A Weekend in Borneo

Making the most of a Free Weekend in Singapore to get a few Life Birds.


Birding trips to Borneo usually last two to three weeks.  They include time in the highlands of Kinabalu National Park and then usually some additional rainforest sites in lowland Sabah with the more intrepid birders going on to Sarawak for some range-restricted rarities.  I have never had the opportunity to take a trip like this but have always wanted to go to Borneo and see some of the amazing birds they have there.

As a child I heard stories of the Bornean rainforest from my father, who had fought there as a British Army Paratrooper in the '60s in a conflict between Indonesia and newly independent Malaysia.  He never spoke about the fighting, but he did have endless tales of flying lizards and flying snakes, orangutans and giant biting insects of various sorts.  For 25 years I've looked at trip descriptions in Birding Tour Company catalogues but somehow never got to Borneo.  So, this year, determined to make more out of free weekends on business trips, I took a chance, jumped on a flight from Singapore to Kota Kinabalu after work on Friday night, met up with Wilbur Goh of Bird Tours Asia, and set off for a day and a half of birding on island I had so long anticipated seeing.

Forest and Mountain at Kinabalu National Park

Saturday, April 7th - Kinabalu National Park

A very early start, and a drive through winding mountain roads in the pre-dawn light, took us to the fabled Kinabalu National Park.  Any illusions of heading into the wilderness were quickly disabused as the sun came up and revealed good roads, pretty scenery, and not a lot of forest remaining in what seemed like a terribly small park, especially given how famous it is.  Still, the birds were supposed to be there so, after a quick roadside breakfast where several other birding groups passed by us on the road, we got down to business.

First identifiable bird of the day was an Eyebrowed Jungle-Flycatcher feeding in the road as it got light enough to see.  A life bird and soon joined by others with Chestnut-hooded Laughingthrush, Bornean Whistler and the engaging little Bornean Stubtail all joining the list.  Then we realized that a star bird was calling just down the road and spent twenty minutes stalking, and finally getting good views of an EVERETT'S THRUSH singing in the understory downhill from us.  Not a bad start.

We spent the rest of the morning working our way up and down the Power Station Road (and some of it's short side-trails) uphill of the Park HQ.  For such a short, and well travelled (and birded) road it was truly very productive with many life birds for me, including Blyth's Hawk-Eagle, Blyth's Shrike-Babbler, Bornean Treepie, Bornean Swiftlet, Bornean Whitling-Thrush and the very spiffy Bornean Green-Magpie.  Undoubted highlight on the way up though was a FRUITHUNTER, a bird I had not expected to see with only one day in habitat.  We heard one calling up on the slope above the road and were able to get close enough for views along a steep side-trail.  Another one of the key target birds joining the list not long after breakfast.

Bornean Green-Magpie

On the way back down the road things got even better.  First we bumped into a super cooperative WHITEHEAD'S BROADBILL sitting close to an apparent nest site.  This was perhaps the bird I most wanted to see in highland Borneo, a giant among the green broadbills and an electric-emerald jewell in the forest.

Whitehead's Broadbill

With the broadbill in the bag, the idea of seeing Whitehead's Trio came to mind and we quickly added a couple of female WHITEHEAD'S TROGONS to the list in the mirk of the forest.

Whitehead's Trogon in the darkness of the forest

Too soon though it was lunch time so the third member of the trio, the Whitehead's Spiderhunter, would have to wait.  Even lunch was good though, traditional Malaysian food with a couple of lifers seen from the restaurant terrace while we were eating.

In the afternoon we tried some new trails, and covered a lot of ground in the forest away from the road.  While we didn't get everything (how could we in one day?) we added a lot more species, and more lifers for me, including the freaky Bare-headed Laughingthrush.

Orange-backed Woodpecker and Bare-headed
Laughingthrush 

Sunday, April 8th - Crocker Range

With most, but not all, of the Kinabalu specialties in the bag, we decided to change plans and bird the Crocker Range on Sunday morning before heading back to the airport for my flight back to Singapore.  Recognizing that we couldn't get all the highland specialties in one weekend, we decided to focus on the one I most wanted, Whitehead's Spiderhunter.  While the plan was good, the target unfortunately eluded us ... we had Spectacled and Bornean Spiderhunters but no Whitehead's Trio for me.  There were a few more life birds though, so certainly not wasted time.  In all I ended up with 35 lifers in a day and a half.  Certainly a good use of a weekend.

Ochraceous Bulbul and Ashy Drongo

Malaysian Rail-Babbler, Bucket List Bird!

A Day at Bukit Panti in search of one of my most wanted life birds.

Sunday, April 16

Let's just say that the alarm went off much too soon.  A 4am alarm when you've got no more than five hours sleep, after flying for almost 24 hours, is never welcome.  This Easter I left New York on Friday (Good Friday) morning, and flew 15 hours to Hong Kong.  Then I changed planes and dropped down to Singapore (another 4 hours), arriving late evening Saturday and getting into bed at the hotel about 11pm local time.  Five hours later, it was time to go birding!

I was staying at the Fullerton Hotel in downtown Singapore, a sprawling imperial structure (I think it was the Post Office in the old colonial city) now converted into a fancy business hotel.  As usual, I arrived looking something like a business man, but early the next morning, dressed as a bird bum, I waved away the doorman's attempts to get me a taxi and waited for my ride - Lim Kim Chuah, my Singapore birding mentor - who was picking me up for a day-trip to Johor Malaysia and a chance at one of my most wanted birds on earth.

