Birding Sabah - Part 4

The following is part four 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 :)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

February 11th (Thursday)

Our last morning on the Kinabatangan started early, with another 5:30am start in preparation for our last boat trip. We set off at 6:30 and once again made straight for the Menanggol River for one last shot at Bornean Ground-cuckoo.

We had a lot less time this morning, as we had to be back by 10, rather than 12 like yesterday. We birded our way slowly up the river, keeping our ears peeled for Cuckoos, but instead picking up the repetitive call of Striped Wren-babbler, another endemic species that we had dipped on at Sepilok. We called back and forth to it for about ten minutes, before it suddenly and inexplicably went silent. Had it seen us and spooked? Surely one of us would have seen the movement.

... Or not. The Wren-babbler was staring at us from an exposed tree root less than two meters away, arriving completely unnoticed by all of us who had been intently focused on the patch of brush it had been calling from. It sat there, unphased, as I snapped photos. Quite cute birds, Wren-babblers, mostly terrestrial and all armed with a piercing and distinctive call, which this one obligingly made for us as we watched it.

Striped Wren-babbler

We continued up the river a short way before a honking in the trees opposite alerted us to the presence of a large and beautifully ugly Wrinkled Hornbill perched in the morning sun. It too sat quietly for us, allowing plenty of photographic opportunities, before taking off, the sound of the air beneath its wings clearly audible.

 

 Wrinkled Hornbill

The birding quieted down a little as we continued further, and just like yesterday there was no sign at all of the Ground-cuckoo. It was disappointing, but as I explained yesterday, far from unexpected. At least having gone out with Romzi we can say we gave it the best possible chance. That’s not to say the birding was over or we were disappointed with the morning though, as on the way back downriver we had some excellent surprises, starting with a Chestnut-winged Cuckoo (a large migratory species that we had no specific plan in place for), followed quickly by a male Asian Paradise Flycatcher, startlingly white with an ash-blue head and two enormous tail streamers that float out behind it as it flies. 

 

Hooded Pitta on the Kinabatangan

I had just lowered my lens from trying to photograph the flighty flycatcher, and was looking over to Romzi to ask if we could try to get closer, when a double-flash of white in the forest grabbed our attention. The flashes zipped through the trees before arcing out of the river, the sunlight revealing a dazzling sea-green back and chestnut underside. A Blue-winged Pitta, again migratory, and one we had not expected to encounter on this trip. Although it ignored our attempts to call it out, all of us had managed good (albeit brief) looks as it flew across.

We drifted back to the main river and set off back to camp in good spirits. We were going to carpool with the Italian group also staying at KJC out to the Sukau Junction where we’d catch our bus, so we had to wait a while for them to ready themselves. In the meantime I got to chatting with a group of birders freshly arrived in camp. They were from the Netherlands, and one of them was quizzing me about what we’d seen. After a few minutes he revealed that his name was Arjan Dwarshuis, and that his aim for the year was to set the new World Birding Record, set just last year by Noah Strycker with a mind-boggling 6000-and-something species. Arjan has his sights set on 7. 

 

Selfie on our last morning

When I went off to put on my boots, Romzi came and sat next to me. “I think he must be crazy” he said. “My first time meeting someone like that”. I agreed. 6000 species in a year was simply insane, Noah himself had only been aiming for 5000. “Only”. I’m not even sure 7000 species is possible. We’ll see, I suppose - It also just so happens that the group of them are heading to Danum Valley tomorrow morning at 6am, to the field centre where we’re also staying, leaving tomorrow afternoon. 

The driver of the KJC minibus dropped us on the roadside where the main Sandakan-Tuwau road turns off towards Sukau. Thankfully it wasn’t a 3-hour wait for a bus to stop for us (though the first we encountered drove straight on by) and soon we were heading towards Lahad Datu - gateway to the great wildlife reserves of East Sabah. Danum Valley Conservation Area, Tabin Wildlife Reserve, and the lost world of Maliau Basin. We arrived an hour and a half later (refreshing nap-time for me) and walked immediately to the Danum Valley Field Office, which we had spied on the way in.

The story of our visit to Danum has been frustrating. On Josh’s advice I made contact with a tour company, Inno Travel, in early October last year, asking them to help arrange the visit. I received an email in reply saying that my request had been forwarded to their sister company. Three weeks passed, and I got tired of waiting so I sent them an email asking what was happening. This time I got a reply, asking for clarification of some details (the email was addressed to “Ms Teh”). I replied, signing off with “Mr” Julian Teh. Again, delays. It was now just before Christmas and I finally got the next email, saying that the process was underway, and asking if we were members of SEARRP (South East Asia Rainforest Recovery Project). I replied no. No response.

