Borneo, Day 1, 26 March 2016 - Tanjung Aru Beach and Klias Wetlands

Our first day dawned hot and hazy but luckily Tanjung Aru Beach was just a 20 minute walk away from our small guesthouse. After a strange breakfast of cakes and coffee in the cafe below our rooms we strolled towards the beach picking up a few of the common birds en-route - Chestnut Munia, the endemic Dusky Munia, Brown-throated and Olive-backed Sunbirds, an Intermediate Egret on a grass verge (!), Cattle Egrets, Spotted Dove, Zebra Dove, Common Sandpiper and the ubiquitous Tree Sparrows and Yellow-vented Bulbuls.

Brown-throated Sunbird

Intermediate Egret

Down at the beach and Prince Phillip Park which is just behind the beach I managed to find 3 of the resident Blue-naped Parrots plus a few Dollarbirds, 2 Collared Kingfishers, Crested Mynas, Pacific Swallows, White-breasted Woodswallows, 2 Pacific Reef Egrets, 3 Little Egrets and then back at the beach carpark the only Common Ioras of the whole trip.

Blue-naped Parrot

Dollarbird

Common Iora

For the afternoon and evening we'd arranged a trip south to the Klias Wetlands with Borneo Dream. This included 2 boat trips along the mangrove-lined Klias River and dinner in between. We were picked up on cue at 14.15 and 2 hours later were on the boat. This trip is supposed to be for Proboscis Monkey but in that was quite disappointing as we only found a single female. Several Long-tailed Macaques and Silvered Langur were also seen.  Birds included an obliging Stork-billed Kingfisher, Hill Myna, Ashy Tailorbird, 4 Common Sandpipers and 2 Long-tailed Parakeets. The 2nd boat trip was after dark to see Fireflies which were superb!

Proboscis Monkey

     Stork-billed Kingfisher  

Borneo Introduction and Logistics

The state of Sabah in the Malaysian part of Borneo has long been on my 'bucket list'. With the added lure of plenty of good mammals as well as birds Belinda and I booked flights to Kota Kinabalu last June and planned our trip over the following months.
We flew with Royal Brunei Airlines from Heathrow via Dubai and Brunei on 24/25 March and returned on 18/19 April at the cost of £585 per person.

Our final itinerary of birding sites looked like this:

26 March - Tanjung Aru Beach, Kota Kinabalu and Klias Wetlands
27 - 30 March - Mount Kinabalu National Park
30 March - 1 April - Poring Hot Springs
2 April - Crocker Range
3 - 4 April - Sepilok
5 - 8 April - Kinabatagnan River/Gomantong Cave
9 - 10 April - Sepilok
11 - 15 April - Danum Valley
16 - 17 April - Mantanani Besar Island
18 April - Kota Kinabalu

Our accommodation and main movements were:

25 & 26 March - Hin Loi Guesthouse, Tanjung Aru
27, 28 & 29 March - Nabalu Kundasang, Kundasang
30 & 31 March -  Sutera Resort, Poring Hot Springs
1 April - Tambunan Inn, Tambunan
INTERNAL FLIGHT, KOTA KINABALU - SANDAKAN  
2, 3 & 4 April - Sepilok Forest Edge Resort
5, 6 & 7 April - Kinabatagnan Jungle Camp
8 & 9 April - Sepilok Forest Edge Resort
TAXI, SEPILOK - LAHAD DATU
10 April - Bike and Tours Bed & Breakfast, Lahad Datu
TRANSFER BY SCHEDULED MINIBUS TO DANUM VALLEY FIELD CENTRE
11, 12, 13 & 14 April - Danum Valley Field Centre
TRANSFER BACK TO LAHAD DATU
INTERNAL FLIGHT, LAHAD DATU - KOTA KINABALU
15 April - Jessleton Hotel, Kota Kinabalu
PICK UP AND TRANSFER BY MINIBUS AND BOAT TO MANTANANI BESAR ISLAND
16 April - Mari Mari Backpackers, Mantanani Besar
TRANSFER BACK TO KOTA KINABALU BY BOAT AND MINIBUS
17 April - Jessleton Hotel, Kota Kinabalu

We booked a hire car from 26 March to 1 April to drive the Kota Kinabalu, Mount Kinabalu NP, Poring Hot Springs, Crocker Range loop. The cost was only c£140 and petrol is really dirt cheap being a quarter of the price it is at home.  Driving was easy as Malaysians drive on the left although some of roads are bumpy and have patches of half-finished gravel road works. 
 
