targets, a family group of Mountain Wren-babbler. I was very pleased to run into these, as I was expecting all the Wren-babblers to be difficult to get a look at. These ones, though, were most obliging, allowing us close-range viewing for a few minutes as they scrabbled around, much like larger versions of our White-browed Scrubwrens back home.
After an hour, at last, the Cuckoo deigned to show itself - all I got was three seconds of binocular views, straining my neck to look directly above me at a very stripy undertail and belly, but it was all I needed. Nothing else has those stripes on a buff vent, so Sunda Cuckoo was crossed off the target list.
We made good progress down the trail to make up for lost time - we started the trail at roughly 7am, and in two and a half hours we’d moved less than 1km. Before the 3km mark we were once again halted, this time by something much more interesting than a cuckoo - a mixed feeding flock of Bornean Treepies, Chestnut-hooded Laughing-thrushes, and most excitingly, three Checker-throated Woodpeckers. None of the traditional black-and-white woodpecker plumage of Europe here, these birds are dressed to impress in moss green with crimson highlights on the wings, a neat stripy chin patch and a tufty yellow-tipped mohawk of a crest. We followed them until the flock disappeared uphill, melting into the forest as suddenly as they’d appeared.
We walked quite quickly from there, as it was getting into late morning and bird activity was slowing right down. A phrase that would suit a lot of days in the rainforest would be “There was very little excitement until there was a lot of excitement”. Not much happens for a long while, then out of nowhere, something excellent pops up and if you’re not paying attention you’ll miss it.
That last bit is key, because it’s exactly what happened about 1km from the end of the trail. We were walking along the exceedingly narrow path that followed the line of the ridge, with a steep hillside to the right and the Liwagu river on the left. We were both tired and wanting to get back to somewhere familiar, so we were paying more attention to our footing than the forest around us. I just happened to look over to my left between steps, and caught a bird in flight - bright red with cinnamon patches, a long trailing tail, like a flashy flying cross, arcing out from the forest and following the river upstream.
There was no doubt in my mind - there is only one bird in these forests that looks like that. Our biggest remaining target (ignoring the Thrush, which I’m not entirely convinced actually exists - I think it’s just a myth so the locals get to watch us all tramp up the mountain at 3am) for the montane forests, and the final bird in the legendary Whitehead’s Trio: Whitehead’s Trogon.
The moment I saw it I was running back along the path to Brandon calling “Trogon! TROGON!” but by the time we managed to scramble down the steep slope to the river, the bird had utterly vanished. We searched the banks of the river for nearly an hour, but the bird was nowhere to be found. I had hoped it would still be visible - from all the literature, Trogons hunt by simply choosing a perch in a dark, damp gully, sitting there motionless all day, flying out every now and then to snap up an unfortunate insect or amphibian. Most people don’t see them unless they flush - which thankfully they do readily when disturbed. Josh had told me they usually flush about 5m, sit on a high perch and stare at you until you leave.
Not this bird though - he was gone. The mood was tense as we left the river after a prolonged search and continued up the trail, the karmic implications of the situation (given the whole Broadbill incident) not lost on either of us.
We planned to return to the riverbed to keep searching later in the afternoon - it was pressing 12:30 and we were hungry - but the exceptional luck we’d had with most of our other montane targets clung on today as well. I was in the lead as we walked through a particularly damp bit of forest, when a bright orange bird flushed not a meter from my feet and flew up to a perch at eye-level: the female Whitehead’s Trogon, a vision in apricot and ash, the orange back, tail, crown and cheeks forming neat patterns with the black wings, finely vermiculated with tiny white lines, pale ash-grey throat, black chin, and luminous steel-blue beak.
Female Whitehead's Trogon
Even with it sitting right there, because it sat so still and Brandon hadn’t seen it land, it took a few minutes for him to get onto it - when it eventually flushed out to grab an insect and return to the perch. Just goes to show how well a seemingly brightly-coloured bird can just melt into the forest. I certainly hadn’t seen it when I nearly stepped on it. Everything about the bird, apart from the colour of the plumage, is stealthy. It sits almost motionless, and what movements it does make are incredibly slow and deliberate. When it landed it was facing away from us, and as it had yet to decide if we posed a threat, it swiveled its head to stare at us - just the turning of the head took almost twenty seconds.
