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Birds of the Sepilok Forest – a Photographic Guide

BBooks — Tue, 25 May 2010 09:10:07 +0000

This is a neat little book of 110 pages has 200 colour photographs of birds seen at the Rainforest Discovery Centre and surroundings at Sepilok, near Sandakan on the E. Coast of Sabah, East Malaysia on the island of Borneo. 300 bird species have now been recorded, with 15 endemics, including the icon of¬† Borneo birds, the Borneo Bristlehead (see pic), which is easier to see here than elsewhere. Sepilok is only 20 minutes from Sandakan airport. It has a third generation canopy walkway, a heroic structure in steel, as steady as a rock, surrounded by scattered tall forest trees and a regenerating lower storey. Hornbills are common and easily seen.

The Rainforest Discovery Centre is proving to be one of the best birding sites in Borneo, due to its accessibility and its nearness to the¬† primary forest of¬† the 6,100 ha Sepilok Forest Reserve. The Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre is just down the road.

The¬† photos in this book are of a high quality and the text informative, although some further work is needed on it. The Forestry Department in general and Dr Robert Ong (text) and Ced Prudente (photos) can be congratulated on a really handy pocket guide that does the business. BBooks looks forward to selling updated versions of this book for many years to come.

The Bird Festival in Retrospect

BBooks — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 19:00:56 +0000

Good view of a Borneo Bristlehead spotted in the forest

Staff members going home

BBooks has been back in KK from Sandakan for two days now, and looks back on the occasion with fond memories. It was great to have our stall within 20m of the forest, it must be a record. Even better, to get back from the Canopy Building to the main Rainforest Discovery Centre we had to walk through a rather nice little bit of forest, so we were surrounded. It was a revelation to see how many Malaysian birders have got going in the last 5 years, and the number of expert bird tour guides. The Forest Department’s organization and facilities were excellent, with a very good spirit among the staff (see photo). There were a few glitches but everything was dealt with. There is plenty for the general public to see and do. The needs of birders are of course very different and some skilful dovetailing will be needed to prevent these two interest groups from tripping over each other. But birders like to be on the canopy walkway at dawn, which is hardly favourite with the general public. The Festival ended quietly as the birders took flight to far away. There was a little ceremony for the staff, the highlight of which was a presentation by Mr Kai, Vice President of Cymao Plywood (a major Sandakan company and a generous sponsor of the Festival). With a flourish he unveiled…..a specially made flying squirrel roosting box! This looked remarkably like a litter bin camouflaged as a tree trunk, with a big hole in the side, but if its 20m up a tree it should find the right niche. Rumoured to contain all creature comforts – soft furnishings, TV, water cooler, flight simulator, the collected works of Bram Stoker…..flying squirrels have certainly been awarded Most Favoured Animal status. So its all over. We now look forward to next year and the chance to unearth….more Tall Tales from the Rainforest.

Tales from the Bird Festival – Day 5

BBooks — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:36:21 +0000

Snake's eye view of the canopy walkway

The Festival was very quiet today. So the birdlife is sulking because there was nothing much to disrupt. However out in the forest things were stirring….snakes. A Japanese birder rushed to our bookstall early on to say he had met a very large snake on the canopy walkway. It was, he said, as thick as a man’s arm and bright green.

BBooks thinks that in his excitement he exaggerated a tiny bit about its girth and that what he saw was a Wagler’s Pit Viper, which is short but quite chunky – and often bright green. Not really quite what you want blocking your path on the walkway. BBooks was frightened by a snake in a big field of long grass in Connecticut when he was 5, and has never been quite the same since. One of his nightmares is to be on a canopy walkway (30m up) at night and discovering that a pit viper is blocking his path in front and then he turns round and another one is behind. Luckily our Japanese friend had only one to deal with and it was daytime. Pit Vipers barely move during the day and even at night they don’t rush about. However when night falls they will strike like lightning at anything challenging or edible within range.

The latest canopy technology.

The Rainforest Discovery Centre’s walkway is third generation and takes this kind of superstructure to a new level of sophistication. Earlier ones were suspended between trees 50m or so apart and not good to be on if an anchor tree collapsed or a branch fell down This one runs between towers and is supported by massive steelwork.

It’s a strange feeling being on a wide footpath 30m up, at the same level as the crowns of the smaller trees (the bigger ones still tower miles above you). You feel anything could happen up there, in an alien world. But not pit vipers, please.

Tales from the Bird Festival – Day 4

BBooks — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 23:59:59 +0000

We seem to have been here half a century. Today yet more stock arrived from KK on the Tung Mah Express to satisfy the insatiable demand for the two field guides. It’s gradually emerging that one (Myers) is the choice of the dedicated birder, while the other (Phillipps) is scoring with the less committed. It has lots of little yellow boxes filled with fascinating titbits of info.

