Into the mountains

May 3

We did one more bird walk in Sepilok this morning, first near a pond behind our hotel and later on the same trails as yesterday. We saw a number of new species, and were reminded that even the same trails yield very different birds on different days.

Everywhere we have gone, we have been reminded to keep our rooms well locked to prevent the macaques from entering and ransacking. This morning we watched a group of macaques peer in the window of a parked car and then proceed to try to open the door using the handles! 

 After an early lunch we drove for 4.5 hours southwest into the Kinabalu National Park. The roads in Sabah have gone from “bad” on previous days to “terrible” today, in the words of our local guide. Some of the bumpiness was due to construction, and some just potholes in the area not yet under construction. For the first two hours, palm oil plantations lined the roads, but after that we started heading up hill, adding twists and turns to the bumpiness. 

We stopped at the 4-hour mark to do some roadside birding for species that won’t appear as high as we will be the next few days. We were pleased to get a much closer view of the tiny white-fronted falconets: they are so small (5.5 to 6.5 inches long) that it is not surprising that they primarily hunt insects.  We also got our first glimpses of Mount Kinabalu (elevation 13,435 ft) wreathed in clouds. Our hotel is in the foothills of the mountain, at about 1300 m of elevation. The cool dry air was a nice change after a week in the heat and humidity of the lowlands. A quick round of birding on the hotel grounds yielded us one more endemic, the tiny Pygmy Heleia. 

Pictured: White-bellied Woodpecker, White-fronted Falconets, female Diard’s Trogon, Pygmy Heleia, cool butterfly, male Rufous-collared Kingfisher, Black-eared Barbet