The Trogon sat for photos, and high-fives were exchanged: we had completed the set, three of East Malaysia’s hardest, most-wanted, infamous birds in three days. Not to mention the fabulous supporting cast of scarce and tricky-to-pin-down birds like Bald Laughing-thrush, Orange-backed Woodpecker and Fruithunter. We still had a few targets to see, but honestly, if we left the mountain that very minute, nobody could say we hadn’t done well. Josh and Max only saw the Trogon on Mount Kinabalu, getting onto the Spiderhunter in the Crocker Range at the very end of their trip, and missing the Broadbill entirely. We had a lot to be proud of.
We left the Trogon in peace, and moved on. Not ten minutes had passed before, whilst walking down a hill, I heard a faint yapping sound, looked up, and sitting there in the tree was a spectacular male Whitehead’s Broadbill, calling softly (much more quietly than I had anticipated). As my camera shutter went into overdrive, he turned his head and looked down at us, giving me a perfect view of the black facial markings only present on the male of the species. I looked through my photos later and realised that while I was concentrating on the male through the viewfinder, a female had actually flown through - visible as a green blur of wings in the corner of one frame.
Male Whitehead's Broadbill
I couldn’t have been happier. As the Broadbill took off into the forest, I had the biggest grin on my face, which remained well in place until we reached the uphill section of the Silau Silau trail near park HQ. Then it disappeared for sure. The uphill was murder on my legs, and just to top it off, the steps leading out to the road (just when you think you’ve finally made it) are a whopping 40 or 50cm high, with a flat top surface of just 20cm or so between each one. It takes every bit of energy you have left after climbing the mountain and descending on a forest trail to haul your sorry carcass up those four steps.
And then the road to the restaurant is uphill too.
We collapsed into chairs at the expensive Sutera restaurant - no way were we walking out to the roadhouse - at around 2:45pm, and consumed a heroic quantity of indian-style fried noodles.
As we ate, we discussed our cash situation: With roughly RM150 remaining each, it was clear that we’d need to find an ATM before moving on to Poring Hot Springs on the 4th. I had overheard in some other people’s conversation that there was an ATM in the town of Kundasang, roughly 5km away, but nobody I asked was sure of its existence. I figured, therefore, that our best bet was the much larger town of Ranau, some 20km from Kinabalu Park, where it appeared there were a few regional bank branches in operation. We walked down to the main gate to look for a taxi - given the taxis in KK had been RM30 from our backpackers to Tanjung Aru, I was expecting roughly RM30 for the 20km between here and Ranau. Not so - the going price was RM100 for a round trip. We decided to leave it and rethink our plans.
So far today we had not left the park, and having entered at 4am, had not paid the entry fee. If we were to leave and return in the evening to spotlight, we would have to pay the fee, so we decided to just hang around in the HQ area and relax until darkness fell. This we did, before it suddenly dawned on us that unless we wanted to pay another RM40 or so for a meal, we’d need to get down to the roadhouse before the kitchen closed at roughly 7:30pm. We calculated that a meal at the roadhouse plus the park entry fee was still cheaper than dinner inside the park, so out we went.
Brandon and I at Kinabalu Park HQ
We returned in darkness, but decided to try turning left up the Kiau View trail before the main gate, spotlighting along that, then turning onto the Pandanus trail back to mid-HQ. Halfway up the Kiau View we ran into a New Zealand couple, out ‘tramping’ in the forest. We exchanged notes on what to look out for (I decided they’d be happier not knowing about the existence of the Kinabalu Pit Viper when they asked us if there were snakes around, so I just cautioned them to be careful where they put their hands), before overtaking them and continuing up the trail.
