Borneo Part 1: Let's Have a KK

My 2019/2020 holiday season was a busy one- a trip through California, Christmas in Oregon, then on to the Philippines with a quick layover in Hong Kong. The Philippines wasn't my final destination, however; I spent a few days there with Nikki, then we immediately jetted off once more, this time to Malaysia for a New Year's trip through Sabah, in northeastern Borneo. It was exhausting, but since I have no idea when I'll ever be able to travel abroad again I have zero regrets. Nikki and I had visited Sabah once before, in 2017, and had a fun time as beginner birders. We figured we might as well visit once again, as it's a cheap flight from Manila and we had a decent idea of what to expect there. 

The only problem with getting to Sabah is that the flights run on the worst possible schedules. We arrived in Kota Kinabalu at 2 in the morning on December 30 on the daily Cebu Pacific flight and went directly to our AirBnb, a room in the house of a nice family in a quiet wooded suburb in the hills above the city. Most of the morning was spent getting some much-needed sleep, but in the afternoon we headed into the city to explore the downtown area. 

KK is a fascinating city, with a multicultural mix of Chinese-Malaysians, Muslim Malays, Filipino migrants, and indigenous Borneans. It's the biggest city in Malaysian Borneo, with nice roads, stylish malls, and an interesting mix of colonial, modern, and Malay-influenced architecture. The differences between Sabah and the Philippines are stark, even though it's only a 2-hour flight away from Manila. The British might have been utter colonialist bastards, but they at least did a slightly better job of being colonialist bastards than the Spanish and Americans were in the Philippines.

In the late afternoon we headed to Tanjung Aru Beach on the outskirts of Kota Kinabalu, a well-known spot both for sunsets and for birding. It was a sunny, humid evening and the beach was full of people (remember back when we could do that without jeopardizing our lives?), but the birds were out as well. The nice thing about Sabah is how approachable many of the birds are, which makes bird photography a more enjoyable task than in the Philippines. There was an accommodating Yellow Bittern in a small pool, along with a couple Striated Herons and some Green Paddy Frogs. There were some Green Imperial Pigeons looking at us from a tree, and I added Yellow-bellied Prinia to my Sabah list. A quick raptor flyby turned out to be an immature Crested Honey-buzzard, another new bird for my Malaysia list.

Yellow Bittern

Striated Heron

Green Paddy Frog

Green Imperial Pigeon

Yellow-bellied Prinia

The most charismatic birds at Tanjung Aru are the resident pair of Oriental Pied Hornbills and  colony of Blue-naped Parrots. The former we actually saw on our first visit (the only hornbills we got good looks at, sadly), and the same birds appear to still be there- recognizable as the male is missing one eye, though he seems to be coping just fine nonetheless. The latter birds are supposed to be endemic to the Philippines, but a small flock of escaped cage birds managed to establish themselves in Kota Kinabalu. They're now easier to see in Kota Kinabalu than in most parts of their native range, thanks to rampant hunting and trapping (sigh). It took longer than I thought it would to find the parrots, but there was quite a group of them, flying around part of the beach and screaming their brains out like parrots like to do.

Blue-naped Parrot

Male and female Oriental Pied Hornbills 

The male hornbill showing off his missing eye

The beach was, of course, also good for sunset, along with some other cool non-feathered animals.

Tanjung Aru beach

Changeable Lizard

Lesser Grass Blue

The beach was covered in little balls of sand, which as it turns out were the doings of these tiny Sand Bubbler crabs (Dotillidae). They feed by filtering the sand through their mouths and eating whatever tiny bugs are in it, leaving the balls behind when they're done.

Our second day we decided to visit Manukan Island off the coast of Kota Kinabalu to get a little more beach time. We took the first boat out, arriving at the ferry terminal early in the morning and having a quick breakfast of cheap and delicious mee goreng (fried noodles) before we left. It was a fairly quick boat ride, and after that we had a couple of hours to spend on the island. Nikki stayed on the beach while I took a quick walk on one of the trails. I was mostly looking for Mangrove Whistler, an uncommon coastal bird that's present on the island, though difficult everywhere. Surprisingly, I fairly quickly got on a Mangrove Whistler as soon as I entered the forest, though it stayed too far away for a decent picture. I didn't spend too much time birding after that, as there were only a few other birds around, including a Mangrove Blue Flycatcher, several noisy Oriental Magpie-robins, and a couple of Olive-winged Bulbuls. 

My best picture of a Mangrove Whistler

Olive-winged Bulbul

Zebra Dove 

The larva of some kind of mealybug (Pseudococcidae sp.)

A beautiful Rice Paper Butterfly (Idea leuconoe)

Back at the beach, it turned out that the water was fairly muddy and didn't smell like something we wanted to enter, so we spent the remainder of our time watching the massive Asian Water Monitors lumbering around the beach.

Asian Water Monitor, a terrifyingly huge lizard

Some kind of snout moth (Gesonia sp.)

A cute little jumping spider (Cytaea sp.)

A very fuzzy beetle (Hypomeces sp., I think)

It was New Year's Eve that night, so we made it until midnight (barely!) drinking some Soju before we had a very good night's sleep. The next day was when our traveling around really begun, but that's for the next blog entry...