Sabah Trip Report February/March 2000

Danum Valley Field Centre
Sungai Kinabatangan/Sukau
Sepilok
Poring Hot Springs
Gunung Kinabalu
Pulau Manukan

Mount Kinabalu

I've wanted to go to Borneo since the age of about 12 in 1975 when my parents bought the Time-Life series of the World's Wild Places, which included an especially good volume on the island. So this was to be the year and we weren't to be disappointed. Actually, I was heading to Sabah as part of a reccy trip for my new job at Birding Worldwide so I needed to check out some of the top birding spots as well as just get a feel for the place. This short(ish) report may help independent birders with preparations for your trip or with finding some of the birds once you get there. We found Sabah to be a breeze to travel around albeit rather more expensive than many parts of Asia. No problems were encountered with communication or transport. The food was good to excellent throughout and the birding was out of this world. Stuart and I recorded over 230 species in Sabah in 17 days, visiting a total of five sites. This total included some highly sought-after species. Highlights of the trip were many and varied: in particular Giant Pitta, Blue-headed Pitta, Storm's Stork, Bornean Bristlehead, Bornean Stubtail and Whitehead's Trogon were standouts, along with some brilliant mammals such as Binturong and Malaysian Weasel.

After 17 days in Sabah, Stuart returned home for work reasons while I continued on in Peninsular Malaysia for 5 days, where I visited Kerau Game Reserve, Kuala Selangor and FRIM. See this page

References:

Seb Buckton's trip report of Sabah in conjunction with Aidan Kelly's more up-to-date report from 1999 were both very useful. Seb's report is available from the OBC. Aidan's is on Urs Geiser's page. The field guide for the area by MacKinnon and Phillipps is adequate but I wouldn't rave. I also used Robson's new book A Field Guide to the Birds of South-East Asia - despite the fact that it doesn't cover Borneo I found it to be useful for the more widespread SEA species. For mammals we used the excellent Mammals of Borneo by Payne, Francis and Phillipps. It's a shame that the bird guide doesn't measure up to this. As always Nigel Wheatley's Where to Watch Birds in Asia was very useful in the planning stages (more phone numbers in future editions please!). For general help with preparations the Lonely Planet guide was invaluable.

Acknowledgements:

Special thanks to Aidan for sending a copy of his report to me. Again, thanks to Stuart for letting me use his notes so I could make a bit of sense in this report. Also, thanks to David Bishop for useful advice on places to go and things to look for. After 30+ visits to Borneo, I figure he should know by now!

Danum Valley Field Centre (DVFC)
Danum map

Danum Valley is, to my mind, one of the best places to bird in South East Asia. If you go to Sabah and don't visit Danum you really will miss out. According to the blurb the Danum Valley Conservation Area is the largest remaining area of undisturbed dipterocarp forest in Sabah. It is simply a joy to spend time in this magnificent, ancient rainforest. The size of some of the Mengaris (Koompassia excelsa) is exceptionally impressive. We spent 5 nights at the DVFC, which was nowhere near long enough. I would recommend no less than 7 nights here, in fact the longer the better - if you have the time a month would not be wasted.

During our stay we found all trails to be good in different ways. We concentrated on the West Trail (starting a N0 W0), the main trail in the grid system leading directly off the suspension bridge. It should be mentioned that a short time prior to our arrival the area experienced a huge flood that washed away one of the centre's buildings, half of the banks of the Segama River and very nearly the bridge as well. The waterfall trail leading off the nature trail (not shown on Seb's map) was good mainly because we found a fruiting tree in which we saw a number of species seen nowhere else subsequently. Unfortunately, we ran out of time to walk the full length of the Rhino Ridge Trail but did walk a portion of it starting from West 10. This proved to be very fruitful. As our attention was caught by a beautiful male Rufous-tailed Shama I heard a Giant Pitta call not too far away. Leeches were incredibly plentiful on all trails and Danum now ranks second on the leech list after Cat Tien in Vietnam. Take your leech socks.