And so it remained. Despite a pair of follow-up emails, each more terse than the last, I had no response. So we turned up at the field office with no idea if we would actually be allowed into the valley at all. Technically, the Field Centre (DVFC) is only for researchers, their assistants, and “serious naturalists”. In truth, supposedly all it requires to gain entry is some history of biological study and membership with a birding group. As biology students in high school and as members of COG, Bundaberg Birding Group and Birdlife Australia, I thought we’d be pretty safe.

We walked up to the desk and asked. The lady got on the phone, and after a few minutes told us to come back at 3pm as the people in the other office were out to lunch. We took the opportunity to get some lunch ourselves, availing ourselves of the excellent Multi-Bake around the corner, and also stopping to replenish our cash supplies at the bank. We returned and she said she had gotten onto the people at the travel company, and they said they did indeed have our booking down, but for a male and a female, not two males. Great. Clearly they never read my return emails. I explained the situation and it was sorted - we are to meet the bus to Danum at 3pm tomorrow.

Greatly relieved, we started on our next task - finding a DiGi shop. Another frustrating saga, that. A few days ago my internet quota had run out, and I had deciphered that when the lady in KK airport said I had 3GB to use, it meant I was supposed to have 1.5GB to use over the course of the month in the daytime, and 1.5GB to use between 1am and 7am. This was false. I was unable to connect between 1am and 7am either, so I'd had no internet connection since our second day in Sepilok. Since Lahad Datu is a fairly large town, I felt confident I would be able to get the matter resolved here.

We walked for twenty minutes until we were in the heart of town by the waterfront, and without much difficulty located a DiGi shop in a shopping mall. It took some time to explain the issue to the girls behind the counter (English here is not as prevalent as in the west of Sabah) but eventually we managed to get it up and running, and I even have a bit of call credit to use, so I can set up our accommodation on the return journey in advance. 

This taken care of, we turned to the next order of business - finding somewhere to sleep tonight. Originally we had planned to stay at a hotel a little out of town ('My Inn'), but on checking it out, the hotel across from the shopping mall ('Silam Dynasty Hotel') was not only walking distance from the field office but also RM28 per night cheaper, not including the price of the taxi ride that would have been necessary to get to and from My Inn.

We checked in, and went up to relax in the room for a while so I could catch up - the social network had been busy in my absence, and I had over 60 emails to deal with, without even starting on Facebook.

We went out shopping this evening to gather supplies for Danum. Food is available at the field centre, but according to Josh it’s expensive, so we’re taking as much cheap food of our own as we can carry, to minimise the number of times we have to shell out for a meal. We’ve decided to eat at the centre for dinner, and try to be self-sufficient for lunch and breakfast.

Shopping was an exciting affair, as several staff members at the supermarket came bouncing over to have their photos taken with us. I started to notice that when I looked around, there were always people watching us - Lahad Datu doesn’t get a great many foreign visitors, so we’re quite the occurrence around town.

I should take a moment to address something about Lahad Datu. Everything I’ve read about the place, including Josh’s scathing comments, have condemned the town as being dirty, smelly, and generally little more than a stopover on the way to the forests, somewhere to get out of as quickly as humanly possible. This coupled with the fact that the terrorist groups of the Philippines are active in this area, and the history of occasional tourist kidnappings, had me quite nervous about the place. It wasn’t somewhere I wanted to be outside of the hotel for long.

I don’t think I could have been more wrong.

Lahad Datu is awesome. Best city we’ve been to so far by miles. It’s a big city, but nowhere near as big as Kota Kinabalu, so there aren’t as many people crowding the streets. Occasionally you pass a smelly section, but overall the place is perfectly pleasant to walk around. The shopping mall we spent the afternoon in was immaculate. Everyone is exceedingly friendly, even passing drivers slow down to wave enthusiastically at us as we walk along the pavement. People in shops giggle nervously and ask for photos with us. I love it here. We were supposed to be fearing for our lives, but I don’t think I’ve felt more welcome this whole trip.

We went out for dinner tonight at a small cafe on the main road a few doors down from our hotel and enjoyed a very nice meal.

So now we’re relaxing in our lovely hotel room, drinking a bottle of luminous-blue peach-flavoured soft drink we found in the supermarket, and with no real birding sites around town, looking forward to having our first proper sleep-in of the trip tomorrow. Breakfast is served until 10, so I see no reason to be out of bed before 9:30. This is going to be good.

February 12th (Friday)

I woke up at 6:30. Perhaps Brandon was right back on Mount K - perhaps we have forgotten how to sleep in. I lay about for a bit before the hot curry I ate last night made a sudden and unpleasant bid for freedom. It was an uncomfortable half hour.

