Saturday 28 February 2015

Orangutans

A last minute visit to Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre for a 10am feed where we got to see the delightful Rosa and Selamat.

Rosa

Selamat

A last minute highlight was the surprise sighting of a cream-coloured giant squirrel (Ratufa affinis). We could barely tear ourselves away to check in, in time for our flight home.

We ♥ Sepilok, Sabah.

Friday 27 February 2015

The Rainforest Discovery Centre, Sepilok - day 2

Blue-bellied litter skink (Sphenomorphus cyanolaemus)

Crimson sunbird (Aethopyga siparaja)

The Asokam trees (Saraca asoca), planted near the entrance of the RDC were teeming with sunbirds and spidercatchers, which made our resolve even more fervent we research plants attractive to wildlife to grow in our garden.

Female Diard's trogon (Harpactes diardii)

After the previous night's adventure, we chose to walk the complete Pitta trail and had two sightings of Diard's Trogons in small groups consisting of a couple females and a spectacular male with blue, maroon daubed head and striking pink collar. We stopped to take a drink at a bench placed on the trail from which we watched a White-bellied woodpecker (Dryocopus javensis), systematically hammer out ants and insects from a dead tree.

We visited the 65m tall Sepilok Giant and passed on greetings from the Epping Forest Ents.

We took a slow amble along the Belian trail, trying to spot the many green-feathered birds shown on the information boards that punctuated the trail, but our twitching knowledge and optics were not up to the task. The Belian (Eusideroxylon zwageri), or Borneo Ironwood is very slow growing and the 20m - 50m trees are many hundreds of years old (the 50m trees are thought to be near on 1000 years old). The population is becoming irrevocably depleted as it is unable to regenerate due to over-exploitation and illegal logging.

Red-eyed Bulbul (Pycnonotus cyaninventris)

Frilly Forest Gecko (Cosymbotus craspedotus) on a red sealing wax palm (Cyrtostachys renda).

We ♥ the Rainforest Discovery Centre.

Thursday 26 February 2015

The Rainforest Discovery Centre, Sepilok - night walk

We registered our interest in a 2hr guided night walk at the RDC ticket office at 8am. They took a local SIM number so that they could confirm whether the walk would be taking place as a minimum of 4 participants was required. When we convened at 6pm our party consisted of 5 participants, a guide and spotter who were both friendly and enthusiastic.

Just after 6.20pm, once the neighbouring Wallace's hawk-eagle had flown the tree, this Red giant flying squirrel, Petaurista petaurista hurled itself out of its nest hole and off the dead branch far away up, up in a 40m+ Mengaris tree. It made a circuit, scent-marking the trees within gliding distance of it's home. It amazed us further by proximity flying along the section of the canopy walk that extends beyond the Trogon tower, where we stood in wide-eyed wonder.

Coming down from the canopy we made a short detour into the start of the kingfisher trail where we spotted a sleeping Red bearded bee-eater and Black-backed kingfisher.

Sunda Stink-badger, Mydaus javanensis

Who would have thunk it? Skunks in Borneo? Bambi had us convinced Flower's American!

For the second time today our childhood conceptions and conventional world order was rattled.

Green tree viper

Long-legged millipede

Whilst we made our way along a section of the Pitta trail, our expert spotter pointed out both a Western tarsier and a Sunda flying lemur (colugo), we were beyond gleeful at our luck.

If you are planning to do a night walk it is essential you pack a torch, a hand torch is preferable to a head torch as the light attracts flying insects and bats.

The Rainforest Discovery Centre, Sepilok - Day 1

Our experience of The Rainforest Discovery Centre surpassed both our expectations. Our guide book advised to plan at least 1 and a half hours to do the canopy walkway and discovery centre "properly", whilst bloggers suggested spending half a day. We spent two days, 8am to 5pm, and took a guided night walk and yet we yearned for still more time to scan the verdure for thrilling tell-tale movement, sign of strange and intriguing life forms.

