Sabahtical - Day 6 - Wanderings

Thankfully the skies cleared up. We slept soundly that we woke up a little later than our usual 6 am routine. We hurriedly went again to the area behind the restaurant building hoping against hope that yesterday's dearth of birds was just due to the inclement weather.

Sadly, birds were still few. Thankfully I was able to at last get a photograph (albeit a really bad one) of the elusive Sunda Laughingthrush. Something I failed to do two years ago.

We had a quick breakfast at the Balsam Buffet Restaurant (used to be Balsam Cafe) where the Chestnut-crested Yuhinas and the White-throated Fantail were as usual foraging below.

Cynthia and I have already agreed to tackle the Silau-silau trail today. Inasmuch as it rained the day before we were certain that the trail would be muddy and slippery so we opted just to bring the small lens with us. We decided to enter the trail from the end part which means we had to walk about a kilometer of uphill road - paved at least. Along the way we encountered a "wave" of birds. It would have been thrilling except that these birds were constantly moving and preferred the thicker part of the forest. To make things worse a few species were represented by immature individuals making identification quite tricky. Again it was only after we have gotten home and with the help of our Facebook friends that we learned what kind they were. A young Snowy-browed Flycatcher.

And an immature Eyebrowed Jungle Flycatcher.

Part of the wave were Mountain Leaf Warblers, Bornean Whistlers, Yellow-breasted Warblers and Grey-throated Babblers.

A few meters after we have descended into the Silau-silau trail we saw them. The last lifer of our trip and the most skittish of all. So skittish that they would fly as soon as they saw us approaching. This happened several times as we traversed the path by the creek. It was such a frustrating experience that after a while we simply gave up on the pair of White-crowned Forktails.

Towards the end of the trail, an adult Snowy-browed Flycatcher was kind enough to pose for us. This one was probably already used to humans since it had been leg-banded several times.

After lunch we encountered our first and only Temminck's Sunbird and it was a female.

That afternoon before going to dinner and after another short drizzle, we wandered around our hotel grounds and saw another Black-capped White-eye and a Mountain Tailorbird.

It was not exactly a very fruitful birding day for us considering all the effort we spent in the wanderings that we did.  

Sabahtical - Day 5 - Transitions

Except for a slightly bumpy plane ride from Sandakan our return to Kota Kinabalu went smoothly. The very nice young man who drove us to Kinabalu Park told that it had been raining the past few days.

"It will stop because we're here now" we assured him.

As we neared our destination, the sun peeped through the clouds. "Sunlight!" our driver seemed to be surprised.

The staff at the Kinabalu Park Reception area was efficient as usual and we were soon checking in at our room at the Hill Lodge. I unpacked my gear and we headed to the Liwagu restaurant for lunch. 

We chose the veranda area so we could photograph the birds that frequent the nearby trees. Except there were no birds at all! We blamed it on the soft drizzle that started as soon as we ordered our food.

One hour later and still no birds! I wandered over to the bigger veranda and saw one Black-capped White-eye. Just one.

After lunch Cynthia and I went to the grounds behind the restaurant building. Two years ago, this place was teeming with Temminck's Sunbirds, Chestnut-hooded Laughingthrushes, Indigo Flycatchers and even Black-sided Flowerpeckers. But today not a single bird appeared.

It was raining steadily when we returned to our room. Along the way an intrepid Chestnut-crested Yuhinas braved the downpour.

We spent the rest of the afternoon resting and hoping that the weather would be better tomorrow.