Kinabatangan River Day 1 – Pig Tailed Macaques

Kinabatangan River, Sabah, 9 May 2019.

Collared kingfisher.

These daylight images – this one and the next nine, were all taken from a boat on the Kinabatangan River, all with a very long telephoto lens (420mm).

Long tailed Macaque.

Macaques are amongst the most widespread of monkeys and are endemic to Asia. North Africa and Gibraltar. Long tailed Macaques are endemic to South East Asia. They live in a variety of environments and can be closely associated with human settlements. They can be an invasive species in some places, including Hong Kong and West Papua. They are onmivores and considered of least concern for their conservation status.

Long tailed Macaque.

Southern Pig-tailed Macaques.

Southern Pig-tailed Macaques are endemic to Borneo, Sumatra and mainland Malaysia. They live in rainforest and are also omniverous. They are classified as vulnerable.

Pig-tailed Macaques.

Male Proboscis Monkey.

Proboscis monkeys are large monkeys endemic to Borneo. The large nose of the males may assist in giving them a more resonant call. They are aboreal (tree-dwelling), live close to water and are good swimmers. They mostly eat fruit and leaves and will jump from tree to tree. They are classified as endangered, due to habitat loss.

Macaque.

A Proboscis Monkey family tree.

Female Proboscis monkey.

Monitor lizard sleeping on the branch of a tree.

After dinner we went for a walk and I took some more images by torchlight.

Slow Loris.

This is one was actually moving around quite quickly, despite the name. It was a challenging photographic situation, dimly lit by torchlight. requiring an exposure of 25,600 ISO and still three stops under.

This is a Phillipine Slow Loris, one of four species of what was previously the Borneo Slow Loris. Ironically. it is endemic to Northern Borneo and not the Phillipines. It is nocturnal and sparsely populated. It is thought to be more nocturnal than other slow loris sub-species but little is known about it. Not something you are guaranteed to see in a Borneo rainforest at all.

Unique for primates, slow lorises have a poisonous bite. They have a poisonous gland near their armpits which they lick and the secretion becomes mixed with saliva. They are more closely related to lemurs than monkeys. They are classified as vulnerable or endangered and some subspecies have yet to be classified. As well as habitat loss, they are threatened by a pet trade. They look very cute with their large nocturnal eyes but the trade is very cruel. They usually have their teeth cut or pulled due to the poisonous bit and often die from that. Then they are nocturnal and have a specialised diet so do not do well in captivity.

Stick insect.

Asian Palm Civet.

Civets are part of the feliformia suborder of carnivora that includes cats, hyenas, mongooses and civets. Civets are found in South East Asia, India and China. Asian Palm Civets are nocturnal omnivores, mainly eating berries and fruit and leading solitary lifestyles. There is a strange demand for coffee made from beans that have been eaten and digested by civets. Traditionally, this was from harvesting the faeces of wild civets but it has led to captive civets in battery cages being fed coffee beans to produce the coffee. There is also an unfortunately large (and illegal) usage of civets in Indonesia as pets.

Katydid.

Unidentified butterfly.

Lantern bug (Pyrops whiteheadi).

They are called lantern bugs because it was believed erroneously in the eighteenth century that their extended hollow “snout” glowed in the dark.

Sepilok Day 2 – Sun Bears and Orang Utans

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Sepilok, Sabah, 9 May 2019.

Unidentified butterfly.

In the morning we visited the Borneo Sun Bear Conservation Centre. Each one has a unique chest patch.

The sun bear is the world’s smallest bear, averaging one metre in length and is endemic to Borneo.

They are primarily nocturnal, feeding on insects, though they also have a taste for honey.

Obviously here, they are not in the wild and are feeding on carrots.

They are listed as vulnerable and their population is declining due to habitat loss.

Note the formidable claws, presumably for climbing trees.

Unidentified bees and hive, on the trunk of a tree.

Unidentified caterpillar.

In the afternoon we visited the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre.

Feet and hands are relatively interchangeable.

There are rescued orangutans here, including infants without parents. Food and care is provided and the centre is open to adjacent rainforest including wild orangutans.

