Kalimantan May - July 2014, Ulu Barito

In the previous post about this area, I announced that I would return and so I did for another seven wonderful weeks. Again the results were fruitful, but not to many new species were added to the site list. I guess the curve is flattening. New additions were mostly birds I've been expecting to find in the area, but which kept eluding me like Scarlet-breasted Flowerpecker, Red-throated Sunbird, Puff-backed Bulbul and Little Green Pigeon. However I managed to add another endemic to the list as well: Bornean Whistler. With these additions the current Batikap total exceeds 240!

Just like during the first and the second visit, I spend a lot of time searching for rare Galliformes. Unfortunately I was not lucky enough to get better looks at Black Partridges nor Bornean Peacock-pheasants, although the latter was calling fanatically on some days! Nor allowed the Orang-utan schedule another visit to the Bulwer's Pheasant lek. However I was lucky enough to get good views on a male (and female) Bulwer's Pheasant foraging on the riverbanks. Finally! The more common Galliformes, Crested Partridge and Crested Fireback, were observed much more often and the latter was observed virtually daily! I guess this was due to the fact that the masting (mass fruiting) of the forest has started now. Unfortunately I still did not get the chance to make any photographs of any of the rare Galliformes, but in the end I found a different way to remember my sightings. This way can be viewed in a video here.

Even though the masting has started, I must admit that I miss the migrants. They certainly add something like a surprise factor to the Bornean avifauna. So I focussed more on uncommon resident species that I had not seen well during the previous visits. Consequently I enjoyed brilliant views of Wallace's Hawk-eagle, Rufous-bellied Eagle, Great Slaty Woodpecker, Green Broadbill, Malaysian Honeyguide, Moustached and Malaysian Hawk-cuckoo, next to the more familiar goodies like Blue-headed Pitta, Short-toed Coucal, Blue-banded Kingfisher and Large Green Pigeon.

Rufous-bellied Eagle (Lophotriorchis kienerii)

Great Slaty Woodpecker (Mulleripicus pulverulentus)

Moustached Hawk-cuckoo (Hierococcyx vagans)

Juvenile Malaysian Hawk-cuckoo (Hierococcyx fugax)

Green Broadbill (Calyptomena viridis), such a brilliant bird!

Female Blue-banded Kingfisher (Alcedo euryzona)

Again the mammals were a highlight too. Especially the amount of Bearded Pigs, attracted by the Dipterocarp seeds is incredible. The numbers of Sambar and both Muntjacs and Mouse-deer have also increased due to the masting. The Bornean Orang-utans and Bornean White-bearded Gibbons seemed to enjoy plentiful food as well. Other highlights were another Bornean Slow Loris and a Tree-striped Ground Squirrel.

Greater Mouse-deer (Tragulus napu)

Unfortunately this was the last time in the near future that we stayed in this wonderful area. We will not soon forget our times here. I mean there are not many places where Bornean Peacock-pheasant, Bornean Ground-cuckoo, Great Slaty Woodpecker, Large-green Pigeon and Large Frogmouth can alll be heard just from your bed or where Blue-banded Kingfishers and Malaysian Hawk-cuckoos watch you while you take a bath in the river...

Kalimantan May - July 2014, Sabangau National Park

Before heading back to the dipterocarp forests of Batikap we spent two days in the peatswamp forests of Sabangau National Park. It was very interesting to note the differences between the two forest  types. Peatswamps are definitely the harder environment, but the diversity is lower. Although several species are confined to this forest type or are easier to see here than in other forest types. Again our stay was aided by a conservation organisation and this time it was the Orangutan Tropical Peatland Project (OuTrop). Besides doing some birding just for fun, one day was also "work" as I was helping with the Rainforest: Live project.

My main targets of this forest were Crestless Fireback, Storm's Stork, Lesser Adjutant, Bonaparte's Nightjar and Hook-billed Bulbul. Obviously I did not see all of these rareties, in fact I only saw Hook-billed Bulbul. I was surprised how hard to find this species was and how skittish and shy they were, but eventually they showed reasonably. Surprisingly another team that went out searching for wildlife for Rainforest: Live stumbled upon a female Crestless Fireback! I guess it is just a matter of luck and walking stealthily whether or not you manage to see them.

Hook-billed Bulbul (Setornis criniger)

We also tried on during one morning and one night for the Nightjar, but without success. However we heard two different Blyth's Frogmouths, several Sunda Scops-owls and a Brown Wood-owl. We also spent a morning on a 35 meter high research tower in the hope to see Storm's Storks or Lesser Adjutant, but without success. We still got some nice views of other species like Greater Green Leafbird, White-bellied Woodpecker, Black-and-yellow Broadbill, Thick-billed Green-pigeon and Chestnut-bellied Malkoha and it was amazing to see the sun rise above the forest as well.