Other than a few errant bats, we saw nothing on the trails, and despite doing a bit of a walk around HQ after exiting the Pandanus trail, there were no Mountain Scops Owls or Collared Owlets to be heard, much less seen. A bit of a letdown after such an exceptional day’s birding, but no matter. I was exhausted, and after a quick shower, was asleep within five minutes of getting into bed.
February 2nd (Tuesday)
We had planned to be up at 4am to watch sunrise over the mountain from the lookout point in lower HQ, but during the night my phone ran out of battery meaning there was no alarm, so we woke at 5:30 instead. We hurried to get ready, and managed to get up to the lookout before dawn broke. We sat and watched sunrise, munching away on the precious snacks that we bought yesterday afternoon whilst waiting for a taxi - I’d been forcing myself not to open my coveted chocolate bar all afternoon and evening yesterday, and it was quite a struggle. I carefully snapped off two squares and put the rest in my bag for later).
We had now seen all three Whitehead’s birds (and I had had a fleeting view of Whitehead’s Pygmy Squirrel while looking for the Trogon in the river yesterday, taking my tally to 4 animals bearing the name), but we weren’t quite satisfied. A female Whitehead’s Trogon is cool and all, but she has nothing on a male. We decided that we would take a rest day from the hike to Timpohon Gate, and instead spend the morning searching the lower end of the Liwagu trail for more Trogons, before trying to catch a cheaper bus or taxi into Ranau around midday.
We set off up the trail, stopping every now and then to look at something, but adding nothing new to the list. After about a kilometer, Brandon suddenly stopped in his tracks and swore. Neither of us had seen it until just two meters away, but right there, on an exposed branch just above eye level, right over the middle of the track, sat a female Trogon. Just staring at us. Stealth incarnate.
Realising she had been spotted, she flushed further back along the trail - but by now I had picked up the sound of a second bird calling from the gully on my right, and a quick search revealed a second female sitting silently, watching us from the forest. I watched her through binoculars, but the sounds continued even though she kept her beak firmly shut. Somewhere, there was a third bird.
Another female flushed on the left hand side of the track, taking the count to three, before a flash of scarlet brought the invisible caller to light - finally, the male. And what a bird. The same cinnamon back, black wings with a fine filigree of barring, and the same tail (slightly more black feathering). From the back it doesn’t even look that different, but when it turns around you realise just how breathtaking the male is. The brightest, strongest scarlet I have ever laid eyes on (makes a Red-capped Robin or Scarlet Honeyeater look washed out) covers the head and belly of the bird, with a starkly contrasting black chin, and the same pale crescent of plumage across the chest as in the female, but this time with a lavender wash applied over the ash-grey. Absolutely mesmerising.
We had now seen all three Whitehead’s birds (and I had had a fleeting view of Whitehead’s Pygmy Squirrel while looking for the Trogon in the river yesterday, taking my tally to 4 animals bearing the name), but we weren’t quite satisfied. A female Whitehead’s Trogon is cool and all, but she has nothing on a male. We decided that we would take a rest day from the hike to Timpohon Gate, and instead spend the morning searching the lower end of the Liwagu trail for more Trogons, before trying to catch a cheaper bus or taxi into Ranau around midday.
We set off up the trail, stopping every now and then to look at something, but adding nothing new to the list. After about a kilometer, Brandon suddenly stopped in his tracks and swore. Neither of us had seen it until just two meters away, but right there, on an exposed branch just above eye level, right over the middle of the track, sat a female Trogon. Just staring at us. Stealth incarnate.
Realising she had been spotted, she flushed further back along the trail - but by now I had picked up the sound of a second bird calling from the gully on my right, and a quick search revealed a second female sitting silently, watching us from the forest. I watched her through binoculars, but the sounds continued even though she kept her beak firmly shut. Somewhere, there was a third bird.