Festivalites tracking the Bristleheads

The birdlife continues to sabotage the programme. Two days ago it was Black Hornbills, today the Borneo Bristlehead. Halfway through one of the talks on the verandah overlooking the forest the audience (and the speaker!) simply got up and walked out, the better to see a couple of BB’s hopping about overhead.

BBooks thought it had better follow, or appear conspicuous. Bristleheads look as though they were put together by a sketching party of schoolkids. The head is bright red and yellow (see the poster below – Oct 6th) with a big shiny black wart. The feathers on the crown often stick up like a punk hair do. With bristles. The feet look large and clumsy, and what happened to the tail? It whistles, burps and burbles. Everything is out of proportion, the colours are positively painful and it just seems to potter about, not chasing things and being ecological.
Never mind, this has become the icon of Bornean birdwatchers. People travel from all over the world to see it. It occurs nowhere else and until recently was very seldom seen. But at the Rainforest Discovery Centre it has been appearing every day. Just shows what can happen when birders get together. What will be the disruptive force tomorrow? A Storm’s Stork hitching a ride on one of the pedalos on the lake no doubt. Yr. correspondent received a near terminal crick in the neck watching the Bristleheads today, but hopes to be sufficiently recovered on the morrow to report on….further Tall Tales from the Rainforest

Tales from the Bird Festival – Day 2

BBooks — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 20:38:37 +0000

The second day of the Festival opened hot and muggy. An overnight storm failed utterly to clear the air. It’s been like something out of Conrad all day. Lots of local families, being Sunday and free entry to the Rainforest Discovery Centre. This is half an hour outside Sandakan on the E. Coast of Sabah, with the buildings right up close to the forest. In fact so close that this evening we were able to watch a flying squirrel poke its head out of its sleeping hole in a dead tree, about 20m up, have a good look round and then glide slowly and silently to a nearby tree. This was very tall and we watched it hunch its way all the way to the top looking like Dracula in a mackintosh, but a beautiful russet brown rather than black (we’re sure Dracula wore black). With the poise of a seasoned star it then paused and looked down at us mere mortals, before launching itself off on a celestial descent into the deep forest.
At 5pm came the results of the Bird Race (a competition to see which team of birders can tot up the most species in 24h)(and to answer the obvious question there is an umpire with each team to confirm accuracy). The Chairman of the Festival was announcing the winners when he realized he had lost the audience completely, as a trio of Black Hormbills did a flypast. Twice he started again, only to be totally upstaged each time by more Hornbills. After some deliberation they agreed to settle in a nearby tall tree and let the proceedings continue, watching with interest

Tales from the Bird Festival – Day 1

BBooks — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 11:43:07 +0000

Borneo Books set up shop on the edge of the rainforest for the Borneo Bird Festival today. Our stall looks out on forest with some tall trees, one 50m tall. Flying squirrels are frequent in the evenings – the look like flying tea trays as they glide from way, way up. They can do about 300m. The festival opened with speeches from VIP’s followed by the launching of the two new field guides to the birds of Borneo. The authors, Quentin Phillipps and Susan Myers, both flew in from overseas for the occasion. It was so hot, humid and still that yr correspondent nearly expired.

The photo on the right shows Susan Myers being congratulated by Datuk Masidi Manjun, Minister of Tourism on the publication and launch of her book

Sandakan; Sabah Colour Guide

System — Wed, 31 Oct 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Sandakan is one of those places whose names have a magical ring, promising all kinds of exotic surprises. The commercial centre of the large northeast district bearing the same name, Sandakan not only has an intriguing past but is the gateway to the rich wildlife of Sabah. Within less than a couple of hours of the town lies an incredible variety, both on land and in the ocean, including a forest reserve where orangutan are helped to re-adjust to life in the wild; islands where endangered marine turtles come ashore to lay their eggs; limestone caves where a rare delicacy – birds nests – have been gathered for centuries; an island paradise in the Sulu Sea offering exciting scuba diving and Malaysia’s largest freshwater swamp forest or wetlands, along the Kinabatangan river which is teeming with wildlife. This guide focusses on Sandakan town and the nearby Sepilok area, famed for its Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre as well as Labuk Bay, where it is possible to view Borneo’s unique Proboscis monkey in a swamp setting. It also includes the resort island of Lankayan, north of Sandakan and part of the Sugud Islands Marine Conservation Area. (Separate guides in this series cover the Turtle Islands and the Kinabatangan, including Gomantong Caves.)[BBooks comment: the Turtle Islands guide is not out yet]

Sepilok Bulletin Vol 1,2,3,4 & 5 ( each)

System — Wed, 31 Oct 2001 00:00:00 +0000