Mammals and rare birds in Danum

 April 29

Our first full day in Danum started at 5:30am for breakfast and finished at 9pm after dinner. The morning consisted of a 6+ km hike, some of it on steep terrain, in search of endemic bird species. We were lucky to see some spectacular birds today. Look up “Great Argus” to see the unbelievable tail feathers on the male. Watching one slip through the underbrush was amazing but not photograph-able. On the other hand, a female Helmeted Hornbill was quite cooperative. Her head, throat and two-tiered tail are quite distinctive. 

We were also very lucky with mammals today. We saw a  giant squirrel (body and tail each a foot long), a “normal size” Prevost’s squirrel, and a Pygmy squirrel (body length 2” and tail length 3”). The Pygmy squirrel looked like a little lizard crawling along a branch high in the canopy. 

As we walked back along the access road, a young female orangutan appeared! She climbed up vines on a roadside tree quite close to us and then moved across a branch to enter trees on the other side of the road. It was wonderful to see an orangutan truly “in the wild”. Our local park guide told us this young female has been named “Lexie” by the research staff and is 8-9 years old.

And then, as we were discussing our luck, two Colugos glided over our heads and one landed on a roadside tree. These nocturnal creatures are closely related to primates (and are sometime called “flying lemurs”) but are in a genus of their own that also shares connections to rodents. In flight they looked like a square umbrella. On the tree they resembled a flying squirrel. It was incredibly rare to see one at all, let alone two in the daytime. 

And that was just the morning!  The afternoon turned out to be very hot and even the birds were hiding in the shade. We did fill in a couple of common bird species we’d not seen. We also watched a Black-and-yellow Broadbill (a bird we’ve seen several times ) struggling with a cicada a little too big for his mouth. 

After sunset and before dinner, we again attempted a night drive. While we had to turn around because of elephants, we were able to see several interesting nocturnal species (giant flying squirrel, palm civet, Malaysian blue tarantula) and a few sleeping birds. Back at the lodge, we saw some mouse-deer (not actually deer but in their own genus). All in all, we saw 11 mammals today and about 50 bird species. 

Pictured:  female Helmeted Hornbill, Lexie the Orangutan, Black-and-yellow Broadbill with dinner (2 views), Colugo, giant 

squirrel, Red Giant Flying-squirrel, Greater Mouse-deer