When I emerged, we lay around for a bit before trying to go shopping - I say trying, as the shopping mall down the road was closed, even at half past nine. So we went off to look in the smaller markets dotted along the road. We were looking for flat-bread - just tortilla type things, which we could put peanut butter on and eat for lunches in Danum. No luck. The closest we got was roti paratha, which of course comes frozen and is therefore of no use to us. Instead we went with the obvious choice: instant noodles.

With shopping done, we returned for breakfast at the hotel, and then Brandon decided he wanted to go birding, even though there’s nothing to see in Lahad Datu. I decided it was probably a bad idea to split up (though I didn’t really want to go out), so I followed him. Sweaty and hot outside, and we got pulled up by the police for walking down some road we weren’t supposed to have. What a fun time.

When we returned we just lay around for a while - check-out was at 12, and we didn’t have to be at the field office until 3, so we had time to kill. Eventually 11:30 rolled around and we got tired of doing nothing, so we packed up and checked out. When we got downstairs we noticed something was slightly different about the hotel’s cafe. A minor change in decor since we’d eaten breakfast. In that there was now a ute poking through the front window.

 

Oops.

Looked like a fairly major accident (the vehicle was halfway into the building) so I’m amazed we didn’t hear or feel anything from our second floor room. No ambulances or anything either, and there were none around when we saw it, so hopefully there were no injuries. We walked up the hill to the field centre, where we dropped our bags and went in search of lunch at the multi-bake.

I do love the multi-bake.

We hung around the field office for a few hours (after some confusion with visitor classes and pricing). We had a look at a list of costs for things like excursions and meals at the field centre and were suddenly very glad we’d thought to buy noodles. Yikes.

In due course our bus arrived, and we set off in the company of two South American researchers (an Ecuadorian and a Chilean), two Australian post-uni-students and two Latvian backpackers. Lots of chatting in the van, which whiled away the time. 

 

 Ready to set off

The road to Danum is not a great one - you have about 5km of sealed road, then it’s 47km on pot-hole-dotted gravel to the field centre. No seatbelts in the bus, either, so we all bounced around a bit. Two and a bit hours later we arrived and were taken into the main office for registration and a briefing. There was more confusion as to the class of visitor we represent, as having finished high school we are technically not students - although we both have our university offer letters, which it seems will suffice. Hopefully they will, or it’s an extra RM31 a night plus extra for meals. Which we would really rather avoid.

The briefing was short and basically covered everything we knew already, including that it’s ‘compulsory’ to hire guides for RM20 an hour to go walking on all but two of the trails. That’s fine by us, as we don’t really intend to walk the trails. Our interest lies in ‘the grid’, the network of neatly laid-out paths in a different section of the valley, mostly used by researchers for their studies. She didn’t say anything about needing a guide on the grid (since you’re probably not supposed to go in there) so we’re taking that to mean we’re free to go, just like every other birder who’s ever come here.

We were dropped off at our hostel and chose some beds (from the 48 in the male dorm), discovering quickly and to our great annoyance that the beds around the only working power outlet were taken. We’ll just have to leave our things over there to charge, which shouldn’t be a problem.

It was almost dark by this stage so we went for dinner, sitting with the Australians and Latvians for some pleasant company and conversation (including the obligatory drop-bear warnings to the Latvians, who took the whole thing very seriously). Both pairs are only here until Monday, but by that stage our Dutch friends will have arrived, so I shouldn’t think we'll be eating alone much.

Looking forward to tomorrow on the grid.

February 13th (Saturday)

We woke up early, probably a fair bit too early, at 5. Packing our stuff and getting out the door (sporting my leech socks for protection from the infamous Danum leeches) by 5:30, when it was still well-dark.

We traipsed down to the grid, our intention being to be well into it by sunrise, just in case anybody tried to stop us as we walked over the suspension bridge (there are no signs saying not to enter though). We made our way up the right hand trail (W0), noting piles of fairly fresh-looking elephant dung, until we reached an open patch where we could wait for sunrise.

The morning’s birding took us down W0 until we reached the coffin trail - stopping for fantastic looks at another stunning Black-and-crimson Pitta on the way - which we turned down and followed until we reached the end, at the old burial site beneath an overhanging rock. While interesting in itself, the trail had brought us surprisingly little bird activity, so we made our way back up to W0 and, slowly, out of the grid. During the morning we’d picked up less than 30 species, although that did include several lifers such as Bushy-crested Hornbill, Scaly-crowned Babbler, Yellow-rumped and Yellow-breasted Flowerpeckers and a personal favourite, Fluffy-backed Tit-babbler.