White-bellied Woodpecker (Dryocopus javensis)

Thick-billed Green-pigeon (Treron curvirostra)

Surprisingly many mammals were recorded as well including the well studied Orangutans, Bornean White-bearded Gibbon and Maroon Langurs, next to Lesser Mouse Deer, Slender Squirrel, Plaintain Squirrel, Painted, Slender and Long-footed Treeshrew. A nice Malaysian Brown Snake was also observed. As with Batikap Protection forest, this site is of the regular tourist radar and might be difficult to visit for "normal birders". I would recommend Tanjung Puting as an alternative, as they have most key species (exept the Bonapartes Nightjar) there as well.

Bornean White-bearded Gibbon (Hylobates albibarbis)

Kalimantan March - May 2014, Ulu Barito

As announced in the previous post about this area we returned to Batikap for another amazing six weeks in this pristine forest. The results were again very fruitful birdwise. During the first visit we observed more than 190 species and were able to add another 40 species to the list during our second stay. This made our list of this site longer than most survey lists including the Heart of Borneo expedition lead by Martin Holland and the very good Barito Ulu expedition from 1989!

 Species that were newly found in the Batikap protection forest that deserve mentioning are Bornean Ground-cuckoo, Bornean Banded Pitta, Fulvous-breasted Jungle-flycatcher, Malaysian Honey-guide, Rail-babbler (which might be the first record of this species in Kalimantan since 2006), Wallace´s Hawk-eagle, Grey-breasted Babbler and Sunda Frogmouth. We also found the first Crow-billed Drongo for Central Kalimantan during our second stay, but unfortunately there is no proof of this record, as it was observed from a cis, however bill-size and tail-shape were very conclusive for this species. Another major discovery that made me very happy was the second Fairy Pitta for Batikap. The first was found by Adhy Maruly in the arctic winter of 2013 and this individual stayed around the camp for months. The individual found in 2014 is the fourth individual for Central Kalimantan and the fifth for entire Kalimantan (and with that, quite possibly for entire Indonesia!).

The fifth record for Fairy Pitta (pitta nympha)

Another crappy record shot, this time of a Grey-breasted Babbler (Ophrydornis albogularis)

Other interesting observations were the amount of migratory birds, which passed through Batikap on their way up North. Migrants observed included the Fairy Pitta I mentioned above, Siberian Blue Robin, Zappey's Flycatcher, Eastern Yellow Wagtail, Common Kingfisher, Blue-winged Pitta, Pin-tailed Snipe and Swinhoe´s Snipe. The former two species are always a pain to separate (see this post) but this time I managed to record the flight calls of 2 different individuals (out of 32 individuals found) of which one recording points towards Pin-tailed snipe (around 2 kHz) while the other recording points towards Swinhoe´s snipe (around 3 kHz). However, it appears very little is known about the exact vocalisations of the two species and my identification might well be proven wrong, but for now they match with the recordings on xeno-canto.org. (note that Myers states in “the Birds of Borneo” that Pin-tailed Snipe calls around 4 kHz which is possibly wrong)


Of course my searches for the three difficult ayam hutans continued as well. After countless attempts to see them on foot, it turned out that the rivers were my best allies. A male and female Black Partridge got flushed by our cis/klotok/prahu next to Joloi River and were forced to cross a small stream allowing reasonable views. Unfortunately I never figured out the actual vocalisations of this species… A female Bulwer´s Pheasant flew over Posu River and allowed short views and in a similar fashion a male Bornean Peacock-pheasant crossed Joloi River. Therefore and due to a very busy schedule with another Orang-utan release I never tried again at the Bulwer´s Pheasant lekking site and was it even more impossible to visit the saltpan (see last post about this site). Other species I managed to get (much) better looks at included Large-billed Blue-flycatcher, Great Slaty Woodpecker and Short-toed Coucal.