the Segama River bridge after the floods

Highlights at DVFC were many and included a male and female Giant Pitta at the start of the Rhino Ridge Trail, a stunning male Blue-headed Pitta also on the RR trail, White-fronted Falconet perched on a dead tree on the road leading into the centre, 2 Bat Hawks from the tree platform, 5 species of barbet in one fruiting tree, gorgeous Siberian Blue Robins on most trails, 6 species of hornbill including Helmeted, Rhinoceros, Black, White-crowned and Wrinkled and Chestnut-naped Forktail. Suffice to say, Giant Pitta was the Bird of the Trip! Black-and-crimson Pitta proved to be very frustrating - heard many times but not seen. There were also some brilliant mammals such as Bornean Gibbon, Red Leaf-monkey and Prevost's Squirrel but the prize goes to a fabulous view of a Binturong feeding in the morning in a fruiting tree just next to the centre on the morning of our departure. Another highlight was the truly magnificent view from the tree platform - out of this world.

Sungai Kinabatangan/Sukau (SK)

After returning to Lahad Datu we caught a long distance taxi to Sukau. This cost us about $AUD50 which we figured was well worth it given the distance involved and the time saved. Our driver was a friendly chap who despite being a long distance taxi driver had apparently never been to Sukau before! He reacted with horror when we arrived at the turnoff to Sukau and it became apparent that we would have to travel down a dirt road. We travelled the next 42km at 20kph. On arrival at Sukau we found somebody from the Sukau Rainforest Lodge who took us over to our accommodation on the Sungai (River) Kinabatangan, where we stayed three nights. As with Danum, this area also had recently experienced severe flooding leaving the walking trails around the lodge virtually unwalkable although we tried this once and managed to find Diard's Trogon. The next couple of days were spent cruising the river by motorised canoe, a total of 5 trips altogether. Near Sukau on the Kinabatangan there are a number of lodges and a correspondingly high number of tourists visit the area mainly to see Orang Utan and Proboscis Monkeys, of which we saw many. We were fairly insistent that we wanted to look for birds and were lucky to have the boat to ourselves on two occasions. Our driver, Herman had good eyes and we found him to be quite keen. On our second morning we made it very clear that we wanted to look for Storm's Stork. He knew what we were talking about which was a good sign! This was a particularly successful morning with Wallace's Hawk-Eagle, Jerdon's Baza, Violet Cuckoo, Blue-eared Kingfisher, Grey-headed Fish-Eagle and a total of seven Storm's Storks.

Highlights on the Sungai Kinabatangan were as above as well as loads of Stork-billed Kingfishers, a Grey-and-buff Woodpecker, Bushy-crested, Black, Helmeted, Rhinoceros and Oriental Pied Hornbills, Dusky Broadbill, loads of Proboscis Monkeys and about 8 Orang Utans.

Sepilok (Se)

From the town of Sukau we were ferried by Bas Mini to Sepilok, for a last ditch effort to find Bornean Bristlehead, which we had missed at Danum. On this particular day the weather was truly shocking with nonstop heavy rain. We only had one night at Sepilok so we ventured out in the rain to be told by the very unhelpful staff that the trails were all closed due to the heavy rain (which it turns out really had turned into rapidly flowing streams). So we contented ourselves with walking along the boardwalks in what we presumed would be a vain attempt to locate the bristleheads. To our great surprise we located a flock of 10 to 12 birds on the boardwalk near the entrance foraging in the large dipterocarps. We were able to watch them for about 20 minutes. Definitely a highlight of our trip! To be honest I wouldn't have bothered with this site if we hadn't had a spare day and had already seen bristlehead. I would prefer to see wild Orang Utans any day…

Poring Hot Springs (PHS)

From the main highway near Sepilok, we caught a long distance Kota Kinabalu bus and got off at Ranau from where we took a Bas Mini to Poring. We stayed in one of the cabins in the resort which was good value at about $25 a night (a bit run down but we did have 2 bathrooms, 6 beds, a kitchen and a lounge room!). The hostel here also looked very good. We found the birding around the resort area to be quite good especially near the orchid centre where we had Scarlet-rumped Trogon, Buff-rumped Woodpecker, Crested Jay, Dark-throated Oriole and Long-billed Spiderhunter. We walked to the bat caves later in the afternoon of our arrival but heavy rain forced us back. It rained through until the next morning. Next day we walked the full length of the trail to Langanan Falls, spending quite a bit of time listening for Blue-banded Pitta but didn't even get a peep. We found the forest to be excellent with some fabulous areas particularly on the ridges but on the whole the birding was slow. This is not to say it wasn't good, though.

