Borneo - Kinabalu

OK, so as promised, here is a little trip to Borneo. The only pity is that these old scanned slides don’t do these birds any justice whatsoever. Borneo is a place of great wonder and beauty and home to many endemic bird species. I though I’d start off on the majestic Mount Kinabalu. At over 4000m ASL, this mountain contains a variety of life zones and among the highest plant diversity of any site in the world. Borneo’s isolated high peaks shelter many endemic species, i.e. species found nowhere else. Borneo looks isolated on a map of the world but it is important to remember that she was connected at some points in her history with other parts of the Greater Sundas when glaciation cycles lowered sea levels substantially. Borneo lies to the west of the deep sea trench that gave rise to the famous Wallace’s Line, and so has greater avian affinity with Asia and Australasia (and not as much endemism as the even more isolated islands east of Wallace’s line such as The Philippines). Borneo’s winning cocktail is her history of shared contact with the Asian mainland that brought several waves of colonising species, combined with her periods of isolation that allowed some of those species to undergo genetic drift and speciate, plus her tall mountains like Kinabalu, with many life zones and opportunities for different niches to form (more speciation), and of course her large size that lowered the extinction risk for many colonizers and permitted self-sustaining populations. For all of these reasons, Borneo is a staggeringly rich cradle of life!

Needless to say, birding on Mount Kinabalu is fantastic, but, before I get started, I must admit that I will cheat a little but, because I didn’t take all of these photos on Mount Kinabalu, though I saw all of these species on that magnificent mountain. In a previous post on fruit-eaters I had already shown a photo of one of the key endemics found here, the unusual Fruithunter. I couldn’t do a post on Kinabalu without mentioning this bird so why not repeat the photo!



I had also talked about the Asian barbets with their spectacular green plumage living high in the canopy. There are a few endemic barbets on Borneo, this one being the Golden-naped Barbet. Note the subtle blue highlights on the head – most Asian barbets have green colouration with more colour/pattern on the head.

Another green endemic is Whitehead’s Broadbill – another green bird living in the green canopy. Broadbills a re a small family of brightly-coloured suboscine passerines, most of which occur in Asia. When seen well, the three species in this group/genus of green-coloured broadbills are truly spectacular. Since this photo does no justice at all to Whitehead’s Broadbill, I include a photo of the lowland species Green Broadbill below, so you can see the colour (and see how lighting can rob you of colour) . These species appear similar but the Whitehead's has a black throat patch.

Birders on Borneo will talk about the highly prized “Whitehead’s hat trick”, i.e. three secretive species names after British naturalist John Whitehead. The three species that make up this hat trick are Whitehead’s Broadbill, Whitehead’s Spiderhunter, and Whitehead’s Trogon. Although I saw the spiderhunter, I never managed a photo. Here however is that other Whitehead, the magnificent male Whitehead’s Trogon, perched low in the dark forest after the afternoon rain. I remember vividly how I found this bird. It had been raining for hours but I was desperate to squeeze in a little birding before dusk so when the rain slowed to a trickle I hike up to a good birding area. Because of the light rain I still had my camera in my bag, at least until I spotted a brown lump on a branch that proved to be a female Whitehead’s Trogon. I got my camera out as quickly and quietly as I could without excess movement but by the time I was set up, she had flown. Trying to follow her movement though I soon spotted the male a little further in, and he paused long enough for a few photos. Unfortunately I had to use strong flash because the light levels were so low (and that was before the age of digital when you couldn’t adjust the ISO until you finished a roll of film).

The white-eyes are an interesting family of small birds found in Asia, Australasia and Africa. Most are greenish in colour and have a prominent white eyering. This is the Black-capped White-eye, a Bornean endemic.

The Mountain Blackeye is another Borenean endemic in the same family. With their balck face mask, this species is unusual among white-eyes.

The beautiful Bornean Treepie is, you guessed it, yet another Bornean endemic. These birds are truly fascinating to watch.

High in the canopy, a four-note whistled call gave away the tiny Collared Owlet. These birds look very much like pygmy-owls, although some authors now place them in the 9-member genus Taenioglaux, split from the larger Glaucidium genus. If this tiny owl hadn’t called, we could never have spotted this blob in the canopy (lousy photo, fine memory).

Continuing with the Bornean endemic, this is a Bornean Whistler, one of a few Oriental members of a predominantly Australasian family. Wallace’s line is definately a barrier but not an absolute one!

Borneo proved to be a good place to view cuckoos, at least while I was there. This is the famous “brain fever bird”, the Large Hawk-Cuckoo, so nicknamed because of its accelerando song. Actually some authors split this subspecies “bocki” off from Large Hawk Cuckoo and call them Dark Hawk-Cuckoo.

This is a juvenile Sunda Cuckoo, the Bornean race being much darker than most other races. In case you are not familiar with the name , the Sunda Cuckoo is one member of a recent three-way split of the former “Oriental Cuckoo” complex.

Low down, near the ground a Sunda Bush Warbler pops up briefly to allow a photo. Unfortunately the Kinabalu Friendly Bush Warbler that I saw was not so obliging.

Perched low in the dark undergrowth this Eyebrowed Jungle Flycatcher is also endemic to Borneo.

In the same family but more colourful, the stunning Indigo Flycatcher, found only on Borneo, Sumatra and Java, is always a delight to see.