We concurred we would one day return to spend at least a week visiting the RDC. We came away full of wonder and awe, giddy with the the intake of breath we'd sucked in, in attempt to stifle our gasps of surprise so not to scare the wildlife away.

The Bristle Head tower, some 28m above the forest floor making it just about possible to peer up into the giant, 40m+ emergent trees, is one of four viewing towers at the centre.

We spent the good part of a day on the 347m canopy walkway and made use of the strategically placed benches to sit and watch and listen to the vibrance thronging around us.

Greater racket-tailed drongo, Dicrurus paradiseus

Prevost's squirrel.

The squirrel worked its way around the canopy stripping off the encrusted coverings of ant highways to plunder and pillage, the drongo followed close behind, picking off the escapees.

Black & Yellow Broadbill, Eurylaimus ochromalus

This 40m Mengaris (or Tualang) tree is growing very close to the canopy walkway and Trongo tower making it possible to observe its resident bee colony. The Mengaris is a preferred nesting tree of the giant honey bee because its bark is slippery smooth, it doesn't branch until some 30m up and can grow to 75m, deterring marauding sun bears.

We later discovered this particular tree is also penthouse to a Wallace's hawk-eagle and a hole in its dead branch is home to a Red giant flying squirrel.

Apis dorsata

Having only encountered one other couple since entering the RDC, imagine our surprise when around 11.30am we met a fine free-range orangutan ambling along the 11m high walkway. We swallowed our squeals of delight and kept our distance whilst he nonchalantly made his way out into the trees. We sat and watched him for around 40min whilst he plucked new shoots and fruit in plain view, bemusedly watching us as we gawped at him feed.





Staghorn fern cascaded in tumbling frond, a superfluity of greenness surging and welling out from the trees.

Kelumpang Sarawak, Sterculia megistophylla

We found the sight of cauliflorous trees such as the Kelumpang Sarawak very peculiar. The flowers and fruit borne directly on their trunks and limbs jarred with our childhood conceptions of fruit and flowers sprouting on stalks and rattled our conventional world order.

We marveled at the alien mud towers built by mystery worms.

Black-backed kingfisher, Ceyx erithaca

We walked along the Kingfisher trail around 1pm and were entranced by the kingfishers dipping for the tiny fish that swam in the stream and ponds. It was on this trail that we spotted a Red bearded bee-eater, which we spotted again on our guided night walk fast asleep high up on a branch overhanging the path.

Sun skink, Mabuya multifasciata

The rustle of skinks plunging through the leaf litter caused we townies to nearly jump out of skins on more than one occasion. We're glad to report that no tails were lost in these near encounters.

Malayan soft shell turtle, Dogania subplana

Green crested lizard, Bronchocela cristatella

A millipede of extraordinary proportions, this beastie was nigh on 10cm; note Suzy's reluctance to put her hand near it for scale.

We couldn't sit still long enough to down our noodle lunch as we were distracted by the sunbirds teeming in the Calliandra and Heliconia planted around the cafe.

Red-sided keelback snake

Wednesday 25 February 2015

Hornbill Lodge, Sepilok B&B

Sepilok B&B being 400m from the RDC, we had nipped back to freshen up, refill our water bottles and top up the camera battery when we were treated to a view of an Asian black hornbill that flew in to feast on a tree fruiting nearby the balcony of our room.

We were reminded that we'd like to plant something to encourage mistle thrushes, waxwings and nuthatches into our garden back home.

Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre

We met this mischievous orangutan outside the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre (SORC) whilst waiting for the doors to open for the 3pm feed.

SORC rescues and rehabilitates orangutans who have been displaced due to loss of habitat through deforestation and those that are illegally captured for pets. In the last 20 years the number of orangutan living in the wild have dropped from 100,000 to around 20-30,000.

The centre is allocated 43sq km of lowland equatorial rainforest on the edge of Kabili Sepilok Forest Reserve. The forest was heavily in fruit when we visited, so we were lucky that these two youngsters chose to show up for the feed.

The work at SORC is on going and is supported by outside donation through Orangutan Appeal UK.