Kinabalu National Park

May 4th

We spent most of the day in Kinabalu National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site. While it is famous as a birding location, it is even more popular for climbing Mt Kinabalu. We saw well over 100 avid hikers setting off to climb the peak while we spent our time searching for endemic and mountain birds.

The birds we saw today were entirely different from those in the Bornean lowlands. A few mountain species were repeats from the Fraser’s Hill part of the Peninsula Malaysia trip, but there were many Borneo highland endemics. Our guides came with a mental list for the day, and we had seen nearly all of them before our lunch break. 

This afternoon the mist lowered and visibility (and bird activity) was poor. After two hours the mist lifted— because it started to rain! We had spent those hours walking back and forth on a section of park road where the Whitehead’s Trogon had been most recently heard and seen — to no avail.  This is a species that has very limited geographic range, making our location today a rare opportunity to see it.  Then our guide’s cell phone beeped that another group had seen the trogon a little further down the road, so off we raced to see it. It was a lesson in persistence (the other group had spent four days looking for this bird!) and friendship (in that the other guide shared their discovery with us).

We saw so many wonderful birds (and three new squirrels) today that it is hard to choose what to post. We particularly loved the tiny tufted squirrel, also endemic to the Bornean highlands. It is slightly bigger than the Pygmy squirrel we saw in the lowlands.

Pictured: Whitehead’s Broadbill, Sunda Owlet,  Bornean Stubtail, Tufted Pygmy Squirrel , female and male Whitehead’s Trogon, the foggy trail