Mahua Waterfall

Mr. Kong Ket Leong and I drove to Rafflesia Information Centre on 14th December 2013 to photograph the Whitehead's Spiderhunter Arachnothera juliae, which story will be told in another episode.

This posting is about Mahua Waterfall and the birds we managed to photograph there, it is 6 km detour from Kampung Patau along the Tambunan Ranau road. (Rafflesia Information Centre is along Tambunan Penampang Road).

On recommendation of Sifu Chee Su Ken we stayed at Hostels in Mahua, aptly called Mahua Rainforest Paradise for the night before our return to Tawau the next day. It has good accommodation with electricity supply, in contrast to Gunung Alab Resthouse (the place we used to put up while photographing birds in Rafflesia Reserve) which supplies electricity using its own generator for the earlier part of the night only.

Mahua Waterfall is 1000m above sea level, about the same altitude of Gunung Lucia in Tawau Hills Park and Crocker Range Park near Keningau. It is at this zone that we see the coexistence of both montane and lowland bird species, however, the density of montane/submontane species is more than lowland species in this altitude zone.

Here are some of the pictures taken during the trip.Unless otherwise stated, they all taken at Mahua.

 Endemic Mountain Barbet Megalaima monticola, calling from the top of a faraway tree.

 Leucistic Pacific Swallow Hirundo tahitica, taken along the way from Tambunan to Tawau, infront of Maliau Basin, you will not miss it if it is flying there with the other swallows.

  Leucistic Pacific Swallow Hirundo tahitica, side view of the same bird.

 Male Whiskered Treeswift Hemiprocne comata, taken along the way from Tambunan to Tawau, along this stretch of road, there are many Whiskered Treeswifts perch on the telephone wire, oblivious to the passing traffic.

 This is Female Whiskered Treeswift along the same stretch of road.

 Silver-rumped Spinetail Rhapidura leucopygialis, taken in Maliau Basin entrance, one of my few shots of this species showing its rump.

 This is either a female Oriental Cuckoo Cuculus optatus or Himalayan Cuckoo Cuculus satararus from Rafflesia Reserve,  I am not sure which as it was silent. For a discussion of these two Cuculus species in Borneo, please see my earlier post here.

 Mountain Imperial Pigeon Ducula badia, a lone bird perched at the tip of a bare branch early in the morning, however, many individuals were seen flying overhead later.

 Male Grey-chinned Minivet Pericrocotus solaris, common and approachable bird in montane forests.

 Female Grey-chinned Minivet.

 Female Blue and White Flycatcher Cyanoptila cyanomelana

Grey Wagtail Motacilla cinerea, wintering species commoner in montane habitats in Borneo, Yellow Wagtail Motacilla flava is commoner in the lowlands. An easy way to tell them apart is by looking at the color of the feet, the later has dark legs.

 First winter male Mugimaki Flycatcher Ficedula mugimaki, my last lifer for 2013, my number 393 bird photographed in Borneo. This is another migrant that prefers montane to lowland forests here.

 Black-and-Crimson Oriole Oriolus cruentus, this bird just refused to come lower.

 A group of wintering Eyebrowed Thrush Turdus obscurus, they prefer montane and hill forests here during winter.

 Hair-crested Drongo Dicrurus hottentottus

 Endemic Bornean Treepie Dendrocitta cinerascens,

 Checker-throated Woodpecker Picus mentalis, a species found from lowland to montane forests in Borneo.

 Endemic Bornean Ibon Oculocincta squamifrons, submontane species.

 Grey Wagtail Motacilla cinerea, this individual was foraging downstream of Mahua Waterfall.

 Ochraceous Bulbul Criniger ochraceus, commonly seen in montane forests.

 Grey-headed Canary-flycatcher Culicicapa ceylonensis, found also in lowland forests in Tawau Hills Park.

 Endemic Bornean Whistler Pachycephala hypoxantha, another common inhabitant of montane forests.

 Sunda Laughing-thrush Garrulax palliatus.

 Grey-throated Babbler Stachyris nigriceps, commonly seen in bird wave in montane forests.

Happy birding.

Photodocument of the wild birds of Borneo.

Standard references for my blog.

Orange-headed Thrush

Orange-headed Thrush Zoothera citrina is a bird occuring from Pakistan to South China, Andamans, Nicobars, Southeast Asia and Sumatra.

 It is a rare montane forest resident of Borneo, known from seven localities from Sabah; Gunung Kinabalu; Gunung Trus Madi; Crocker Range; Kaingaran; Malangkap; Rinangisan and  Sinsuran road. One sight record  from Gunung Palung National Park of Kalimantan Barat in  December 1986 was suspected to be a migrant.

The Sabah bird is of the race Z. c. aurata which has a white bar on the  wing coverts and without bars on ear-coverts.

It has a very sweet song consisting of a series of musical phrases. In Java this bird is a star performer in popular bird singing contests and large number are harvested from wild nests owned by farmers to train as songsters (Jepson, Birding Asia, 9).

It was usually photographed in Kinabalu Park, however, I photographed this one in Rafflesia Centre. One male bird was seen foraging in a fruiting tree late afternoon, and possibly the same bird seen again on the same tree the next day and photographed. This is my new photographed lifer bird of Borneo.

Male Orange-headed Thrush

Happy birding.

Photodocument of Wild Birds of Borneo

Standard References for my blog

Tabin Wildlife Reserve 28th November 2009 (Part 2).

