Saturday, April 18
We traveled without incident from New York to Singapore and then on to Kuala Lumpur. The flight to Singapore took slightly over 18 hours. We were surprised that the intended flight path went over Greenland, past Svalbard, and south through China past Chengdu. We were surprised again when the actual flight path diverted south over Eastern Europe and then hugged the southern edge of the Himalayas (past Islamabad and Kabul) then over Kolkata and south over Thailand.
The airports in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur were beautifully decorated inside including green spaces and water features— quite different from most US airports!
On Friday night we met the other four members of our birding tour (a couple from England and two gentlemen from different parts of Australia) and one of our trip leaders, a birding professional originally from Belgium. We ate at a “hot pot” restaurant. It was fun to watch each of the foods be cooked in boiling pots (one mild and one spicy) right on our table.
Saturday morning we left before dawn to drive for an hour north of KL to a birding location up in the mountains. Dawn comes late in this part of Malaysia (about 7am) because all of Malaysia is in a single time zone. When we go to Borneo, sunrise will be at 5:15, and were we to go to Sulawesi it would be even earlier.
This morning’s birding trails are on property controlled by a resort whose buildings emulate a medieval French village. Watching macaque monkeys play in front of half-timbered houses was bizarre. The morning birding was a mix of standing behind a blind and walking slowly along roads to spot birds: 28 new species before lunchtime. It was a relief to start the trip at higher elevation where the temperature and humidity weren’t too severe.
Many of the birds we saw today were striking, not only for their colors but for their names. We’ve never seen leafbirds, tailorbirds, spider hunters, or flowerpeckers before.
After lunch we drove Northeast for 3.5 hours to our lodge in the Taman Negara National park. Actually Taman Negara means “national park” in Malay. The park protects an ancient rainforest. We will be in the eastern, lower elevation part of the park.
Pictured: “Colmar Tropicale”, short-tailed gymnoes (a small tree shrew), Orange-bellied flowerpecker, flying rhinoceros hornbills, female rufous-collared kingfisher