Large-billed Blue-flycatcher (cyornis caerulatus)

Short-toed Coucal (Centropus rectungius)

Another interesting thing going on in Batikap at the moment is the flowering of most tree species (including most of the dipterocarps), pointing out that a masting is about to happen (and pointing out that it will be an El Nino year). During the week we were leaving most of the smaller dipterocarps were already covered with their helicopter fruits, but these were still small. I am so excited that we will experience a masting of a Bornean lowland dipterocarp forest, for it means that many animals from surrounding areas will gather to feast on the massive amount of fruits. We already noted that the amount of Bearded Pigs increased a lot. Also the bird compositions seems changed with large amounts of Green Imperial Pigeons and different species of Bulbuls (mostly Black-headed and Black-and-White) present compared to our earlier visit. The bird activity was also a lot higher than last time, with a lot of birds starting to breed and many species (like Garnet Pitta and Bornean Ground-cuckoo) were calling now, that were not calling or were calling a lot less during our first visit. We also noted that the amount of nest-swiftlets decreased a lot, but I have no explanation for this.

A bad picture of Garnet Pitta (Erythropitta granatina)

What also was a different experience was the opportunity to venture deep into the forest at night with the company of four students from Bogor, Java, who were surveying frogs. This enabled me to find a lot of nightbirds like Sunda Frogmouth, Oriental Bay Owl, Brown Boobook, Barred Eagle-owl and Reddish Scops Owl. We also found several sleeping birds, including White-crowned Forktail. The close-up sightings of this species enabled me to get decent looks at the crest-length and tail-spotting distinguishing this species from the “Bornean” Forktail. A blogpost about the best features distinguishing the both (sub)species can be found here. Of course we also got great looks at a lot of frogs of which the Bornean Horned Frog was by far the most breath-taking.

Male Bornean Horned Frog (Megophrys nasuta) (picture made by Anna van der Kaaden)

During the nightly searches for frogs we also found some mammals like the amazing Sunda Tarsier, Bornean Slow Loris, which truly is a slow animal, Muller´s Rat and Dark-tailed Tree-rat. Other cool mammals observed (next to the dozens of Bearded Pigs, who can actually be quite scary when met alone on foot in the forest) were Smooth Otter, Binturong, Long-footed Treeshrew, Large Treeshrew, Lesser Mousedeer and Bornean Yellow Muntjac. Looking back at our second stay I am (again) very content with the results and looking forward to return to this lovely place.

Bornean Slow Loris (Nycticebus menagensis)

Sunda Tarsier (Tarsius bancanus)

Kalimantan January – March 2014, Ulu Barito

Similar to our stay in Mauritius in 2013, our stay in Borneo was aided by a conservation organisation and this time it was the Bornean Orang-utan Survival Foundation (BOSF). And similar to the blog posts from Mauritius, most blog posts from Borneo will be of limited use to “normal” birders visiting this beautiful island, however they are still interesting and therefore I will keep you posted.

From January to March we were based non-stop in the North of Central Kalimantan in an area called Batikap Protection Forest, which is located within the Ulu Barito IBA and is roughly 200.000 square hectares. This area is situated just east of West Kalimantan and just South of the Mueller Range of which the roughly 1.600 MASL high Bukit Batikap is a part of. The GPS coordinates of the field station we stayed in (200 MASL) are N 0.04141; E 113.49924, for those who want to have an exact idea of the location. The area is drained by several rivers, which also are the main travel routes for our work. The river network is rather complicated, but to give you an idea: the field station is located at the Posu River, which joins with the Joloi River. Before that Joloi River is joined by Tajoi Besar River and Tajoi Kecil River. Further downstream the Joloi River is joined by the Mohot River and later by the Tohan River. This is as far as our working area goes. After this the Joloi River is joined by Naan River and finally drains into the mighty Barito. The forest until the Mohot River is still in pristine condition. Most of the forest in the Batikap area is primary lowland dipterocarp forest, but on top of most hills the forest is dominated by kerangas, whose peat colours the rivers dark brown.

Most of the time we helped with the monitoring and radio-tracking of reintroduced Orang-utans. The area currently holds 99 mature Orang-utans. 14 of those were released just last February and we were fortunate enough to be able to help with this release. Next to this I went out to do some birding of course, especially because of the fact that this area has NEVER been birded by any other Western birder before. So far the results were not disappointing and almost 200 species have been recorded by us in the seven weeks we stayed here. I don´t want to discuss every species individually, but some species deserve some more words.

Endemics and near-endemics:
Of the more than 50 Bornean endemics I so far recorded ten endemics and one near-endemic in the Batikap Protection Forest, some of them being really good species that are hard or impossible to find on the standard Sabah tour most birders do when visiting the island. The endemics I recorded here are Bulwer´s Pheasant (heard-only), Bornean Peacock-pheasant (heard-only), Blue-headed Pitta, Blue-banded Pitta (heard-only), Bornean Black Magpie, Bornean Bristlehead, Yellow-rumped Flowerpecker, Bornean Spiderhunter, Bornean Blue-flycatcher and Bornean Wren-babbler, Some of them giving exceptional views. The only near-endemic I recorded was Dusky Munia.