The next morning was greeted by the laud singing of this Rufous-crowned Babbler Malacopteron magnum As typical of all babblers, its picture proved to be a nightmare to take as the light was  dark and it moved incessantly amongst the thick undergrowths near the restaurant. Rufous-crowned Babbler looks very  similar to Scaly-crowned Babbler Malacopteron cinereum, however, the darkish legs confirm this as Rufous-crowned Babbler.

Rufous-crowned Babbler

This White-crowned Shama Copsychus stricklandii was perched in the open while looking for breakfast. White-crowned Shama is endemic to Northern Borneo, where it is replace by  White-rumped Shama Copsychus malabaricus south of Sabah, and the range of these two species overlaps from Lawas to Sg. Padas in the West, and from somewhere between Sg. Sekatak and Talisayan in the East Kalimantan (Holmes and Burton 1987) to Danum Valley (Kiew 1977), Darvel Bay and the Semporna islands on the east. D. Wells (in Kiew 1977) noted a few specimens from Danum Valley have crown feathers tipped in black, suggesting hybridization among the two.

White-crowned Shama

A family of Smooth Otter Lutra perspicillata was  swimming upstream along the Lipid River in search for fish.

 

Smooth Otter

This Nymph Butterfly was basking in the morning sun.

This Wallace's Hawk Eagle Spizaetus nanus must have caught a rat from the oil palm plantation, it was well hidden among the leaves on this tall tree. There could be a nest with chicks somewhere near here as it flew away with its prey tightly in its grasp.

Wallace's Hawk Eagle

A family of Bornean Gibbon Hylobates muelleri was feeding on young shoots at the canopy quite a distance away. Bornean Gibbons are endemic to Borneo, dwell in the lowlands and hills, up to 1,500 m on Mt. Kinabalu, usually found in small groups of one adult male, one adult female and up to three young. Bornean Gibbons are often heard as their unmistakable laud calls can be heard miles away in the forest, however, as they dwell on tall trees they can be difficult to spot and even harder to photograph.

Bornean Gibbon

I took the above two pictures with my DSLR and my 600mm lens and the following picture with my compact camera. The primate is almost impossible to discern in the following picture, so length does make a lot of difference.

Can you see the Gibbon?

We continued along the road and this Indian Black Eagle Ictinaetus malayensis flew overhead.

Indian Black Eagle

This group comprising photography Sifus were in front of us.

We carried on and saw a bird hopping along the road, from a  distance we thought it was a Yellow or Grey Wagtail, but decided against it later as it did not have the characteristic white outer tail  feathers of a  Wagtail. So we stopped the car to investigate, and very much  to our delight we found it to be a different bird and another lifer for me (#295), the Eyebrowed Thrush Turdus obscurus. When migrating this bird can be found both in the lowlands and montane forest in Borneo, we saw  a number  of them foraging along the road in Tabin on that day.

Eyebrowed Thrush

This Verditer Flycatcher Eumyias thalassina was perched in the shade far far away.

Verditer Flycatcher

Its yellow belly and streaky throat and upper breast indicate that this is a Long-billed Spiderhunter Arachnothera robusta, another lifer for me (#296). A Streaky-breasted Spiderhunter Arachnothera affinis would show greyish belly and the similar looking Grey-breasted Spiderhunter Arachnothera modesta does not occur in Sabah.

Long-billed Spiderhunter

This lone Williamsoni race Asian Brown Flycatcher Muscicapa dauurica was hunting from this perch far away. This much rarer Williamsoni race Flycatcher differs from the commoner Asian Brown Flycatcher by having broad streaky breast. The Williamsonni race  is considered by some taxonomists to be a seperate species, called Brown-streked Flycatcher Muscicapa Williamsoni.

Asian Brown Flycatcher

Along the road and we were alerted by the whistling sound from a stream nearby and we were jumping with joy to spot the White-crowned Forktail Enicurus leschenaulti, another lifer (#297). While it has been long recognized that there are two races of White-crowned Forktail in Borneo, the montane race (used to be E. l. borneensis) and the lowland race (E. l. frontalis). Now White-crowned Forktail is reserved for the lowland species while the montane species  is now called Bornean Forktail Enicurus borneensis.(split by Moyel et al. 2005).


I have taken pictures of Bornean Forktails in Kinabalu Park, which look much larger and have longer tail then the White-crowned Forktail we saw here.

White-crowned Forktail 

After lunch, we made a trip to Lipid Mud Volcano via Tomanggong Road. There were a few White-bellied Munia Lonchura leucogastra among the flock of Chestnut Munia Lonchura atricapilla feeding in the tall grass along the road.  White-bellied Munia are much rarer than Chestnut Munia, they are also very very skittish, will fly off at the slightest movement and sound. This shot was taken by hand holding my DSLR with the 600mm lens (without VR), glad that it looks acceptable.

White-bellied Munia

The 700 meters trail from the Tomanggong Road to Lipid mud volcano was muddy and wet. However, Wellington boots provided by Tabin Wildlife Resort saved the day. The mud volcano is huge and more than 10 feet tall, as nothing grow on it so the area provides open and unobstructed view of all birds flying over the area.

Lipid Mud Volcano

Lipid Mud Volcano, see its size with the human on it.

These Green Imperial Pigeon Ducula aenea were perched on a tree at the edge of the mud volcano.

Green Imperial Pigeon

This pair of Wreath Hornbill Aceros corrugatus flew by in a distance.

Wreath Hornbill

End of Part 2, to be continued. Happy birding.

Photodocument of Wild Birds of Borneo #295 to #297