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
No comments:
Post a Comment