Birding in Borneo
Crocker Range
February, 2012
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We left Kota Kinabalu early,
and I, for one, didn't have a very good idea of where we were headed.
Ram had told us our itinerary,
but it had just said "around Kota Kinabalu" for this,
our first full day of birding in Borneo.
We headed up into the mist,
slow going on a winding two-lane mountain road where we often had to slow down for heavy truck traffic.
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| Crocker Range |
Crocker Range |
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| Ram and C.K. in Van |
Slow Traffic |
We would pass through small villages,
and the same dog seemed to be zipping up the highway ahead of us,
showing up alongside one of the houses in every town we came to.
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| Crocker Range |
Crocker Range |
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| Crocker Range |
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| Spider |
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| Flower Xxx Blue |
Flower Xxx |
Flower Xxx White |
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| Ram |
We worked our way up the road and over some pass at the top,
pulling off periodically and looking for birds.
I don't know what C.K. was looking for,
but he has keen eyes, knew what he was looking for,
and was familiar with the territory.
C.K. got pretty excited at one of them,
and we had quite a collection of cool birds flying around all at once.
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| Longtailed Broadbill |
Bornean Leaf Bird |
Bird Grey Chinned Minivet |
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| Chestnut Hooded Laughing Thrush |
Everetts White Eye |
Xxx Blue White Flycatcher |
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| Xxx Mugimaki Flycatcher |
Mugimaki Flycatcher F |
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| Common Iora |
Common Iora |
We worked our way down to the Rafflesia Forest Reserve.
Unfortunately, there were no Rafflesia flowers in bloom
that anyone knew about.
They have the largest "single" flower in the world,
with a blossom up to 1m in diameter!
An endoparasite, they live inside a host vine except for their cabbage-sized bud.
Apparently they smell like rotting flesh;
one of the local names for them translates to "corpse flower".
On the way back we stopped for lunch at a place with a bunch of swiftlets nesting under the eaves.
Some Swiftlets' nests are prized for birds' nest soup;
there was a collection of Glossy, Mossy-Nest, and Edible-Nest Swiftlets here.
We didn't order any edible nest soup, and I don't think any was on the menu.
Their nests are made of vegetable matter and copious amounts of saliva;
apparently it's the saliva which makes it such a delicacy.
Not exactly the most appetizing thing in the world...
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| Glossy, Mossy-Nest, and/or Edible-Nest Swiftlets |
Then we headed back down to Kota Kinabalu,
where we checked out the beach for shorebirds
and some parks and other places for more birds.