Most of our hotel bookings were made on Booking.com or Agoda except Kinabatagnan Jungle Camp and Danum Valley Field Centre which were booked direct by email and the Mantanani Island package which was booked through Amazing Borneo

To contact Robert Chong who runs Kinabatagnan Jungle Camp use kjcjunglecamp@yahoo.com.my or look at their Facebook page

To contact Danum Valley Field Centre is a right pain in the arse because they are notorious for not replying to emails. After at least 10 emails I eventually got a reply from rifhanmar@yahoo.com but if you have real problems Sticky Rice Travel can arrange things with them (but the cost doubles as they insist on providing a guide). Also, the wonderfully friendly owners of Bike and Tours B&B in Lahad Datu (Simon & Tisha) offered to contact DVFC for us for a small admin fee if we continued to have problems.

All of our birding was done without a guide except at Kinabatagnan Jungle Camp where the birding consists of boat trips on the river with an excellent guide called Romzi.

At this point it is probably worth pointing out that the forest birding in Sabah is tough. Sometimes you can walk for an hour or two without seeing a single bird but perseverance is the key. You'll always find something even if it's often not what you're looking for! This year has been very dry in Sabah and most birds are well into breeding meaning there was little response to playback. The good news with that is there are few leeches about although I got one on my leg at Poring Hot Springs and a couple at Danum Valley after rain.       

 

Here is a clickable interactive map showing birding locations and accommodations which may also help. Birding sites are in red and accommodations in orange
   

Redgrave and Lopham Fen, 13 March 2016

A long sunny walk around the 6.5km Waveney Trail today but it was a tad on the boring side for birds. Plenty of signs of spring amongst the common resident birds but nothing too much to bother the scorers. A couple of 'squealing' Water Rails, displaying Little Grebes, 2 Siskins, c4 Reed Buntings, 2 Common Buzzards, Shoveler, Gadwall, Teal and my first butterfly of 2016 - Small Tortoiseshell was about it.
In the summer I'm going to make a point of trying to nail Fen Raft Spider here.

Back at home an Early Bumblebee was my first bumble of the year.  

Much closer Lapland Buntings! Blakeney, 12 March 2016

After Belinda took care of a little business this morning we headed up to North Norfolk to get her a pait of bins I'd been promising her for our trip to Borneo. Cley Spy came up trumps with a nice pair of Bushnell 8x42s which I have to say are impressive for £129! A Common Buzzard there proved useful for Belinda as she trid them out. The traditional lunch from Picnic Fayre followed and then Belinda got to try here new bins out on the Lapland Buntings along Blakeney Bank. This time they showed much closer which was what I'd been hoping for! In all there were at least 7 with a few Skylarks and c3 Reed Buntings but still no Twite for me. We finished with a 4 mile walk from Blakeney up to Wiveton Downs. 

 

Another Cattle Egret, 6 March 2016

A walk around North Cove and Barnby this lunch time was a case of dodging the heavy hail and sleet showers but luckily we managed it without getting too wet. The Cattle Egret was found on the 2nd look after our circular walk but it proved quite flighty, probably due to the farmer tending his Highland Cattle. 3 Cetti's Warblers were along the river with one seen when flushed out of a shallow ditch. There were plenty of winter thrushes about too with a few Redwings and many more Fieldfares and a single distant Marsh Harrier. 

 

Countdown to Borneo!

With just 3 weeks to go the countdown is on - in reality I've been counting down for ages!
Hopefully my pre-ordered Birds of Borneo field guide due out on 10 March will arrive in time!

Our itinerary includes Kota Kinabalu, Tangang Aru Beach, Klias Wetlands, Mount Kinabalu NP, Poring Hot Springs, The Crocker Range, Sepilok, Kinabatangan River, Gomantaong Caves, Danum Valley and Mantanani Island and I can't wait to get stuck in!

As usual it'll be a steep learning curve with no specific targets which is how I prefer to roll on our foreign trips. The only place we'll have a guide is the Kinabatangan Jungle Camp where we have several boat trips along the river including a night trip or two.


Obviously the mammals like Oran-utang, Proboscis Monkey and Pygmy Elephant are high on Belinda's agenda!

Whitehead's Broadbill would do nicely!