The early start was deliberate because we wanted to be at the Gunung Panti Forest Reserve (a couple of hours North of Singapore in the Malaysian State of Johor) before dawn so that we could try for some night birds.  The drive therefore was mostly in the dark, and once we'd dealt with the border crossing bureaucracy, it was pretty much a straight shot to our first stop, an unpaved forest road, where we started birding about an hour before first light.

Target number one was BLYTHE'S FROGMOUTH, a tiny member of a family that I generally think ought to be bigger (I was raised on Potoos, what can I say?).  We stopped in the dark and soon heard one, then another Frogmouth respond to our tape recording and, when a truck passed us, I even saw one in flight in the lights.  Then a larger bird zipped over our heads, then passed again, this time so close I could hear the rush of wind on it's feathers as it passed within inches of my head.  The third time it came by I ducked, it was that close.  Then finally, it came over higher and we saw the silhouette against the slowly lightening sky ... BAT HAWK!  I'm guessing that we had a cloud of insects around us, and that bats were feeding close to us as a result, the hawk, being bigger, was the only part of this dark-covered food chain that we could see.  So calling Blythe's Frogmouths, a dawn chorus of White-handed Gibbons, and a close Bat Hawk ... it's very rare that I have started my day so perfectly.

Chestnut-breasted Malkoha and Pale-Blue Flycatcher

As the light came up, we moved further down the road to a sort of camping area which allowed access to the forest, and we spent the next hour or so building a solid list of forest birds.  Our main target here was a Rufous-backed Dwarf Kingfisher that Kim Chuah had seen building a nest in the earth walls of a small man-made pit on a recent visit.  The kingfisher wasn't there when we arrived so we went off birding and circled back a second time, then a third time before finally connecting with it.  In the meantime, we saw plenty of other birds in the area.  Gray-chested Jungle-Flycatchers and Black-and Yellow-Broadbills were busy building nests, while the tops of trees gave us a good range of larger perched birds including Thick-billed and Little Green Pigeons, Black Hornbill, Red-bearded Bee-eater, and Large Woodshrike.  A Pale Blue-Flycatcher played hard to get for a while, calling but remaining well hidden before finally showing itself, and with a little effort, the canopy also gave up Green Iora, Lesser Green Leafbird, and Chestnut-breasted Malkoha among others.

Black-and-Yellow Broadbill starting to make a nest

Back on the main road, the serious work of trying to find me a Malaysian Rail-Babbler got underway, but while we searched for the star, there were plenty of other birds to keep us busy.  Highlights for me included a couple of Wreathed Hornbills, an impressive White-bellied Woodpecker and a couple of super-cute Buff-rumped Woodpeckers.  There were also White-bellied Epornis (an odd Old World vireo), Yellow-breasted Flowerpeckers and a more or less constant volume of calling birds that included Great Argus Pheasants, three Trogon species, a dozen babblers, and a Malaysian Banded-Pitta.

Yellow-breasted Flowerpecker and Blue-winged Leafbird

Mammals were also in evidence.  In addition to the White-handed Gibbons there were Long-tailed and Pig-tailed Macaques, Banded Leaf-Monkeys, and Slender Squirrels.  We saw Asian Elephant tracks (as close as I ever get to this species in the wild) but never could identify a large animal we heard snorting in the undergrowth early in the morning (I voted for "heard only" Malaysian Tapir but Kim Chuah wasn't buying it ... although he has seen tapirs along this road before).

7-inch long Millipede sp.

We also heard Malaysian Rail-Babblers, although at one point when we bumped into another guide with another UK birder/client, we wondered if perhaps we had been hearing each other's tape recordings.  Twice we bushwhacked into the forest to get closer to calling birds but on both occasions they stopped calling as we got closer.

By the afternoon we had ended up on the Old Road (on the advice of young British birder who was hiking the road and had said he'd seen the bird there in the morning).  Plenty of birds there including great views of Whiskered Treeswift and Malaysian Hawk-Cuckoo, but the Rail-babblers were not cooperating and, just after the other birder/guide left we reluctantly started to work our way back toward the park entrance.

Then Kim Chuah heard a close bird, and in no time we were out of the car and creeping stealthily towards what sounded like a pair of calling Malaysian Rail-Babblers.  We got closer and played a little tape, and the birds continued to respond.  Finally they seemed very close so we crouched down, stayed very still, and listened.  The birds seemed to be incredibly close, just out of view perhaps thirty feet in front of us behind a small mound.  Then, out of nowhere, we heard  a "chuck" sound, and turning around slowly, saw two Rail-Babblers not thirty feet away from us, but behind us!  We'd been completely fooled by the eerie sounding ventriloquists.

What followed wasn't pretty.  The birds started to walk slowly away from us back into denser cover, while I fumbled with my camera, tried to compensate for the low light in the forest, and didn't get a single in-focus shot.  It was still a magical moment though, and a memory I'll long treasure.  I have always wanted to see this species (as do many, many birders) so finally meeting them, up close and personal, was a true privilege.

My best effort at a Rail-Babbler and a much better shot by Lim Kim Chuah
(used with permission)

Once the birds left, we made our way back to the road, and called it a day .... how could it get any better than that?  We stopped for lunch at the town of Kota Tinggi just as the heavens opened and torrential rain pretty much killed the possibility of more birding that day in any case.  The food was great, although my enthusiasm was slightly dented with the discovery of several very plump leeches who were enjoying their own lunch inside my shirt, and a couple more inside my leech socks!  Once they were removed of course the bite marks bled like crazy for hours (and itched for a week).  For  a while I was a little concerned that the border agents at the Malaysia-Singapore border might have an issue with my blood-soaked shirt, but they seem to take such things in stride.  So back safely in Singapore at the end of the day I had great memories to savor.  A truly wonderful day in the forest.

Whiskered Treeswift