LOWER KINABATANGAN RIVER, MALAYSIAN BORNEO
The usual stay at Uncle Tan's camp is three days and two nights, but Chris and I decided to stay on for another day and night to see what else we could see. This proved to be a good idea, as today one of our guides brought us into the jungle to see a young male orangutan perched in a tree right above the path to the boat dock! (We had actually seen this same orangutan from a distance when we first arrived at camp, but he was so far away that we really didn't get a good look.) This time it was really great to get so close to a completely wild one in its natural habitat (as opposed to the semi-wild ones at the Sepilok Rehabilitation Centre). It just sat in the tree watching us for awhile, then climbed to another, where it started ripping branches off to make a nest--they do this at least once a day, apparently.
Another cool new creature I saw today in the trees was a giant squirrel--which has a king-sized voice that goes along with its giant size. Man, that thing was loud! And compared to the pygmy squirrel I saw yesterday, this one was indeed a behemoth.
Other animals we spotted today on an afternoon boat safari: blue-eared and stork-billed kingfishers, proboscis, red leaf and silver leaf monkeys, and of course more macaques. It was also a hornbill-fest: We saw oriental pied hornbills, wrinkled hornbills, and a whole tree filled with about 20 giant rhinoceros hornbills. Really impressive birds, all.
At night, while all the new campers did another boat safari, I chose to do another jungle trek. And as it turns out, I was the only one who chose that option, so it ended up being just me and my guide Leo, trudging for an hour through the swampy jungle. Nothing really new tonight, just more tarantulas, tree frogs, and whip scorpions. (But it was fun.)
The usual stay at Uncle Tan's camp is three days and two nights, but Chris and I decided to stay on for another day and night to see what else we could see. This proved to be a good idea, as today one of our guides brought us into the jungle to see a young male orangutan perched in a tree right above the path to the boat dock! (We had actually seen this same orangutan from a distance when we first arrived at camp, but he was so far away that we really didn't get a good look.) This time it was really great to get so close to a completely wild one in its natural habitat (as opposed to the semi-wild ones at the Sepilok Rehabilitation Centre). It just sat in the tree watching us for awhile, then climbed to another, where it started ripping branches off to make a nest--they do this at least once a day, apparently.
Another cool new creature I saw today in the trees was a giant squirrel--which has a king-sized voice that goes along with its giant size. Man, that thing was loud! And compared to the pygmy squirrel I saw yesterday, this one was indeed a behemoth.
Other animals we spotted today on an afternoon boat safari: blue-eared and stork-billed kingfishers, proboscis, red leaf and silver leaf monkeys, and of course more macaques. It was also a hornbill-fest: We saw oriental pied hornbills, wrinkled hornbills, and a whole tree filled with about 20 giant rhinoceros hornbills. Really impressive birds, all.
At night, while all the new campers did another boat safari, I chose to do another jungle trek. And as it turns out, I was the only one who chose that option, so it ended up being just me and my guide Leo, trudging for an hour through the swampy jungle. Nothing really new tonight, just more tarantulas, tree frogs, and whip scorpions. (But it was fun.)
posted by John Kuge at 10:58 PM
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