Some nice habitat along the Coffin trail

When we emerged and found somewhere to sit down, I discovered to my great annoyance that I had a leech bite. I’d flicked a few off my boots and socks during the morning, but other than that had assumed myself safe thanks to the leech-socks my sister bought me for Christmas. Not so. During the course of the morning, slipping and sliding down the extremely muddy trails, the zip holding the bottom half of my pants on had come slightly undone, allowing one leech entry. So now my pants have quite impressive blood-stains (though the leech is no more).

While sitting down we noticed one of the Dutch group, Sander, wandering down the road. They had arrived a few hours previously, around 8:30, and with the best part of the day for birding over were just birding around the DVFC until it cooled down again in the afternoon. We walked with him a short way up the road, before leaving him behind and continuing on our own. By this time it was nearly midday and getting very hot (though being inland and in a valley meant the heat was drier than the other places we’d been, so it was quite bearable to walk around in), so there wasn’t much going on in terms of bird activity. Just a few Flowerpeckers and one foraging Short-tailed Babbler.

We cooked up the first of our two-minute noodles for lunch before making our way over to the dining hall to hang out with the Dutch for a while. Good conversation and a comparison of the morning’s lists, as well as catching up on their extra day on the Kinabatangan (they somehow managed to get Bristlehead). As 1pm rolled around, they set off onto the grid and we made for the canopy tower. They gave us one of their radios in case either party saw anything good. We weren’t carrying our own radios (we haven’t been since very early in the trip) as I dropped mine in the Liwagu river. Twice. The first time was fine, but the second rather messed up its internals.

There are a few canopy towers in the vicinity of the field centre, but one in particular stands out - an aluminum ladder running vertically for 30m up the side of an immense tree, with a circular observation platform at half-way and another at the very top, just below the canopy. The ladder is enclosed by a hoop of thin steel bars, but the experience of climbing it is a tense one to say the least. Sander had mentioned it that morning - “maybe 50% chance of survival” he had said, shaking his head.

Naturally, I went straight to the very top.

It was a pretty epic view from up that high (far higher than either Sepilok or Poring) and far cooler than on the forest floor, with a nice breeze going through. I sat with my legs dangling over the side of the platform for half an hour or so, before returning to the halfway platform to rejoin Brandon, who hadn’t been game to head to the top.

How's that vertigo going?

We stayed at the canopy tower for a fair while, and saw quite literally zero birds. Not even a movement to betray their presence. When we finally moved it was because the radio buzzed into life, with news from Arjan, saying they had heard both Bornean Wren-babbler and Short-toed Coucal down on the grid. We decided to chase it up.

When we got to the place they had directed us to, there was no sign of either species. Whistling and playing their calls yielded no response, and the forest in general was silent save the incessant drone of cicadas. We walked for an hour up and around that section of the grid, and ended up with an impressive list of four species (although granted two of them were lifers, Rufous-fronted Babbler and Rufous-winged Philentoma). The lack of wildlife didn’t extend to the leeches, which were both present in vast numbers and hungry. We were stopping every ten meters of so to pick and flick them off our legs and boots.

We left the grid exhausted and generally feeling pretty done for the day. With it drawing near to 5pm we headed back to the hostel to enjoy our deliciously cold shower before adjourning to the balcony to update our lists. When darkness fell we made our way to the dining room for dinner. We sat with the Dutch guys and had a great time talking birds and big years, discussing the finer points of identification on a Flycatcher we’d all seen earlier in the day (we eventually decided on Dark-sided after much heated debate), and the distribution of the various races of Asian Paradise-flycatcher, recently split by some taxonomies into three species. Arjan is currently close to 1100 species and has so far maintained a 17-species-per-day average, which is very impressive. His Australia plans begin in late March, with one or two days each around Brisbane, Cairns, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Tasmania.

We wrapped up the night and have since retired to bed amid scattered showers and much frog activity. Hopefully the rain stops by dawn and brings out some of Danum’s better birds for us tomorrow - we start on the grid before walking the entrance road with the Arjan & co. in the afternoon and staking out the canopy tower for Bristlehead in the evening.

February 14th (Sunday)

The day we looked death in the butt.

We started off the day once again on the grid. Both of us had wanted to do the waterfall trail this morning, but the Dutch were also keen on it. Birding etiquette dictates that they be given priority as Arjan needs the species for his big year, and they’re leaving DVFC tomorrow. Having six people birding a trail just makes life difficult for everyone, the more people the less birds, and not everyone sees everything. So back to the grid it was for us.

We took the trail west today, in the same direction we had gone yesterday afternoon. We continued straight, finding a Purple-naped Sunbird on the way, until a series of alarm calls on the trail up ahead gave away the position of a Horsfield’s Babbler, a nondescript brown and grey bird, but one we were pleased to see. One less Babbler to look for! Playing the call had it doing laps of us for a few minutes before it caught on and disappeared into the forest.