Another female flushed on the left hand side of the track, taking the count to three, before a flash of scarlet brought the invisible caller to light - finally, the male. And what a bird. The same cinnamon back, black wings with a fine filigree of barring, and the same tail (slightly more black feathering). From the back it doesn’t even look that different, but when it turns around you realise just how breathtaking the male is. The brightest, strongest scarlet I have ever laid eyes on (makes a Red-capped Robin or Scarlet Honeyeater look washed out) covers the head and belly of the bird, with a starkly contrasting black chin, and the same pale crescent of plumage across the chest as in the female, but this time with a lavender wash applied over the ash-grey. Absolutely mesmerising.
Male (above) and female (below) Whitehead's Trogons
He clearly had things other than us on his mind, and didn’t stick around for many photos (and, sadly, none front-on). He was far more interested in his harem of females, taking off to chase them around the forest, uttering a buzzing trill as he flew. He drove the girls higher up the hill and together they vanished into the undergrowth.
It doesn’t get much better than that.
We walked back up to HQ in a great state of elation, stopping on the way to admire a handsomely pied Bornean Forktail in the Silau river. As we reached the Death Steps, a buffy flash alerted me to the presence of a Ferruginous Flycatcher, a rare migrant to the North-West of Borneo, and one I had not been expecting to encounter. Our excellent morning just got even better.
We walked out of the front gate and down to the main road. Seeing us, a man jumped out of a van pulled up opposite, and asked us if we were looking for transport. We asked how much to Ranau, and he said RM40 each way, so we decided to bite the bullet and jumped in. I wish our minibus from KK to Kinabalu Park had been this nice - the van was clearly quite new and well looked-after, and best of all, the air-conditioning worked an absolute treat.
The road to Ranau cuts a twisting and winding path through the mountains, and although it’s only 20km, it feels a lot longer due to road conditions and traffic (heavy trucks full of wood and building materials lead convoys of cars unable to overtake them). We eventually pulled up in Ranau, our driver taking us virtually to the front door of the bank. We went in, and after a short wait to use the ATM, thankfully had no problems in withdrawing RM1000 (roughly AUD400) to last us (at the very least) until Lahad Datu and Danum Valley. Our van driver was waiting for us, so we didn’t go exploring in Ranau.
The Big Wombok, Ranau
Back at Kinabalu Park we decided to walk down the main road - the road between KK and Ranau - for about a kilometer to a tiny side-road up to some buildings, which Josh had tipped us off for being a very occasional site for two birds. The first, Bornean Barbet, is a submontane endemic which is only reliable in the Crocker Range, but occasionally moves north to Kinabalu’s lower slopes. The other, Pygmy Ibon (a.k.a. Pygmy White-eye, a distant relative of our Silvereyes) is more common in Kinabalu Park, but due to its tiny size and scarcity, is generally difficult to get a look at. We walked up, noting lots of bird activity, but none of our targets, before the mist turned to steady light rain, the first we’ve encountered on our trip.
I didn’t have my rain jacket and was in a very light button-up t-shirt, so I wasn’t keen to hang around, but Brandon was more determined. The rain did do one good thing - it brought out some of Kinabalu’s lesser-seen residents. A movement up the road turned out to be a large and disapproving-looking Montane Horned Frog, an incredibly cool looking beastie, and the one amphibian I was really hoping to stumble into on this trip (not that I had any idea where or how to look for one).
Montane Horned Frog (Megophrys kobayashii)
I got sick of being rained on, so I walked back to the resthouse, Brandon not too far behind (he said he got Bornean Spiderhunter on the road down).
Tomorrow is our final full day on Kinabalu, and yes, we’re spending it walking up to Timpohon Gate in the dark, to stake out Everett’s bloody Thrush. Not that it exists.
February 3rd (Wednesday)
Our last day on Mount Kinabalu.
It was actually a really nice day in general - although the walk up to Timpohon Gate was starting to wear a little thin on charm. We kept our ears open along the way, but as ever, no sound of Collared Owlet or Bornean Frogmouth (the latter incredibly rare, but you never know your luck in the big forest). The only birds calling were Mountain Scops Owls, and as we’ve learned over the last week, they either ignore or fly away from recordings being played.