Highlights on this day were Banded Kingfisher, Maroon Woodpecker (the most common woodpecker), Orange-backed Woodpecker, Red-billed Malkoha at arm's length, Bornean Spiderhunter, Yellow-bellied Bulbul, a Temmink's Babbler attending a nest and a flock of five Eye-browed Thrushes amongst others. After a hard day's birding the fabulous hot springs were also a highlight. It is fascinating to think that this place was established by the Japanese during the war and that it is still in use to this day.

We also walked the canopy walkway on the last morning. From a birding point of view this was not terribly productive (Maroon Woodpecker, Crested Jay and Large Woodshrike only) but it is certainly worth the climb for the impressive view of the forest canopy at eye level.

Gunung Kinabalu (GK)

From Poring we travelled by Bas Mini to Mount Kinabalu and booked into the twin cabins, very retro 70's style with bright orange decor and fluorescent lighting but comfortable nonetheless (a note of caution - when you go out after dark do NOT leave your porch light on or your room will be filled with insects on your return!). The temperature difference was quite noticeable and I was glad I had brought my fleece jacket. We met a number of birders during our too-short stay at Kinabalu and we all complained about the same thing - how slow the birding was! After the initial flush of success on our first afternoon when we birded the Kiau View and Silau Silau Trails, we found it to be excruciatingly hard going! On this said afternoon we easily found Bornean Whistler (the call being immediately recognisable to the Australian birder), as well as Sunda Laughing-thrush, Eyebrowed Jungle-Flycatcher, Yellow-bellied and Yellow-breasted Warbler and a pair of Crimson-headed Partridges. The next day we walked up the road towards the Pump Station where we found Sunda Bush-warbler to be very common and from there down the Mempening Trail towards the accommodation. We found Maroon Woodpecker, Black and Crimson Oriole and Mountain Wren-babbler. In the afternoon we walked the Silau Silau trail a couple more times. By this time we had still not seen any of the Whitehead's so decided against walking up to Carson's Camp in favour of the lower level species. We caught the bus up to the head of the Liwagu Trail in the morning in order to walk downhill. The trail turned out to be very worthwhile with a great view of a single Golden-naped Barbet near the head of the trail, then a magnificent male Whitehead's Trogon as well as White-browed Shrike-babbler, Pygmy Blue Flycatcher, Black Laughing-thrush and White-crowned Forktail amongst others. Other good birds at Kinabalu were Besra near the hostel, Blue-and-white Flycatcher at the canteen, lots of Indigo Flycatchers, Chestnut-capped Laughing-thrushes and Short-tailed Magpies pretty well everywhere, a number of Black-sided Flowerpeckers near the twin cabins, brilliant views of Bornean Stubtail on the Kiau View Trail (the call was also a highlight), ad nauseum. I was disappointed to miss Whitehead's Broadbill as well as a few others I'd hoped to see and in retrospect we left ourselves with way too little time at Kinabalu but it really is a fabulous place.

Tunku Abdul Raman NP, Pulau Manukan (PM)

Pulau Manukan is a short ferry ride from Kota Kinabalu so we left a day free to go looking for Tabon Scrubfowl. We expected this to be easy but, as is often the way, proved to be rather frustrating. We caught the 8 o'clock boat (which left some time after 8.30) and did the return walk along the jogging trail without finding even a vague hint of the bird. One of the locals told us that they are more likely to come down off the ridge later in the afternoon so we walked it again after a bit of snorkelling. On the return leg we heard them scratching around in the leaf litter behind a small ridge. On investigation we had average looks of two birds as they flushed. Walking up the overgrown ridge proved fruitless and we had to be content with a BVD* look. Other birds seen include Pied Triller, Mangrove Whistler and Mangrove Blue Flycatcher.

* better view desired!

Sabah Bird List and Mammal List