Our next new bird was also a Babbler - this time Black-capped. We heard its distinctive whistle in the undergrowth, and Brandon managed to get a look at it as it flashed past us, but it took me a solid twenty minutes of playing the call and watching the bird skulk about in the vines to get a tickable view. Even so, when I did finally manage to get my bins on it, it turned out to be quite a handsome bird, much more attractive than the field guide illustration, with bright rufous underparts, white facial markings and the black cap for which it is named.

After Black-capped Babbler we had a bit of a bird-drought for some time. We walked the trails until 10:35 and the only other new bird we found was Banded Broadbill (finally!). This time it was the other way around, and I got an excellent view of the bright purple plumage and luminous blue beak-flashes, while Brandon had to chase it around the bushes for fifteen minutes.

We did get lost on the grid for a while. The trails are thin, overgrown and often extremely muddy, and of course the trails aren’t perfectly straight as they appear on the maps. This makes navigation very difficult, not helped by the fact that some of the marked grid trails aren’t actually there. Several times now we’ve come to corners which should be a meeting of four paths, but only two actually exist. Only a few of the corners are signposted, too.

Getting lost has advantages and disadvantages. The big disadvantage of course is that you have no idea how far from the field centre you are, or even if you’re going in the right direction to get there (the iPhone compass app has always been a bit dodgy). The advantage is that when you stumble into less-traveled areas, you find some amazing things.

We had been lost for a good half hour, and had decided just to follow the path we were on and see where we ended up. After a while we started to come across shallow streams, thickly overgrown with tangles of vines and bushes, which we had to cross to continue. It was on the second of these streams that a whistle in the bushes alerted me to a large dark shape loping downriver towards me. I couldn’t work out what on earth it could be for a minute, before it stuck its face through, peered at me, and disappeared, two of its kin suddenly appearing and vanishing in the same direction as the first. Short-clawed Otters, a species that I had completely forgotten lives in Borneo, and one which I definitely didn’t expect to run into while balancing on a stone in the middle of a 10cm-deep forest stream, 50km inland and miles from the Kinabatangan. The fact that I saw them at all probably means they get very few human visitors.

 

Panorama of the river next to DVFC

A nice thing about this morning was that the leeches were far less active than yesterday afternoon. I still had plenty inching their way up my legs or across my pants, but none managed to get a bite in, and certainly I didn’t have to stop every 15 steps to flick away another ten or twenty. Eventually we emerged back at the suspension bridge, having done a full loop of two grid squares. Tired of the forest for one morning, and with the list for the day still pitifully small, we headed for the canopy platforms to sit and watch for a while. Once at the top we had a hawking Grey-streaked Flycatcher, a pair of stunning Velvet-fronted Nuthatches and a group of circling Silver-rumped Spinetails, a species of swift that sparkles iridescent blue in direct sunlight, with a bright white lower back and tail.

It was while we were up there that we picked up the faint two-note whistle of Bornean Wren-babbler drifting up from the forest floor 30m below. It took me some time to get down, as I had taken off my shoes and leech-socks to let them dry after the stream crossings on the grid. By the time I reached the ground the calling had stopped, and although we wandered around for some time playing the call, none could be found.

We wrapped up birding for the morning and retired to the hostel to cook our instant noodles, before adjourning to the dining hall to wait for the Dutch guys. One of them, Jelmer, was already sitting there when we arrived, and we were soon joined by the others. They had had a far more successful morning with Bornean Wren-babbler, Blue-headed Pitta, Red-bearded Bee-eater, Chestnut-naped Forktail and a whole bunch of other good birds that we needed. It seems as though everything we want is on the waterfall trail.

It was extremely hot in the early afternoon, so we just sat around on the deck of the dining hall chatting and watching the Red Leaf-monkeys feeding across from us. Eventually Arjan got tired of doing nothing, so we decided to walk as a group of five (Brandon and I, Arjan, Jelmer and Max - Sander chose to stay and rest) down the entrance road.

It was an excellent walk, starting with our very last species of Bornean Sunbird, Van Hasselt’s. Arjan had a scope which made birding the canopy of the tall trees along the road far easier, and using it we managed to pick up a few good lifers like Lesser Cuckoo-shrike, Pale Blue-flycatcher, Little Bronze-cuckoo and Large Wood-shrike. Our real target was Black-throated Wren-babbler, but although we played the call at every patch of wild ginger we came to, we only had one quick response. One exciting moment came when we heard a Blue-headed Pitta calling very close to the road. We settled in to try and tape it into view, but just as it seemed to be getting closer, a Black-and-crimson Pitta jumped in and scared our Blue-headed away. The one time I wasn’t glad to see a B&C Pitta!