No Everett’s Thrush this morning. Because it doesn’t exist.
When dawn broke properly, we went and hung around in a small patch of trees directly behind the power station (we started inside the fence then worked our way around the outside. The worker in there just ignored us). The little grove of trees harboured what appears to be the only patch of short lawn-grass on the mountain away from park HQ, and the birds seemed to gather around it. Most noticeable were the passage migrants - we had Blue-and-white Flycatchers, Asian Brown Flycatchers, Mugimaki Flycatchers, Barn Swallows and Grey Wagtails within a short space of time, along with various local species such as incredibly confiding Indigo Flycatchers (officially my new second-favourite bird after Whitehead’s Broadbill), Chestnut-crested Yuhinas, Bornean Whistling-thrushes, Bornean Whistler and Sunda Bush-warblers. We even managed to connect with one of our major montane targets, Mountain Black-eye, at long last. Phillips & Phillips says that they are ‘the commonest bird at higher altitudes on Mount Kinabalu”. We only saw one.
It was actually a really nice day in general - although the walk up to Timpohon Gate was starting to wear a little thin on charm. We kept our ears open along the way, but as ever, no sound of Collared Owlet or Bornean Frogmouth (the latter incredibly rare, but you never know your luck in the big forest). The only birds calling were Mountain Scops Owls, and as we’ve learned over the last week, they either ignore or fly away from recordings being played.
No Everett’s Thrush this morning. Because it doesn’t exist.
When dawn broke properly, we went and hung around in a small patch of trees directly behind the power station (we started inside the fence then worked our way around the outside. The worker in there just ignored us). The little grove of trees harboured what appears to be the only patch of short lawn-grass on the mountain away from park HQ, and the birds seemed to gather around it. Most noticeable were the passage migrants - we had Blue-and-white Flycatchers, Asian Brown Flycatchers, Mugimaki Flycatchers, Barn Swallows and Grey Wagtails within a short space of time, along with various local species such as incredibly confiding Indigo Flycatchers (officially my new second-favourite bird after Whitehead’s Broadbill), Chestnut-crested Yuhinas, Bornean Whistling-thrushes, Bornean Whistler and Sunda Bush-warblers. We even managed to connect with one of our major montane targets, Mountain Black-eye, at long last. Phillips & Phillips says that they are ‘the commonest bird at higher altitudes on Mount Kinabalu”. We only saw one.
Indigo Flycatcher
Despite this activity, there was no sign of our real target for the morning - which reminds me that I completely forgot to write about that incident, even though I set myself up for the explanation. Allow me to digress back in time.
I wrote the day before yesterday that we ran into CK Leong guiding a pair of Europeans around the Timpohon Gate and power station, and that we had left them alone in accordance with birding etiquette. As we were walking up the road to the restaurant after our big Liwagu trail walk in the afternoon, CK drove past us and pulled up. “We were looking for you earlier” he called. “We had Siberian Rubythroat up at the power station”.
Agh. Siberian Rubythroats are, in my opinion, one of the world’s best looking birds. Even though they’re not unheard of in Borneo (one or two come to the mountain on migration most years) I still would have loved to have seen one. Rubythroat was our main target for the morning - but as I said, no sign. A real pity, as they’re absolute gems of birds, but I can at least console myself with the fact that they’re common elsewhere in the world. Unlike Mountain Black-eye.
After a while at the power station, we walked around the corner to the desk at Timpohon Gate in search of breakfast. Not a real breakfast, of course, for that we would have needed to do the 1.5 hour walk all the way back to HQ. But there’s a tiny shop in the gate which we had heard sold snack food, so we figured that would do. Turns out 90% of what they sold was chocolate or chocolate-coated (good energy food for the mountain climbers, I suppose).
After our chocolate we did another hour at the power station, not really noting anything new apart from a couple of Pale-faced Bulbuls and an unidentified squirrel.