Orangutans, including the Borneo species, are critically endangered due to habitat loss. Population in Borneo has declined by about 15% since the middle 20th century and they may become extinct in the wild within ten to twenty years without effective conservation measures.

This and the preceding three images were taken through glass in an observation building.

We are now out of the building and in the rainforest.

There are also some feeding sites out in the open.

You have to stay back from the orangutans though. While they are not usually aggressive, they are eight times stronger than a human.

Orangutans make a nest in a tree each night. Here some were doing just that.

You can only take one camera and lens in the see the orangutans and no bags of any kind. Otherwise, an orangutan might take a fancy to your camera bag (and you’d be well advised not to argue). I had a 300mm lens (for a full frame body) and a 1.4x teleconverter. This was too long to be convenient inside the building but came in handy for these last images.

There was also a plantain squirrel checking out the culinary options on display.

Black fur but pinkish underneath.

Much later we went for a night walk. This is an Island Palm Civet by torchlight.

Rufous-backed kingfisher.

Strange unidentified insect.

Slow Loris (such as you can see – pushing the boundaries to get that much).

Black and Crimson Pitta, sleeping in a tree.

A Western Tarsier.

We were very fortunate to encounter a Tarsier, which are rare, nocturnal and hard to find. It is an ancient primate, little changed for 45 million years. (Primates include monkeys, lemurs and apes, which in turn include us). There are several species and all are classified as vulnerable to extinction. It is tiny, 70-150cm in length and 1 kilogram in weight and each of its giant eyes are as large as its brain. It is the only carnivorous primate, eating mainly insects but also birds, lizards and bats. It can take great leaps from one tree to the next, to a distance of around thirty times its body length. It can also rotate its head 180 degrees.

Sepilok Day 1 – Giant Flying Squirrels

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Sepilok, Sabah, 8 May 2019.

Palm oil plantations surrounding Sepilok.

Most people probably think of Borneo as a wild land covered in rainforest and populated with exotic tribes and remarkable wildlife. And so it was as recently as fifty years ago, when ninety percent of it was covered in rainforest, the vast majority of that lowland rainforest.

Since then, all of Borneo has been intensively logged and now only 6% is intact virgin lowland rainforest. Sarawak Governor over several decades Taib Mahmud accreted many hundreds of millions of dollars in kickbacks from logging companies and the exploitation of the rainforest was even more intensive in Indonesian Kalimantan. Much has been lost in Sabah but a higher proportion remains there. Certainly in Sarawak and Kalimantan, logging was accompanied by ruthless exploitation of native peoples who depended on the forest for their livelihood and whose land it really was. And this continues today.

Removal of the prime timber trees carried a large ecological cost but much of the wildlife could still survive in secondary forest.. The next stage was the oil palm plantations, which in many places seem to stretch to the horizon. Some species, such as hornbills, macaques and bearded pigs, can exploit these plantations whereas for others such as the near-extinct Bornean rhinos, they are as deserts.

It’s true that most countries in the West have devastated their ecology over a longer period and there are significant preserved areas in Sabah and Sarawak (not so much Kalimantan) but there are insufficient contiguous areas of protected rainforest to allow many species to flourish or even survive. It is particularly sad how rapid the destruction has been and how ruthless it has often been. Brunei has the most intact rainforest because their oil revenues mean they don’t bother with logging, but Brunei is small. Many native populations have also been displaced from their traditional lands and lifestyles without effective compensation, often with little alternative lifestyle choices and commonly without their permission (I refer mainly to Sarawak and Kalimantan, Sabah may be similar but I don’t know).

While there is a place for palm oil plantations to generate income in poor countries, the systematic destruction of the rainforest has been and remains a crime. Perhaps tourism will assist in funding rainforest preservation though that can be a double-edged sword as well.

Brown shrike.

We had arrived mid-afternoon and later headed off along a road near the lodge before dinner looking for birdlife, I saw a tree in flower off a sideroad so I headed for that (image above).

Scarlet-backed flowerpecker (and next two images).

This bird was in a nearby tree.

Baya Weaver.

Further down the road we found these three Baya Weaver nests, with the odd bird flying in and out.

Giant red flying squirrel (and next three images).