A male Blue-headed Pitta (Pitta baudii) photographed by Joy

(Bornean) Black Magpie (Platysmurus leucopterus (arterrimus))

Female Bornean Blue-flycatcher (Cyornis superbus)

Phasanidae:
The family that frustrated me more than any other family during my stay here. To give you an example of a week in Batikap: Missed a male Bulwer´s Pheasant foraging on the banks of Joloi River because I was ordered to stay on standby in a flying camp for Orang-utan monitoring; Missed a female Bornean Peacock-pheasant crossing our helipad because I was facing the other way, while my co-worker saw it crossing the helipad just a couple of meters in front of him as he was coming to join me; Missed a male Black Partridge singing because I was staring into the wrong opening between the bushes as it showed itself for a couple of seconds. On top of that I also missed a Storm´s Stork flying over in the distance because I was watching in awe as two Helmeted Hornbills flew over rather close. Not my best week ever… In the end I managed to record six species of the Phasanidae family of which I saw just two. The rest remained heard-only.
For Bulwer´s Pheasant I visited a lekking site, locally known as “sempidan helipet” (pheasant helipad). We were lucky enough to hear one or two females calling to invite males to the lek (unfortunately my gear, including recorder was still in Palangkaraya), unfortunately no males or females actually showed up at the helipad. Another try at this site was postponed until the very last day by extremely low river levels due to a prolonged period of drought. The second attempt also yielded no Bulwer´s Pheasant, but this time none were heard as well.
Bornean Peacock-pheasant also remained heard-only, even though I once heard a male calling from our kitchen. Despite long searches or long sit-and-wait sessions I haven´t caught a glimpse of this mega yet. The closest I´ve ever come to seeing one was hearing a pheasant taking off through the forest from a place where I heard a male Bornean Peacock-pheasant before without actually seeing anything…
Nothing of that however is comparable to the frustration and confusion Black Partridge has caused me. In my first week I heard a call I didn´t know and Joy (a keen, young colleague of mine with incredibly sharp eyes and very good knowledge of the local fauna) ascribed it to “Puyuh Hitam” and after asking he assured me the bird did not have a crest, so we went after it. After an hour of badly imitating the sound three birds crossed the path, but I was checking the other side of the path and when I turned around the birds were gone. The same thing happened some weeks later. Later when my gear arrived I recorded the presumed Black Partridge song and it turned out to be incredibly similar to the song of Black-throated Babbler, something which the locals confirmed. Now I hear the call everywhere and every time I invested time (a couple of occasions every day) to find out what its source was I saw either nothing (Black Partridge?) or a group of Black-throated Babblers… According to Myers (2010) the call of Black Partridge is poorly known, so it might as well be this call, but I definitely want to find out whether this call is actually produced by Black Partridge or not. I will keep you updated.

Night birds:
A species group that always has fascinated me, but it took some time before the first results of my nightly searches paid off. In the end we found five Owl species, one Nightjar species and one Frogmouth species here. The Frogmouth was found during the day on its tiny nest hanging over the Muara River and it turned out to be a Large Frogmouth! Not a bad find at all. The next day two more were found roosting rather close to the field station. Strange that they never responded to my playback… The same goes for the other night birds. During my nightly searches I never saw a night bird, just heard them and they would never react to playback, however every now and then I found them roosting during the day. In the end I managed to see all four of the five Owls, the Frogmouth and the Nightjar.

Brown Hawk-owl (Ninox scutulata)

Large Frogmouth (Batrachostomus auritus)

Apodidae:
But because I spend so much time traveling on rivers, I got a lot of time to look at Swifts dipping in the water, which aids their complicated identification. In the end I managed to identify five Swiftlets, two Needletails and two Treeswifts. The best species was Waterfall (or Giant) Swift(let), which was observed twice. It is a truly gigantic Swift and has a rather different way of flying, smooth and direct without the fast wing beats that are typical of the smaller species. However I did not see the white margins on the undertail coverts nor did I manage to take a picture (who could on a moving cis/klotok/prahu), but I´m sure of the identification. 

Bucerotidae:
Probably the most enigmatic species group of Borneo. In Batikap seven of the eight hornbill species of Borneo occur. Strangely the most common Hornbill, Oriental Pied Hornbill, which can be seen simply in the city of Palangkaraya, is missing in this forest. Maybe it gets outcompeted by the other, larger species? The most common Hornbill in Batikap is Black Hornbill; the rarest is White-crowned Hornbill. Helmeted Hornbill is heard reasonably often, but seeing this Pterodactyl-like bird is a different thing. The others are fairly common.

