Kota Kinabalu

 April 26 

We arrived in Kota Kinabalu last night. Kota Kinabalu (originally Jesseltown) was initially under the Brunei empire and then a trading center established by a British consortium. The city was largely destroyed by the Japanese in WWII and taken over by the British Government afterwards, as the capital of the newly formed “North Borneo”. In 1963 Malaysia was formed and North Borneo was renamed as Sabah. The city was renamed to Kota (city) Kinabalu (for a local mountain) in 1967. 

The city of Kota Kinabalu is built on a thin strip of flat land between the South China Sea and the Crocker mountain range. Much of the downtown is built on reclaimed land created to widen that strip. On the steep foothills behind the city, and a shallow valley beyond, are remnants of the original forest and wetlands that covered this area before the arrival of concrete. 

Since today was an unscheduled day, we got to sleep in and had a late breakfast at 7:30. Afterwards we went to the Kota Kinabalu Wetlands, a protected section of tidal mangroves with boardwalks and an education center, and spent several hours birding. The tide was out, so the mangrove roots were exposed above the mudflats. We saw many of the same mangrove-loving species as yesterday in Selangor. We were treated to two new sunbird species (these seemed mostly to be hunting spiders on their webs), as well as crabs, skinks and other mud loving creatures.

We met the other two guests for this trip at 6:30 pm and headed out to dinner. We ate at a famous Chinese seafood restaurant. They had tanks to display the live spiny lobsters, prawns, shell fish, etc.  Although we did not, many customers selected their specific dinner source. Our trip leaders are the same as for the Peninsular Malaysia trip.

Pictured: Mangrove Skink, Mud Crab, Ornate Sunbird, Crimson Sunbird, mudskipper, a view of the mangroves