 

Birding the DVFC entrance road with Arjan, Max & Jelmer

As dusk began to fall we birded our way back down the road. We were perhaps five hundred meters from the field centre when we rounded a corner and immediately Arjan started backtracking hurriedly down the road. A quick glance told us why - two huge dusky shapes stood at the roadside, browsing the vegetation. Bornean Pygmy Elephant.

We hurried to put another corner between them and us, and held a quick discussion. Max thought we would be fine where we were. Arjan and Jelmer didn’t look convinced, and if they weren’t convinced I was with them. This was confirmed a second later by a low rumbling in the roadside bushes close to us, telling us there were more elephants off the road. Max snuck a peek around the corner - the two we had seen on the road were coming towards us, and as they caught sight of us one trumpeted. Arjan was gone. I followed suit. Trying to be both quick and quiet, we all shot down the road. We had two choices - run back to the building we had seen on the road some distance away, or follow a tiny path up to the 15m observation tower just off the road, on the non-elephant side. The decision needed to be made immediately. We chose the tower. We chose badly.

It was not until the five of us were crammed into the rickety wooden structure, with darkness beginning to fall, that we realised we now had no way out. Had we gone to the buildings we could have hitched a ride with a passing car - whenever the next one happened to come along, which might have been tomorrow for all we knew - but from the canopy tower, we couldn’t see the bend in the road, so we didn’t know where the elephants were. If we tried to make a break for the buildings, we could come out onto the road in the middle of the herd.

This is when Max noticed the people on the road.

Scarcely able to believe what we were seeing, we stared down our bins at the two figures on the corner, just visible through the vegetation - the two Australian students who had been on our bus coming into the valley. They were standing in full view just ten meters from two elephants, taking photos. An incredibly dangerous, and almost inconceivably stupid move.

“They’re going to die.” muttered Max with a terrifying grave conviction. The two elephants were staring at them, and they were still looking and taking photos. We couldn’t comprehend why they weren’t getting out of there - were they simply too stupid to understand what danger they were in? Even without the two on the road, they had no idea at least two more were hiding in the bushes. We flashed our spotlights at them, waved our arms, made shooing motions, shone our laser pointers, but they ignored us.

As proper darkness fell, finally they turned and left. They had been incredibly lucky. The Elephants had been in a good mood - had they not been, what we would have witnessed doesn’t bear thinking about. We reckoned they had a 50-50 chance of coming out of that encounter alive, and thankfully had picked the right day to test their luck, with no bull elephants around. Which brought us back to our own situation - we weren’t so keen to try the patience of elephants, and we had no choice but to stay in the observation tower, in the dark, until we could be rescued. Sander, back at the field centre, had a radio but wasn’t picking up. I had cell reception, but the numbers for the field centre either didn’t work or went unanswered. Finally, Jelmer located a number at the bottom of the information sheet we had all been given a copy of, that said ‘DVCA Manager - Home’. The call went through, and I explained our situation. He said he would get in touch with the field centre and send someone to get us. Thank god I thought to put some call credit on my phone when I fixed the internet in Lahad Datu.

It was a tense ten-minute wait for the vehicle to arrive, but eventually a honk of the horn and a shout let us know the coast was clear, and we escaped the canopy tower into the safety of the tray of a ute. We arrived back at the dining hall shaken but greatly relieved that everyone had made it out safely. Beer was definitely in order.

At dinner the Australians turned up and Arjan went to give them hell about the sheer idiocy of their behaviour. They insisted that they were in no danger, and that the elephants didn’t pose them any risk. Through Dutch and scribbled messages we agreed they're idiots.

We went on a night-drive up the main road tonight, hoping for some frogmouths, but saw only Short-toothed Palm Civets, Red Giant Flying-squirrels and a single Malay Civet. Thankfully no more elephants - we think they must have moved out of that area, though their dung litters the road in the area they were feeding.

Tomorrow an early start, then back before lunch to bid goodbye to the Dutch as they head back to Lahad Datu Airport to begin the next stage of their trip; Peninsular Malaysia.

February 15th (Monday)

We started at 5:30 as usual (it’s going to be strange when I get back home, no more dawn starts…) and had to pick somewhere to go. Brandon wanted to bird the entrance road. I told him in no uncertain terms what he could do with that idea, and told him I was going up the Waterfall trail. The Dutch said they were setting off at 5, so they had an hour’s head start on us by the time we set off, enough to be polite in birding.