After dinner, we headed for the Rainforest Discovery Centre and the Canopy Walkway in the gathering gloom. We were hoping to see a giant flying squirrel in flight and were very luck to see multiple flights.

Here’s one about to launch.

Taking the images with a very long lens in the near dark was a challenging task. This is at 22,000 ISO for example.

Rufous-backed kingfisher.

Following on from the Canopy Walkway, we went for a walk in the rainforest after dark and these images are by torchlight.

White-lipped frog.

Millipede.

Juvenile keeled pit viper.

Poring Hot Springs and Sabah Tea Plantation

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Poring Hot Springs and Sabah Tea Plantation, Sabah, 6-7 May 2019.

Markets on the way between Mt Kinabalu Lodge and Poring Hot Springs. Mt Kinabalu in the background.

Heliconia Rostrata (native to Central and South America), Poring Springs.

We are now at Poring Hot Springs though we didn’t try the hot springs. I don’t think they would have been as compelling as an onsen in Japan in winter. What we did ckeck out was the butterfly farm there.

Rajah Brooke’s Birdwing Butterfly.

Common Tree Nymphs.

Unidentified butterfly.

Roadside shop outside the hot springs.

Rafflesia in flower.

This is Rafflesia Arnoldii in flower, the largest rafflesia and also the world’s largest flower. From memory I think this one was 78cm in diameter (31 inches). They can reach over 100cm and weigh 10 kilograms (22lb). This flowering happens very infrequently. It takes nine months for a bud to get to florescence, and then the flower lasts only two or three days. The flower has five petals, so there is actually two of them here. Rafflesiae are also know as corpse flowers on account of their smell. Swedish entomologist Eric Georg Mjöberg described the smell in 1928 as “a penetrating odour more repulsive than any buffalo carcass in an advanced stage of decomposition”. I cannot personally attest to that as I have very little sense of smell.

Sunset at Sabah tea Plantation (and following four images).

These images are taken from just outside the cottages we were staying in for the night at Sabah Tea Plantation..

I took a full range of lenses with me, expecting to be taking landscape shots as well as wildlife. This proved to not be the case. I didn’t find much cause for wide angel lenses in the rainforest, so apart from some street photography in Kote Kinabalu with me Fuji X100s, pretty well all my images were macro telephoto or long telephoto. Even these images, which are landscapes, were long telephoto.

Malaysian Forest Scorpion.

On the road near the restaurant after dinner, we encountered this large scorpion which demonstrated its ability to fluoresce under ultraviolet light.

Siti photographing Teetash, Mt Kinabalu in the background.

Rhinocerous beetle (Chalcosoma moellenkampi) on clothing.

This is a male because only the males have horns. They use them for fighting during the mating season and digging. They are also known for being incredibly strong for their size.

Mount Kinabalu

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Mount Kinabalu, Sabah, 4th to 6th May 2019.

Clouded leopard.

On the morning of the 4th, we were still in Kota Kinabalu and we visited the KK Museum before leaving for Mount Kinabalu, just a few hours drive. I photographed the clouded leopard on display because it was not very likely we would actually see one.

Chinese cemetery, KK.

On our way, I took this photograph of a Chinese cemetery from the moving bus. I had earlier missed photographing another, larger one as we passed it due to not being sufficiently alert. I was told they are on the tops of hills and I think facing North. The next two images are also taken from the moving bus.

Village in forest.

Forest in mist and cloud.

Unidentified moth.

I think we were still en route, though in the hills, and this was somewhere we stopped, probably for lunch.

Leaf litter.

This is the first image from Mount Kinabalu, which is also the location of all following images in this post.

Unidentified orchid.

In the late afternoon, we went for a walk along a road near where we were staying, albeit in the rainforest.

Roadside ferns on dead log.

This is a focus-stacked image. In other words, it combines many exposures at different pints of focus to get greater depth of focus than would otherwise be possible. Admittedly, I was a bit careless with the exposure and there is more noise than there should be (though not visible at small image size).

Unidentified mushrooms.

Another focus-stacked image, taken using a camera that largely automates the process of taking the exposures.

Rainforest foliage.

(Two images combined for depth of focus for this one).

Female Papilio memnon, Common name: Mormon.

We are now back at the Lodge, probably in or near the dining area.