We walked back down the mountain, taking it easy and keeping an eye out for Kinabalu Serpent Eagles (the rapidly descending mist made chances of that slim at best). We stopped at the Sutera restaurant for lunch, before walking back down the main road to the 1km turnoff to have another (unsuccessful) crack at Spiderhunter. We did pick up Yellow-bellied Prinia on the way though, so the walk wasn’t for nothing. By this time my camera battery had finally used up its last dregs of charge - impressive, given I hadn’t charged it since the night before we left home - so we returned to the resthouse, with the intentions of sitting down to charge batteries and write a few lists before heading out again to photograph the waterfalls on the Liwagu River.
Three hours later, I woke up. Brandon was still asleep.
When he eventually woke up, we decided we couldn’t be bothered walking all the way to the falls as it would be mostly dark by the time we arrived. Instead I did some quick photo editing, then we went for dinner.
Awesome Brahmid Moth on the wall of our room
We went spotlighting along the Silau Silau creek tonight, finding two new species of frog (no idea what they are), and though we had a Mountain Scops calling quite close by, it refused to show itself before eventually flying off down the valley.
My clothes are all rolled up, most of my belongings have been sorted out, and tomorrow we leave for Poring Hot Springs. Hopefully it doesn’t take us too long to flag down a passing minibus on its way there - could take a few hours (or all day). Fingers crossed.
Sunset over Park HQ
February 4th (Thursday)
This is gonna be a quick entry because I need to shut down my laptop ASAP. I’ll explain why in a second.
We awoke this morning at around 6 (“I think I’ve forgotten how to sleep in”, Brandon groaned from the other bed) and just lay about dozing for a few hours before eventually getting up and finishing off our packing.
We were ready to go by about 9, and set off up to the pull-in in front of the park gate, where we hoped to flag down a minibus going to Poring Hot Springs. Thankfully the wait wasn’t too long, as a taxi driver approached us, and after some bargaining, agreed to do the trip for RM60. It was quite a long ride, as you have to go all the way to Ranau before you get to the Poring turnoff, and further from there.
We arrived intact (road lines, it seems, are more guidelines than rules up here) and set about checking into our home for the next two nights, a twin-share room at the Sutera Lodges-run resort at Poring. We had to pay up to stay there, as the park gates only open at 8am and staying outside the gates would make birding very impractical.
Our room looked very nice, more like a hotel than anything else we’d seen so far. But we didn’t stick around to enjoy it, there was birding to be done. We grabbed the essentials and headed for the hills - literally. Poring Hot Springs has pretty much just one trail, the Langanan Waterfall trail, which is a 3km walk. Josh had warned in his trip report that the trail “has a steep 40% gradient for the first 2km, after which it flattens out and becomes quite a pleasant walk to the waterfall”. I reckoned I could handle the 2km - I’d just done Kinabalu HQ to Timpohon Gate 4 times - how bad could it be?
I don’t think, in my entire life, combined, I have lost as much water in sweat as today.
Poring is submontane, and at just ~500m above sea level, much hotter than Mount Kinabalu (where the HQ is well above 1000m). Hot and humid. The waterfall trail starts about 500m from the accommodation, and to get to the trailhead you have to pass the hot springs (just before which we picked up a pair of Scaly-breasted Bulbuls, arguably the prettiest of the Bulbuls in Sabah, and one I had been really hoping to see). The hot springs are the reason why most people come to Poring - there are both indoor and outdoor pools (the indoor ones cost more), and despite the comments on TripAdvisor, they actually look alright, and fairly clean. Still, our thoughts of a nice dip were quickly banished when we were hit by the smell. The hot springs here are sulphurous, so the slightest breeze fills the entire downwind area with the stench of rotten eggs. Sore muscles aren’t worth putting your face near that. Not to me, anyway.
To access the start of the trail you have to cross a river. If this was Mount Kinabalu there would be a bridge. Not here. Thankfully the rocks in this river are a lot less slippery than on the mountain, and we made it across all bones intact, and even with dry feet.
Dry in the sense that I didn’t step in the river. Everything about me was wet by this point. And we hadn’t even started climbing.