We started the trail around 6, crossing over the much smaller and shakier suspension bridge to get to the trailhead. We were not alone, two other groups of people (the Ecuadorian/Chilean couple and two people I didn’t recognise being led by a guide) were walking in the same direction. We overtook the South Americans, and the others stopped 300m in at the canopy tower, so for the rest of the morning on the trail we were alone - just how birders like it!

We could hear plenty of birds moving around as we walked the first section of the trail, noticing how much nicer the forest was there than on the grid. We had been wasting our time, we should have done seven mornings up this trail. We heard Hooded Pittas in the undergrowth, Black-capped Babblers running invisible laps around us, and Black-and-yellow Broadbills buzzing from the canopy. We didn’t see much until I stopped for a rest and to let Brandon catch up, and happened to notice a movement in the high canopy through a tiny window in the leaves above my head. Thankfully I was able to make out what it was, as last night I set about my Monarchs and managed a temporary fix - the one healthy eyecup on my Nikon Monarchs inexplicably came off at KJC, and since then I have been using Brandon’s terrible old Vanguard Elites. Using my Monarchs again was like using Swarovski Optiks after dollar-store bins. What I saw in the canopy was an immense woodpecker - the sheer size narrowed it down to two species: White-bellied, which we had seen on the Kinabatangan, or Great Slaty. Great Slaty is both larger and stranger - half a meter long, grey all over with a small rounded head and yellow neck-flashes. This bird appeared to lack a crest, so I was just about to call Great Slaty when it called and removed all doubt. It flew off, and we were both able to get good views of several of these enormous birds.

 

 Mother and baby Bornean Gibbon

As we were watching them, we heard a loud two-note whistle from just off the path a few meters behind us. We had been playing the whistle all morning, but had stopped when we found the woodpeckers - it was the call of Bornean Wren-babbler (or Ground-babbler, depending who you ask), a rare and handsome endemic species that the Dutch had found yesterday on this trail. I whistled, and it whistled back - good sign. I snuck down the hill while Brandon kept watch from the top, kept whistling, and dark shapes began to bounce out of the bushes. They kept us busy for a few minutes, always bouncing out of view the second we raised our binoculars, before giving up on the shy-game and coming out to stroll right up the middle of the path as we watched. Not brilliantly colourful, but the chestnut back and wings form a nice contrast with the striking black-and-white striped front and white face. Another of Borneo’s lesser-known and rarely seen endemic species on the list.

We had barely gone 200m up the path when an alarm call from the undergrowth found us our second Wren-babbler of the morning: Striped. I made a mental note to tell the Dutch about it when we caught up to them, as I recalled them saying they missed it on the Kinabatangan (one of the few birds we got that they didn’t).

Birding went quiet for a while, with just a procession of boring Babblers and Barbets calling from the canopy. We were focusing more on walking than birding by the time we reached the ridge at the top of the hill we’d been walking up. I don’t think Brandon was paying much attention to the sounds coming up from the valley, and neither was I - until I heard something I recognised. Something we’d been listening to non-stop for two days on the Kinabatangan. A loud, resounding hoot, followed by a descending gurgle.

No way.

Bornean Ground-cuckoo.

We both instantly froze, and the sound continued to echo up from below us at regular intervals. It wasn’t close. “It’s probably the Dutch playing the call from somewhere else on the track” Brandon hissed, but I didn’t think so. With Jelmer’s speakers we wouldn’t be able to hear it so clearly from how far away it seemed to be. I was certain - this was the real deal.

We scuttled down the ridge, squatting down among the trees and cued up the call - a short burst, then wait to see if there would be a response. Nothing for two minutes, then another series of hoots and gurgles from the valley, and seemingly closer this time. We waited a minute, then gave it another go. This time there was no response. Five minutes and still nothing. We stared intently at the trees in front of us, knowing that with Ground-cuckoos it is imperative that we spot the bird before the bird spots us. They are ridiculously shy, and when they respond to calls they come in high, then at the first sign of human activity drop to the floor and run off.

We played the call one more time, then waited in silence staring out across the forest. Suddenly, a branch moved, bouncing up as if something heavy had just dropped off it. A moment later, quiet scuttling in the leaf litter.

Because it didn’t call again we have no way of knowing just how close the Ground-cuckoo came to us, but I am certain that it was no more than 20m away, hopped up onto that branch, and peered over the foliage, seeing us before we could see it. Incredibly frustrating, but it gave us hope - the bird exists, is here, and now we know where to look for them. Three mornings left, so we stand a decent chance.

We saw little else on our way to the top of the hill, although we heard plenty, including two separate Blue-headed Pittas which flat-out refused to play ball and come in to the tape, keeping their distance and calling at intervals. Nothing like Arjan's story of having two respond and come right in the day before. We continued on, and at around 10am, finally came across Jelmer standing in the middle of the track, scoping out a fruiting tree. As we arrived the other three filed down the hill and we exchanged greetings before getting down to business: Had any of them, at any point in the morning, played the call of Ground-cuckoo? Jelmer shook his head and chuckled, as though wondering why we thought they would have done such a pointless thing. This confirmed it - we heard the real thing.

