My last visit to Sabah with John back in May was most memorable, with lots of great moments including getting the Whitehead's trio and Bornean Bristlehead. However, one bird still eluded me, that is the Bulwer's Pheasant. Having missed it twice, it has become a bit of a personal nemesis bird, with hours of waiting and too much money already spent! I decided to nail it once and for all. Having seen regular reports of the Bulwer’s Pheasant at Trusmadi, I took my chance during a week where my schedule was open and booked the flights to Kota Kinabalu once more. I also saw that a hide for Blue-banded Pitta have been getting regular sightings, and looking at the map it was within reach from Ranau. I was tempted to go for the Bornean Peacock Pheasant as well but that meant a longer drive on the return journey, and I didn’t want to take any chance on the Bulwer’s, so I left an extra day as buffer just incase anything happened.
Day 1: Hong Kong to Kota Kinabalu
There is only one flight per day from Hong Kong to Kota Kinabalu now, I reached KKIA at around 4:30pm, having no luggage to reclaim I headed straight to car rental and was on the road by 5pm! The drive to Tambunan was quicker than expected, as there wasn’t a lot of big trucks on the road. I reached my accommodation by 7pm. I stayed once again at Padi View Guesthouse which I highly recommend, it was cheap, clean and very spacious.
Day 2: Trusmadi
There are two establishment of bird hides at Trusmadi, one by KK Lee, the other by CP Sung, as far as I know both hides have very similar set of birds. I went for CP Sung’s hide on this occasion simply from looking on eBird that Black-throated Wren-Babbler had been sighted recently, and I thought it would be a nice addition, otherwise chances of seeing (or not seeing) the Bulwer’s Pheasant should be roughly the same at both hides. I arrived at 6am as suggested, the caretaker there quickly took me up to the hide.
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| Entrance to CP Sung's hide |
A lot of common species came along including Temminck's Babbler, Chestnut-hooded Laughingthrush and Orange-headed Thrush…The usual suspects in the bird hides at Trusmadi.
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| Temminck's Babbler |
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| Chestnut-hooded Laughingthrush |
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| Orange-headed Thrush |
A big flock of Crested Partridge arrived in a flurry, a species that used to be so difficult to see, now readily available at the hides here. Since I got some decent photos of this species already from my last trip I stayed focus on the real prize.
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| Crested Partridge - male |
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| Crested Partridge - now a common sight at Trusmadi |
To my delight, it didn’t take that long for a male Bulwer’s Pheasant to arrive! The bright white tail almost glows in contrast to the dark forest floor. I imagined Mr Bulwer’s must have been real pleased to have such a fine species named after him. The pheasant came out twice while I was there, allowing excellent views, although no females came in that morning. To think that even seeing one years ago was a huge deal, to be able to photograph one like this was almost unthinkable!
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| Bulwer's Pheasant - certainly one of the top bird in Sabah! |
The Black-throated Wren-Babbler followed soon after, I have only ever seen this endemic in Danum Valley, but never photographed one. Like other Wren-Babblers, they are usually shy and difficult to observe in the wild. This one 'performed' very well and gave excellent views.
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| Black-throated Wren-Babbler - another star of Trusmadi |
Having gotten both my main targets here, I switched over to another hide on the other side of the road, a pair of Crimson-headed Partridges were already there when I arrived, and not long after a few Red-breasted Partridges also came by. Both of these endemics are often highly sought-after by visiting birders.
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| Crimson-headed Partridge |
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| Red-breasted Partridge |
The other hide featured more small birds, including the Dayak Blue Flycatcher, another previously tough bird to get but seems to have become a Trusmadi specialty. Rufous-chested Flycatcher also showed quite well, this attractive looking flycatcher is always great fun to watch.
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| Dayak Blue Flycatcher - male |
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| Rufous-chested Flycatcher - male |
The other main attraction at Trusmadi are the Bornean Banded Pittas, they have become a regular fixture here, in a way it is worth coming here even when the Bulwer’s Pheasant is not around. Both the female and male showed extremely well.
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| Bornean Banded Pitta - female |
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| Bornean Banded Pitta - male |
Bornean Whistlers, Asian Emerald Doves and Penan Bulbuls came through regularly. A Siberian Blue Robin was the only migrant I got here.
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| Bornean Whistler |
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| Asian Emerald Dove |
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| Penan Bulbul |
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| Siberian Blue Robin |
A Grey-headed Canary-Flycatcher came by briefly, as did a Blyth’s Paradise Flycatcher. A Mountain Barbet was seen briefly passing by. Even a Whitehead’s Pygmy-Squirrel made an appearance! All in all, a pretty productive session here.