Blakeney Lapland Buntings, 25 February 2016

A flying visit up to Blakeney this morning to pay homage to the small group of wintering Lapland Buntings along the seawall from the quay carpark. Seeing them was easy enough but they didn't come anywhere near as close as I was hoping so my one shot below is shit! In all there were c7 with a couple of Reed Buntings, several singing Skylarks but no sign of any Twite.
On the way to Wells (where the Shag was nowhere to be seen at the quay) a Red Kite was circling by the coast road between Morston and Stiffkey. 3 Little Grebes at Wells Quay and a Common Buzzard near Corpusty were the only other things worth a mention.
Not my best birding day but you can't turn your nose up at nice scope views of Laps!

Blyth Estuary & Dunwich, 14 February 2016

Valentine's walking in Dunwich Forest/Westleton Heath this afternoon but not before a quick stop in at the Blyth Estuary on the way.
It didn't take me too long to locate the wintering Green-winged Teal amongst Teal but I needed to walk right to the end of a bund to get close enough!
Dunwich Forest was very quiet with just Coal Tits and Treecreeper but a nice showy Chiffchaff in the south facing gardens of the Dingle Hill Tearooms is obviously wintering there. Other than that 3 Barnacle Geese flew south at Dunwich beach where a Reed Bunting was all I could find at the beach pools there.

Holkham Park Duckfest and the Pallid Harrier again, 2 February 2016

Making the most of a dry sunny (if rather windy) day I headed for the North Norfolk coast today after some work-based chores in B&Q!

Holkham Park Lake was my main destination and it came up trumps with the female type Ferruginous Duck seen on arrival near the monument. Loads of Pochard, Tufties, Gadwall and Teal, a single female Goldeneye, Little Grebe and a few Shoveler were seen too but a large flock of aythya ducks flew towards the south end almost as soon as I arrived so I had to hike up to that end as well.
Luckily the 3 Scaup (2 first year drakes and a female) were in the first group I came to and into the bargain a strange and educational presumed Ferruginous x Pochard hybrid was also in the same flock. With not much other action in the woods apart from the feral herd of Fallow Deer, I walked back to head west along the coast. A close perched Barn Owl on the edge of Holkham Freshmarsh gave me my first ever half decent shots of the species!

A quick pop into Brancaster Staithe next and this time the wintering Red-necked Grebe was showing very nicely close to the carpark where there were also a couple of Red-breasted Mergansers, Grey Plover and common waders loafing about. It was blowing a hoolie there though!

I'd planned to finish the day at Roydon Common but with a little time to spare I called in at Abbey Farm, Flitcham. And low and behold the Pallid Harrier showed briefly within just 10 mins! It very quickly flipped over a hedge and wasn't see again though so I filled my boots with views of c20 Tree Sparrows and c40 Bramblings before heading to Roydon.

I'd not been to Roydon Common for years and the roost tonight was mega! Within 10 mins of arrival the Pallid Harrier sailed in from the NE and showed superbly (the first really good views I've had!) and 4-5 Hen Harriers (all ringtails) showed equally well in the sun. Yellowhammer and Snipe rounded off a great days birding. 

  

 

       

Alton Water and Christchurch Park, Suffolk, 1 February 2016

Pinch punch first of the month!
And with it a trip down into deepest Suffolk for a days birding.
I headed for Alton Water first and parking at Tattingstone Wonder I strolled down to Larch Wood Hide to the feeders there. The feeders were buzzing with at least 8 Lesser Redpolls, 1 male Brambling, and loads of the common tits plus Coal Tit, Chaffinches, Dunnock and Robin. I spent a while enjoying the spectacle which I had all to myself.
Down at the main visitor centre I baulked at paying the £3 daily carpark charge and used the sailing club carpark instead. From there I picked out the Great Northern Diver but little else so quickly headed back to Tattingstone Wonder ready to don my boots and hike looking for grebes. I met another birder here (nice to meet you Paul!) and together we walked east towards Rabbit Wood. Eventually we picked up the 2 Black-necked Grebes looking back towards the dam where the Great Northern Diver was still lingering, a Kingfisher whizzed by and then on the walk back I picked up the Red-necked Grebe off Larch Wood having checked dozens of Great Crested Grebes. Other than a single Goldeneye and some Tufties that was it.

With time getting on I quite the scene and headed through the Ipswich traffic to Christchruch Park. The resident Tawny Owl was sadly absent but the pond area came up trumps with 3 Goosander (1 drake), plenty of gawdy Mandarins, Kingfisher, c20 Siskins in alders and a strangely confiding Stock Dove. A Little Grebe there also made it a 4 grebe day.