As we were chatting, a thin whistle floated up to us from the valley below, again a familiar sound. Arjan held up a finger, froze for a second, whispered “Blue-banded Pitta!” then turned and snuck off up the hill. We followed. The five of us, minus Jelmer who stayed to keep scoping out the tree, ducked off the path and filed our way down the spine of the hill, dodging the sparse trees and trying to keep our feet as quiet as possible on the thick layer of leaf-litter and rich, loose soil.

It was a tense half-hour as we whistled back and forth at the bird, edging closer, arguing in sign language about where the noise was coming from. Eventually we agreed and started to move at glacial speed in that direction. The bird continued to call - and then it suddenly stopped. From the sound we had been within 15m of the Pitta, but somehow the bright-red bird had managed to escape five pairs of eyes, including the extra-sharp gaze of the new contender for King of Birdwatching. It was gone - no matter how many whistles we sent sailing down into the ravine, there was no response. It had seen us and spooked.

Frustrated, we climbed back up the hillside to the path, and the Dutch had to dash off to catch their transport back to Lahad Datu at 12:30, to meet their flight to Peninsular Malaysia where they will spend the next few weeks birding Fraser’s Hill, The Gap and Taman Negara. We wished each other good luck and good birding, promised to find each other on Facebook and keep in touch. We gave them the coordinates for Striped Wren-babbler so they could give it a try on the way, and they were gone.

Left now to our own devices, we made the long, steep downhill walk to Tembaling Waterfall, which although pretty, was nowhere near as spectacular as Langanan. It was also completely devoid of Chestnut-naped Forktails, Blue-banded Kingfishers and Red-bearded Bee-eaters, which we had hoped to find up there. It was a long and utterly exhausting trek back up for little reward.

Midday now drawing closer, we decided it was time to head back. It took us an hour and a half to reach the bottom, and when we finally stumbled out we were utterly spent. We somehow made it up the long staircase to the dining hall and sat there, engulfing watermelon slices, until we had cooled down a bit.

We may have cooled down, but the afternoon was just getting started. With the temperature and humidity going up, we did the only thing to do - took a nap. Stretched out on the surprisingly comfortable couches on the dining hall balcony, we slept through the worst of the afternoon, and woke up at 3:30 to the first drops of a rainstorm, which quickly became a torrential downpour, although it only lasted about fifteen minutes.

 

 Dreams of Ground Cuckoos

With the rain and our levels of tiredness, we decided to call it quits for the day with just four lifers each. It hadn’t really been a good morning - four lifers, yes, but another 5 major targets heard and not seen. We’d need to up our game tomorrow and really start chasing them. We hung out around the hostel for a few hours, and I finally broke out my camera for the first time since arriving. I have to be careful where I use it, because they want a ridiculous RM100 for using a DSLR. Since I’ve only been carrying my small day-bag around, I haven’t taken it with me anywhere since we arrived. But, I figured, I’d be well away from the prying eyes of staff around the hostel (which is several hundred meters from reception) so I got it out and chased Bulbuls for a while. 

 

 Red-eyed Bulbuls

 

 

Yellow-rumped Flowerpecker

When I came around the corner of the hostel after an entertaining half-hour trying to get a good shot of a Yellow-rumped Flowerpecker, I came across a very troubling sight - Brandon leaning over, vomiting. He did this on and off all evening, mostly bringing up the water he was trying to keep down. In a stroke of good fortune one of the people who arrived this morning to stay at the hostel is a doctor, practicing in Norway. He had some anti-vomiting pills which he gave us, and has been keeping an eye on Brandon all night.

We sat down to try and figure out what could have caused it, as Brandon and I have eaten exactly the same things all day. I was thinking it could have been a bad or undercooked piece of chicken at lunch, until he told us he’d drunk from the river up near the waterfall. I’d warned him not to do that when he’d started at Poring, but clearly he thought it was safe. I don't know why he’d do it anyway, as he had water with him, but there you go, mystery solved.

He’s sleeping down the other end of the hostel tonight to be closer to the bathroom, but I haven’t heard him vomit in a while and he said he was feeling a bit better before we went to bed. No waterfall trail for us tomorrow, we’ll take a rest day. We’ll lose very valuable birding time, and it could cost us greatly with cuckoos and pittas, but he has to put health first, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to go up that trail on my own.

Fingers crossed he’s better by morning, and we can get back to birding the day after tomorrow.