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| Grey-headed Canary-Flycatcher |
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| Blyth's Paradise Flycatcher - female |
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| Mountain Barbet |
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| Whitehead's Pygmy Squirrel |
I spent a bit of time outside the hide birding by the road, there weren’t that many birds worth mentioning, a Little Spiderhunter and a pair of Bornean Bulbuls were the best I could manage, the latter being quite a decent Bornean endemic.
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| Little Spiderhunter |
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| Bornean Bulbul |
I headed back to Tambunan for lunch and continued my journey towards Ranau. I was going to head into Poring for some birding but the afternoon rain delayed that, by the time I got there at 3:30pm the ticket counter was already closed (official closing time of the park is 5pm, but apparently ticket office closes at 3pm). So, I just relaxed at the hotel and called it a day.
Day 3: Doromomol Bird Hide and Poring
I woke up at 4am, maybe from the excitement of the bird I was about to go try and see. Blue-banded Pitta have been a dream bird of mine ever since getting my first field guide to the Birds of Borneo by Susan Myers, the illustration on the cover was too unreal. The drive from Ranau took roughly 1 hour and 15 minutes, it was 6am when I reached the bird hide registration point at Kampung Paus; literally the middle of nowhere. Sahzrie my contact asked me to be there at 6:30am, so I had half an hour to just look at birds in the nearby area, Little Green Pigeons were showing well on a fruiting tree.
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| Meeting point of Doromomol Bird Hide |
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| Little Green Pigeon - male |
At 6:30am, Sahzrie’s friend Ricky came along to take me to the bird hide. They showed me the Blue-banded Pitta record log, and I saw that the previous day had a big fat “X” written on it, that got me worrying…but you never know if you don’t go! The hike to the hide supposedly takes 30 minutes, in reality it took less than that, but it wasn’t a particularly easy hike, as the trail was very muddy and quite steep in parts. Along the way there was a Amorphophallus of some kind, an incredible looking flower that looks almost alien, the most likely species seems Amorphophallus lambii.
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| Ricky leading me up to the hide |
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| Amorphophallus lambii |
I settled down in the hide, at that moment I was committed to wait however long necessary that day. Not long after arriving the first bird appeared, a male Sunda Blue Flycatcher, a good start as this was a lifer for me. There is more blue on the throat not unlike a Chinese Blue Flycatcher, it was quite vocal so thats how one can be sure which species it is. A White-crowned Shama also made an unsurprising appearance, a species that thrives in feeding stations.
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| Sunda Blue Flycatcher - male |
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| White-crowned Shama |
A pair of Short-tailed Babbler and a single Ferruginous Babbler came through, two species that often visits feeding stations. Grey-headed Babblers were perhaps the best of the rest, being generally a tough bird to see well.
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| Short-tailed Babbler |
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| Ferruginous Babbler |
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| Grey-headed Babbler |
While I was photographing the babblers on the left side, Ricky suddenly exclaimed “Pitta!”, I looked over to the right, and there it was, a Blue-banded Pitta in full glory, perched right in front of me! The colours were out of this world, with that unique blue collar almost looking like gemstones inserted into the bright red underparts, it is one of the most unique looking Pitta in the world. For the next two hours the bird came by a few times, each time allowing wonderful views for a few minutes.
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| Blue-banded Pitta - just wow! |
By 9:30am I was ready to leave, the area proved quite birdy with lots of birds calling, but it was simply too dense to get any good looks, even White-crowned and Rhinoceros Hornbills were calling nearby, and a few species of Woodpeckers and Red-naped Trogon. As I understand the area is not a protected, but is privately owned by Sahzrie’s family, hopefully the fact that they now can make money from the birds here will give them incentive to protect the area instead of turning it into an oil palm plantation. On my way out I saw a large raptor right next to my car, which turned out to be a Black Eagle!
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| Black Eagle |
I drove back to Ranau for a rest at the hotel before heading to Poring. After a quick lunch at Poring, I got my ticket at the ticket counter and made my way inside. I have not visited Poring Hot Spring for many years, it was known to be an area to look for Hose’s Broadbill, but you will likely need to hike up Langanan Waterfall trail for that, I have no intention in doing so on this trip as I know how muddy and leech filled it will be…so, I focused around the lower reaches.
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| Poring Hot Spring |
Things started off very slowly, when I reached the first stream I thought I would go check for Forktails, and was delighted to see a Chestnut-naped Forktail there! A species I have only seen at Congkak but never managed a photo, it showed quite well and allowed relatively close approach as long as you stay quite still.
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| Chestnut-naped Forktail |
Other birds in the area wasn’t half as cooperative, I had a distant Black-and Yellow Broadbill, a Spectacled Bulbul, many Red-eyed Bulbuls and some Asian Fairy-bluebirds that were too far to photograph.
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| Black-and-Yellow Broadbill |
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| Spectacled Bulbul |
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| Red-eyed Bulbul |
A few Red-throated Sunbirds showed briefly, plus a distant Spectacled Spiderhunter. I later checked the bamboo garden and found the lovely Fulvous-chested Jungle Flycatcher, another Poring specialty. All in all a decent afternoon of birding.