As is the stunning Verditer Flycatcher, the “green of earth” (vert de terre) bird. Well, blue-green to be precise.

The mossy trunk of this large tree holds a secret – a tiny female Snowy-browed Flycatcher is sitting tight on her nest.

Here is her partner – now you can see where the name Snowy-browed comes from…

In a pile of fallen branches, skulks the endemic Mountain Wren-Babbler.

While, yet another endemic, the Bornean Stubtail, an Old World warbler, creeps along the forest floor.

Also sneaking along the dark forest floor and yes, also endemic, this is the beautiful Red-breasted Partridge. It was just one of those birding moments – I had snuck off the trail to squat behind a large tree (you know why) and the rule is when you don’t have your camera in hand, good birds will find you. Fortunately, I was able to reach for my camera and get into position for this mediocre record shot, even without having done my belt back up…

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Somewhat rare in Manitoba, this female Red-bellied Woodpecker has been hanging around in Assiniboine Park and across the river (Deer Lodge Place) for over a week. The extraordinarily mild November is proving to bring a few rare birds to the prairies!


Her call note is often the first sign of her presence.


In this last image you can see a little hint of the reddish wash on the belly.

Let's hope for more November rarities!

More photos available at: http://artusophotos.com

An old story - where it all began

Posting all those fruit eaters from around the world made me think of some of my favourite old birding haunts. I thought I should dig out some old slides and post a small series on Borneo, one of my favourite places. I am never satisfied that I can reproduce the quality of slides on screen, which is why I haven't done many post from South East Asia, the place where I learnt to bird. Thinking of posting about the Sundaic rainforests however made me realise that the best place to start might be at the beginning! That is, I should tell the story of where all this began, a story of a bird encounter that changed my life... As a kid, a chunk of my early childhood was spent in Australia and I fell in love with the colourful parrots and spectacular species like the Superb Lyrebird. Life however has a funny way of taking you on a tour of its own and I never became a birder per se as a young man. In fact, I had never heard of "birding" when I was a kid and a "bird-watcher" in Australia was a slang term for a pervert. People mostly thought I was crazy when I would go for walks in the bush to look at birds and I was teased endlessly at school and at home about it...

So, after a tumultuous adolescence I found myself wondering around the planet and learning languages. I thought my career would be in linguistics, mostly because that is what I was good at. But then I found myself teaching in a polytechnique in Singapore and finally having enough salary to dust off a childhood dream – wildlife photography. Now, wildlife photography had always held a lot of appeal but camera equipment and especially telephoto lenses were prohibitively expensive for me for most of my life. In Singapore, I found a secondhand 400mm/F5.6 lens and bought a new camera body – I was set.

So with my new camera I went for a walk in one of the very few remaining patches of primary lowland rainforest in Singapore and saw two beautiful large woodpeckers. With their black, white and red plumage and large size these birds were unmistakable. I managed to snap a few poor quality shots. The next day, I went to a library in my lunch hour and got out a book called Birds of Singapore. On the inside front cover was a drawing of what was obviously the same species of woodpecker that I had photographed - the caption read “White-bellied Woodpecker, probably extinct in Singapore”. So this was a major find and in many ways I was like a kid again with a child’s delusions of grandeur. I made some calls and finally found the right people at the Singapore Naturalists Society who told me that since the publication of that book, a pair had been found but that the female had subsequently disappeared and not been seen in 18 months. Well, I had photos, albeit poor, of both the male and the female (red malar stripe on male) and so arranged to show this person my photos. Basically, that set in motion an uncontrollable chain reaction that would eventually lead to a complete change in career path. After being adopted by a community of birders, I started to realise what I had been missing out on for most of my life. With a childhood passion rekindled, I began making regular trips to observe and photograph birds and then making special trips to see particular species, and eventually I changed my studies from linguistics to environmental science and ended up returning to Canada, the country of my birth, and completing a PhD in environmental science and going on to find employment as an avian biologist. That’s the whirlwind version of the story – for it was a long and winding road – but why not share a very poor quality photo - the photo of that female White-bellied Woodpecker who changed my life (you can also see my photography skills have improved a tad)… I really would like to thank her!

Year of the Tanager

Manitoba seems to be enjoying the “Year of the Tanager”. We have only one regularly occurring breeding tanager – the Scarlet Tanager – but this year we have been treated to a run of rare tanager sightings. In the spring we enjoyed several Summer Tanagers and Western Tanagers, both of which are rather out of place here. These species have occurred before in the province but the number of rare tanager sightings this year was truly exceptional!

In the last few days another (or possibly one of the bird from spring) Summer Tanager showed up in Winnipeg – in November! With temperatures already below freezing at night, and with the name of “Summer”, this bird seems even more out of place than most other lost tanagers… Today I got a look at this handsome creature! Here are a few shots, showing most of the features (with and without flash). Note also the small amount of yellowish feather of the breast sides in this individual.

Thanks a million Bob and Pat!

And now to reminisce of the spring, here is one of the Western Tanagers that showed up earlier this spring near Balmoral, just north of Winnipeg.

For this one, thanx to Jim and Johanna!

And last, and arguably, most handsome of all, our very own Scarlet Tanager on the breeding grounds in the southeastern part of the province…

What rich colour – what a rich year!