Kuhl’s Creek Frog, maybe

Early next morning, we are on another walk before dawn. These exposures are by torchlight.

Unidentified frog.

In some cases there was very little light. This was 180mm, 1/400sec, f6.3 @25,600 ISO and is a 70% crop.

Spider’s web.

Funghi on log.

Mt Kinabalu.

(Now later in the morning). Mount Kinabalu lies within a World Heritage Site, Kinabalu Park. It is the highest mountain in Sabah at 4,095 metres.

Juvenile female leaf insect (Phylliidae).

Remarkable camouflage from this leaf insect. A 47 million year fossil indicates they have changed little over time.

Orchid.

In the afternoon we visited the local Botanical Gardens and I took some focus-stacked images of orchids.

Orchid.

“A recent botanical survey of the mountain estimated a staggering 5,000 to 6,000 plant species (excluding mosses and liverworts but including ferns), which is more than all of Europe and North America (excluding tropical regions of Mexico) combined.”.

Longicorn beetle: Family Cerambycidae, possibly Dihammus species.

In the evening we went for another night walk.

Unidentified Gecko.

Stick Insect – Phasmid.

Unidentified caterpillar.

Kinabalu Torrent Frog?

Unidentified Bird.

These last two images are near the Lodge, on the morning of the 6th.

Indigo Flycatcher.

Egrets – I’ve had a few…

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Kota Kinabalu Wetland Ramsar Site. Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, 2 May 2019.

In the late afternoon, we visited the Kota Kinabalu Wetland Ramsar Site, within the city. I had requested this and I thought we might see a different kind of wildlife from in the rainforests and it would be a good test of my equipment and technique.

Photographic technobabble alert:

I’ve mainly been shooting Fuji in the last couple of years but I decided to take Nikon this time. I decided to get a D850 to go with my 300 f2.8 and I discovered my 1.4x teleconverter had died but managed to get it replaced just before I left thanks to prompt action by Nikon Australia. Buying a Fuji 200mm f2 and two X-T3s as an alternative was too expensive at the time, and the Nikon option offered better autofocus and greater room to crop if necessary. I could have taken my Fuji 100-400m but that is weaker at the long end and loses about a stop in light sensitivity, critical in the often dark rainforest.

It was low tide when we reached the wetlands, connected to the sea by a tidal estuary.

Crab on the mudflats.

The first image is an illustration of the hazards of low light shooting. It is at 1/200sec, f4 @ 18,000 ISO, and is an 84% crop! So it was dark and the crab was some distance away. The exposure was hand held (though leaning on the hand rail) because there was no point getting out the tripod on a raised wooden walkway with people on it. It’s not suitable for printing at any size but the wonder is that there is anything there to see at all.

Mud crab with eyes on stalks. It must hide beneath the water and mud with only eyes above, waiting for prey.

This one’s not so extreme at 1/200sec, f4 @ 2,800 ISO, but it is also an 84% crop .

Dragonfly on a dead tree, some distance away.

This one is a more respectable exposure, being 1/100sec f4.5 @280 ISO and not cropped much at all.

Eastern Great Egret.

I discovered that the calibration for my 300mm lens plus 1.4 teleconverter was significantly out so I did a makeshift calibration focusing on the details of a patch of mud. Having done that, this image is now sharp. It is on a tripod from inside a large hide. It would have been better without the tree or pole but there were too many people for me to be able to move around.

There were I think four or five egrets there.

After a while they all flew off.

Walking back now, it is a mangrove zone.

… with lots of visible roots.

(This was taken with a Fuji X100s, so a wide angle. All other images were with Nikon D850 + 300mm f2.8 + 1.4xTC, so a long telephoto).

… and finally, a flower near the Visitors’ Centre..

KK Fishing Boats (Kota Kinabalu)

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Kota Kinabalu, South China Sea, 2 May 2019.

After the markets we had some free time and many of the others may have wandered back to the hotel but I wanted to wander along the wharves to check out the fishing boats. I had seen some great looking fishing boats coming and going from the port the previous evening and the light was great then, but I only had my Fuji X100s, which has a wide angle lens, and I needed a telephoto. So I thought I would see what I would find on this day.