We got up at five and stumbled over to breakfast at 5:45. We had arrived in Borneo early, as did the others, to acclimatize ourselves to the vast time change and get ready for the tour, but as Rose Ann and John are here also, we’re really adding two day to the tour calendar and starting with a bang! The lodge serves a good buffet breakfast of fresh pineapple and mango, omelets made to order, French toast and many other dishes which we made good use of and got into our van at 7 after birding a busy fruiting tree on the grounds.
We drove the short distance to the Sepilok Rainforest Discovery Center which has some beautiful primary forest and an extensive systems of trails and a high sturdy canopy walkway with two towers from which you can bird the tree tops. As we approached the walkway, someone spotted a brilliant green lizard high on the trunk of a tree, and we were told that this was a flying lizard, but we were startled and amazed when the slim lizard suddenly took off, gliding about 100 feet across an opening to another tall tree - I figured he would just “fly” maybe from branch to branch!
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| Sepilok viewing tower |
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| Black and Yellow Broadbill |
We climbed both towers spending hours in each and logging in quite a few trip and life birds. My favorite was the Black and Yellow Broadbill, a lovely small bird with a broad blue bill, black head, white collar, yellow and black back and a pink breast! The other find of the morning was the Red-Bearded Bee-eater, a lovely bird with a large decurved bill, shaggy red beard, bright green back and a lavender forehead!
We returned to the lodge for lunch at 12:30. I ordered a pineapple and chicken salad and then worked on my blog during our rest period which ended at 3:30 when we took off once more in the van and returned to the Discovery Center and again birded the two towers and walkways. At one point Bob and I decided to stay up in a tower on a comfortable bench rather then join the others in hiking down the stairs and along the walkway. Suddenly Joe appeared and called to us that an Orangutan had been spotted on the walkway!! We dashed down and walked a short distance, and there was a young (6-7 year old) female who seemed amused at the crowd of excited humans as she proceeded to rip off branches and swing from limb to limb! She took off walking gracefully along the walkway’s metal pipe railing with all four of her hands and Randy and I followed until she, I guess tiring of this game, turned around and started towards us! Randy kept me from panicking and we walked slowly away while the Orang took off into the bush.
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| "our" Orangutan! |
At 6:30 it started to get quite dark and we watched from the walkway as a Red Giant Flying Squirrel emerged from its hole high in a huge tree. It was a beautiful reddish squirrel with a black tip to its tail and measuring almost a yard from nose to tail! It groomed until we couldn’t see it anymore, but from across the opening another squirrel emerged and it took off flying a long distance to another tree. Just an amazing sight!. We walked along, shining our lights into the darkness trying to catch gleaming eye shine of spiders, mammals, amphibians. We found a very cute Harlequin Flying Tree Frog crouched on a leaf. This tree frog uses it’s flying power to float down to the ground in order to lay it’s eggs; not sure how it gets back up in the trees!
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| Harlequin Flying Tree Frog |
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| Crested Green Lizard |
We got home at 8 PM, dumped our stuff in our rooms and returned to the dining pavilion for the List and dinner. I had the very popular spring rolls, the last order as it turned out, so my companions had to settle for other dishes. Then for dessert I ordered Sago Gula Melaka .…." a ball of tapioca in a custard sauce described on the menu as ”…albeit tasteless”! It turned out to be cool and refreshing. We returned to our chalet and crashed!
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