The initial climb was ridiculously steep, hot, sticky, and generally birdless. Not a great start. Nevertheless we persevered, savouring the ever-so-slight reduction in temperature that came with the rise in elevation on the hillside. Thankfully also the first part of the walk is mostly shaded, the value of which became apparent when we stepped into an open patch of sunlight and the steady stream running from my hairline became a waterfall to rival Langanan itself. The worst part was that there was a Sunbird nest which we noticed, only visible from a position in full sun. We had to stand there until the owners showed themselves for identification (they ended up being Red-throated Sunbirds).
Continuing, the trail continued to climb as finally we started to run into some birds - Little Spiderhunter, Hairy-backed Bulbul, Puff-backed Bulbul and a few species we’d already found on the mountain. Bulbuls and Babblers are not really found in the true mountains (save a few species), but from now on we enter the heart of their habitat.
Another open patch yielded a Blyth’s Hawk-eagle, my first raptor of the trip. Blyth’s Hawk-eagle is a looker, with handsomely pied plumage. We birded up to around the 2km mark before discovering that Josh is a liar. The bit of the trail that “flattens out and becomes quite pleasant” lasts for perhaps 100m, before continuing to climb - only this time steeper and far more slippery. Everything is slippery. Especially rocks and tree-roots, of which there are plenty, many half-buried in the leaf litter. It’s a miracle neither of us were injured, we certainly slid out-of-control down the hill enough times. The trail continues to climb, aside from a very brief downhill section, right until the waterfall.
We awoke this morning at around 6 (“I think I’ve forgotten how to sleep in”, Brandon groaned from the other bed) and just lay about dozing for a few hours before eventually getting up and finishing off our packing.
We were ready to go by about 9, and set off up to the pull-in in front of the park gate, where we hoped to flag down a minibus going to Poring Hot Springs. Thankfully the wait wasn’t too long, as a taxi driver approached us, and after some bargaining, agreed to do the trip for RM60. It was quite a long ride, as you have to go all the way to Ranau before you get to the Poring turnoff, and further from there.
We arrived intact (road lines, it seems, are more guidelines than rules up here) and set about checking into our home for the next two nights, a twin-share room at the Sutera Lodges-run resort at Poring. We had to pay up to stay there, as the park gates only open at 8am and staying outside the gates would make birding very impractical.
Our room looked very nice, more like a hotel than anything else we’d seen so far. But we didn’t stick around to enjoy it, there was birding to be done. We grabbed the essentials and headed for the hills - literally. Poring Hot Springs has pretty much just one trail, the Langanan Waterfall trail, which is a 3km walk. Josh had warned in his trip report that the trail “has a steep 40% gradient for the first 2km, after which it flattens out and becomes quite a pleasant walk to the waterfall”. I reckoned I could handle the 2km - I’d just done Kinabalu HQ to Timpohon Gate 4 times - how bad could it be?
I don’t think, in my entire life, combined, I have lost as much water in sweat as today.
Poring is submontane, and at just ~500m above sea level, much hotter than Mount Kinabalu (where the HQ is well above 1000m). Hot and humid. The waterfall trail starts about 500m from the accommodation, and to get to the trailhead you have to pass the hot springs (just before which we picked up a pair of Scaly-breasted Bulbuls, arguably the prettiest of the Bulbuls in Sabah, and one I had been really hoping to see). The hot springs are the reason why most people come to Poring - there are both indoor and outdoor pools (the indoor ones cost more), and despite the comments on TripAdvisor, they actually look alright, and fairly clean. Still, our thoughts of a nice dip were quickly banished when we were hit by the smell. The hot springs here are sulphurous, so the slightest breeze fills the entire downwind area with the stench of rotten eggs. Sore muscles aren’t worth putting your face near that. Not to me, anyway.
To access the start of the trail you have to cross a river. If this was Mount Kinabalu there would be a bridge. Not here. Thankfully the rocks in this river are a lot less slippery than on the mountain, and we made it across all bones intact, and even with dry feet.