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| Red-throated Sunbird - male |
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| Spectacled Spiderhunter |
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| Fulvous-chested Jungle Flycatcher |
Day 4: Mt. Kinabalu
Since everything went so smoothly, I didn’t really had much planned for my buffer day, a day birding around Mt. Kinabalu seemed like the most logical plan before heading back to KK. I left Ranau at 5:30am and reached the park entrance just past 6am. I parked at Liwagu Restaurant car park and walked up power station road. The first birds I saw were two Everett’s Thrush! It was still very dark for photos but they provided good views. A Crimson-headed Partridge also came out to feed by the road.
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| Everett's Thrush |
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| Crimson-headed Partridge |
I kept scanning for Whitehead’s Trogon but had nothing. Mountain Wren-babblers were heard but never came out. Eye-browed Jungle Flycatcher showed fairly well, while near the upper entrance of Silau-silau trail I had a very confiding Bornean Stubtail! A Snowy-browed Flycatcher was also seen.
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| Eye-browed Jungle Flycatcher |
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| Bornean Stubtail |
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| Snowy-browed Flycatcher - male |
At 8am I headed back down to the permit office to get the permit to drive up to Timpohon Gate. They have now “upgraded” to using an online form, the whole process took me five minutes, I am glad they are not making it overly difficult for birders. Arriving at Timpohon Gate it was packed with people, Little Cuckoo-doves are often seen around here, I also saw a few Pale-faced Bulbuls in the distant tree but they never came any closer.
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| Little Cuckoo-dove |
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| Pale-faced Bulbul |
Up on the platform, a small bird wave with Indigo Flycatcher and Mountain Leaf Warblers came through. Bornean Treepies were present, and I saw a few Sunda Cuckooshrikes.
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| Indigo Flycatcher - male |
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| Mountain Leaf Warbler - race kinabaluensis |
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| Bornean Treepie |
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| Sunda Cuckooshrike |
Mempening Trail and near Silau-silau Trail remained quiet, I saw a few Bornean Leafbirds but they were very high up, I also tried all the regular spots of the Broadbill or Trogon but had no luck. The best I managed was a Pygmy Flycatcher seen within a flock of small birds, this was a species I have only seen before but never managed a photograph. Yellow-breasted Warblers are very common around Mt. Kinabalu and you can often get quite good photos of them.
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| Pygmy Flycatcher - male |
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| Yellow-breasted Warbler |
I had a very photogenic Little Pied Flycatcher and the ever so friendly Bornean Whistling Thrush, both regular species up on Mt. Kinabalu which you can get great views of.
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| Little Pied Flycatcher - male |
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| Bornean Whistling Thrush |
After lunch the sky looked much darker, I knew it would start raining quite soon, so I stayed near the restaurant car park, hoping for something nearby. A flock of Chestnut-crested Yuhinas were seen. Suddenly, the distinctive nasal call of the Whitehead's Spiderhunter was heard, I first questioned whether it was a playback made by someone else, but it sounded much higher up. I scanned the tree tops and sure enough found one perched right on the top on a tall tree next to the restaurant! Though views were distant, it was an improvement from my last encounter. It started pouring down with rain soon after, and I took that as the cue for me to start my drive back to Kota Kinabalu.
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| Chestnut-crested Yuhina |
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| Whitehead's Spiderhunter |
That evening, I decided to try my luck at Tun Fuad Stephens Sabah Botanical Garden for Sunda Frogmouths, as it seems to be a hotspot for this species on eBird. The park had some good patch of habitats, but there were street lamps everywhere, which didn't seem too great for nocturnal birds. I didn't hear any frogmouth, but had a few Sunda Scops Owl calling and finally saw one on a distant tree. So, it wasn't a huge waste of time.
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| Sunda Scops Owl |
Day 5: Kota Kinabalu to Hong Kong
I took the morning flight out back to Hong Kong, and was back in Hong Kong around 1pm.
Personally, I would rate this trip to be rather successful! Having connected with all the species I wanted to see. The fact is that even with these bird hides which makes such efficient trips possible, it doesn't mean the birds will always show up, it really is a game of chance and if they don't show up there is nothing you can do but try again next time. I ended up with a total of 127 species on what really was 3 days of birding.
If there was someone travelling with me and was able to share the load on driving, I may have been tempted to go all the way to Telupid for the Bornean Peacock Pheasant on my last day, the road from Ranau towards Telupid is filled with potholes, making driving a little treacherous, so I didn't fancy doing it on my own for nearly 4 and a half hours. It also gives me something to look forward to on my next visit to Sabah.
Full trip list: https://ebird.org/tripreport/583828?continue