Wreathed Hornbills (Aceros undulatus)

Rhinoceros Hornbills (Buceros rhinoceros)

Pittidae:
An all-time favourite of families. In Batikap I recorded five species and I suspect three more to be present. Surprisingly I saw four of the five species well and that without using playback. Unfortunately the Fairy Pitta that chose the area around the field station as wintering ground (it was found by Adhy, field station manager and keen birdwatcher from Java, and it is probably the second record for Central Kalimantan) seems not to have returned this year and I had to console myself with “just” two wintering Blue-winged Pittas.

Blue-winged Pitta (Pitta moluccensis)

Rare lowland specialist species:
Quite a lot of lowland specialists that are rare or gone elsewhere are still quite numerous in this area. Examples of species like this are: Large Green Pigeon (their goofy calls can be heard every single morning from my bed and some roosting trees hold more than 40 individuals!), Short-toed Coucal, Great Slaty Woodpecker (we even found a group of six birds!), Blue-banded Kingfisher (on some boat rides the Blue-banded Kingfisher – Blue-eared Kingfisher ratio was 1:1!), Straw-headed Bulbul, Blue-headed Pitta, Bornean Wren-babbler and Long-billed Blue-flycatcher (it took some time to find this species, but when I found them they turned up regularly at different sites). At is a pleasure to be in a place where so many endangered species occur so numerously.

A crappy flight shot of a Blue-banded Kingfisher (Alcedo euryzona)

An even more crappy record shot of a Large Green Pigeon (Treron capellei)

Unexpected findings:
Of course when birding a blank spot on the map like Batikap, some strange things pop up. An example of an unexpected record is a Dark-sided Flycatcher taking a shower in the rain, after Adhy had found another one just a couple of days earlier on a different location. There are very few records for Central Kalimantan of this species. There are no photographs of my sighting, but luckily there are of Adhy´s record. According to Myers (2010) there are no records in Central Kalimantan of this species. However according to Mann (2008) there is one old record from Barito Ulu in 1969. These statistics make our sightings sound very special, but I think this migrant is very under recorded in Central Kalimantan as this species was also found during the Murung Raya expedition by Martin Holland. Another unexpected finding was a female Crimson-breasted Flowerpecker with a just fledged chick, while Yellow-rumped Flowerpecker is common in this forest. Myers (2010) states that both species are not known to occur together… I´m sure more discoveries such as these will follow!

Dark-sided Flycatcher (Muscicapa sibirica) photographed by Adhy Maruly

Batikap Protection Forest is also a good site for other animals. Besides the reintroduced Orang-utans and their wild born babies, Southern Bornean Gibbons (and possibly Agile Gibbons, as Batikap is part of the hybridization zone between the two), Maroon Langur, Silvered Langur, Pig-tailed and Long-tailed Macaque can be seen here. Other mammals we have recorded are Sambar, Greater Mouse-deer, Bornean Red Muntjak, Bearded Pig and a large variety of squirrels including Tufted Ground, Sunda Giant, Prevost´s, Ear-spot, Horse-tailed, Black-eared Pygmy and Plain Pygmy Squirrel. We got very close to seeing some other, rarer mammals, but in the end we did not see them. We saw the bushes moving as a Bornean Yellow Muntjak spurted away, we saw trees moving as a Clouded Leopard was moving through them (not a single glimpse of the animal!) and we found tracks of Otters, small felids and other mammals. We also recorded a large array of reptiles of which we identified some including Reticulated Python, Malaysian Flat-shelled Turtle, Frilly Gecko, Ornate Shrub-lizard, (this record is one of the few records from Central Kalimantan of this species) and three species of the flying genus of Draco, which are in my opinion another one of the many wonders of the Bornean heart of darkness. 

A very cute Least Pygmy Squirrel (Exiliscuiris exilis)

A baby Reticulated Python (Python reticulata) slept in our camp (photograph made by Anna van der Kaaden)

Ornate Shrub Lizard (Aphaniotis ornata) (Picture made by Ike)

Frilly Gecko (Hemidactylus craspedotus)

Hopefully a second blog post about this marvellous piece of forest will follow in a couple of weeks. Keep checking, for there are many exciting plans like trekking two days through the forest to reach a saltpan, where apparently thousands of birds and mammals come together to drink and feast on the minerals.  Of course the Bulwer´s Pheasant lek will be visited again and my searches for Bornean Peacock-pheasant and Black Partridge will continue!