Dry in the sense that I didn’t step in the river. Everything about me was wet by this point. And we hadn’t even started climbing.
The initial climb was ridiculously steep, hot, sticky, and generally birdless. Not a great start. Nevertheless we persevered, savouring the ever-so-slight reduction in temperature that came with the rise in elevation on the hillside. Thankfully also the first part of the walk is mostly shaded, the value of which became apparent when we stepped into an open patch of sunlight and the steady stream running from my hairline became a waterfall to rival Langanan itself. The worst part was that there was a Sunbird nest which we noticed, only visible from a position in full sun. We had to stand there until the owners showed themselves for identification (they ended up being Red-throated Sunbirds).
Continuing, the trail continued to climb as finally we started to run into some birds - Little Spiderhunter, Hairy-backed Bulbul, Puff-backed Bulbul and a few species we’d already found on the mountain. Bulbuls and Babblers are not really found in the true mountains (save a few species), but from now on we enter the heart of their habitat.
Another open patch yielded a Blyth’s Hawk-eagle, my first raptor of the trip. Blyth’s Hawk-eagle is a looker, with handsomely pied plumage. We birded up to around the 2km mark before discovering that Josh is a liar. The bit of the trail that “flattens out and becomes quite pleasant” lasts for perhaps 100m, before continuing to climb - only this time steeper and far more slippery. Everything is slippery. Especially rocks and tree-roots, of which there are plenty, many half-buried in the leaf litter. It’s a miracle neither of us were injured, we certainly slid out-of-control down the hill enough times. The trail continues to climb, aside from a very brief downhill section, right until the waterfall.
“Woah, cool,” I said as we reached it. It was a very pretty waterfall, not much to shout about though really, although it was a bit bigger than anything we saw in Kinabalu Park.
And then I realised the trail continued.
We made our way carefully up the slope, and went around one more corner.
“WOAH.”
And then I realised the trail continued.
We made our way carefully up the slope, and went around one more corner.
“WOAH.”
Langanan Waterfall
That other waterfall looks a bit like pouring water out of a bucket when you see this.
The great torrent of white water pouring down the cliff face gave me an ideal opportunity for something I was badly in need of - a shower. I took off my shirt and stood in the spray for a good long while, which was beautifully cool and infinitely more refreshing than splashing stream-water on my face, which I did whenever possible on the hike up (I splashed water on my shirt too - pretty sure it got drier).
Brandon - before he'd even started splashing water on himself
Although the waterfall was basically paradise, there was the small matter of getting back to the hot springs before dark, and we were forced to leave sooner than I would have liked. After two hours of slipping down hills, near-death experiences and a couple of birds (the best of which was Rufous Piculet - a diminutive and adorable member of the Woodpecker family, just 10cm long, and seen only by me) we arrived just as dusk was falling.
After a quick shower (the bathrooms here are definitely the best we’ve had all trip, I am unaccustomed to such luxury on a birding trip) we went for dinner. When we left, we left one light on inside, and the porch light.
Big.
Mistake.
We enjoyed a lovely dinner (Sutera restaurant, so I wasted no time in indulging my roti canai addiction while I had the opportunity) and returned to our room, noting on the way the swarms of insects surrounding the lights on the bridge. The local bats were having a field day, all they had to do was fly past with their mouth open and they were set for the night. It didn’t occur to us that the doors in our cabins might not be very well sealed against such an onslaught. When we opened the door, the scene that greeted us was like some entomophobe’s worst nightmare. Insects covered everything. Walls, floor, beds, every available surface. The Asian House-gecko in the corner looked terrified.
We went to reception to see if they had a broom we could use, and on seeing the scale of the invasion, they promptly moved us to the room next door, where we made sure to keep the lights off, getting around using the glow from our phone’s screens, daring not to use our flashlight apps let alone our actual flashlights.
Which brings me to why this entry is short. The glow from my laptop screen is already beginning to attract some of the sneakier local bugs, and I have to shut it down before the rest of them outside notice.
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