Roosting bat

During the day, bats like this one can be found roosting in our many tall coconut palms. They rest under the fronds inconspicuously. This one moved around a bit, assessing me to see if i posed a threat, ready to launch and fly off at the first sign of trouble.

Terrathelphusa sp. semi-terrestrial crab

 

Here’s another photo of the strikingly-coloured crab posted yesterday. This time a close up of it in self-defense mode. What a beauty!

Land crab with bright red pincers

A hungry visitor: With a snail in one pincer and the larva of a firefly beetle in the other, this beautiful land crab with bright red pincers and a purplish body is a welcome find on a rainy evening!

Will update this post once I have an ID.

Dung beetles rolling a ball of sh*t

 

Look what I came across while making my way up Mount Santubong last week! A pair of dung beetles comically rolling a little ball of animal poo down a trail covered with leaf litter and other obstacles.

They worked quickly, one behind and one in front and whenever they encountered a small "ledge" or step such as in the above photo (the tree root forms a step and the next lower level is about 10cm below), they'd both tumble down, get disoriented for a bit (refer photo below) but then quickly find their ball of dung and get back to business.

Quite amusing to watch them. I took a short video but my line's too slow to upload that (another reason why I seldom update this blog, sucks)!

I don't think I've ever seen dung beetles in real life and this up close before. Only ever seen them in nature programs on TV. These beetles weren't very big, I'd say each about 1.5 cm long (excluding length of legs).

Night visitor (Rhinoceros beetle)

Look who what showed up on our doorstep! When I got back from dinner tonight, found this little rhinoceros beetle lying on the porch on the pet hair covered foot mat!

As a defence mechanism, the beetle gives off a hissing noise (sounds like air being let out of its abdomen) to scare off predators when disturbed, it also raises itself up on its legs to appear more menacing. My cat gave it a sniff then jumped away when the beetle hissed! Poor cat was terrified of it!

By the way, the photo above is a close crop of the upper “horn”. Took the photo with a tiny macro lens attachment (for camera phones) on my Sony X10 Mini Pro. Not bad for a cheap “toy”, ya?

Wordless Wednesday #8

Rhinoceros hornbills at Mount Santubong

While hiking up Gunung Santubong a few weeks ago, I heard the unmistakable loud flapping noises of hornbill wings just above me. I looked up and saw three Rhinoceros hornbills (Buceros rhinoceros) landing on the top branches of a dead tree right above where I was standing. It was the first time I got to see wild Rhinoceros hornbills in the Kuching area this close.

Unfortunately, I managed only this one shot (cropped photo as the dead tree is very tall) before they got spooked when they saw my friend coming down the slope.

About 6 years ago, also in the Santubong jungle, I saw a hornbill and a troop of monkeys in the same tree feeding on fruits. It was a very tall tree and quite a distance away. The monkeys were making a lot of noise and shaking the branches. It appeared as though they were trying to chase off the hornbill (perhaps so they can have more fruit to themselves?). The big bird was clearly agitated; it could not feed in peace and jumped from branch to branch. However, I did not wait to see if the monkeys managed to chase it away eventually.

Hope to see these big birds again, they’re not easy to spot anymore, at least not in the Kuching area.

Road trip to Maludam – Day 1

Last week, a couple of friends and I went to Maludam on a short survey trip. Maludam is a small coastal village about 250km from Kuching. Its inhabitants are mostly fishermen and farmers. Malays make up the majority, followed by Ibans and a small community of Chinese settlers.

 

Our main purpose was to visit Maludam National Park to photograph the extremely rare Red Banded Langur. Here is an excerpt taken from the Sarawak Forestry Department’s website:

 

“Peat swamp forests cover about 10% of the land area of Sarawak. Borneo's peat swamp forests are amongst the most highly developed in the world, and the Maludam Peninsula is the largest single patch of peat swamp forest in Sarawak and Brunei. The Maludam National Park is critical for protecting the only viable population of the red banded langur (Presbytis melalophos cruciger) remaining in the world today. This species is one of the world's most beautiful monkeys. It occurs only in Borneo, and is restricted entirely to the peat swamp forests of the Sri Aman and Sarikei Divisions of Sarawak.”

 

The three of us had been planning this trip for a long time, since last year if I remember correctly. We were supposed to go months ago but kept changing plans and went to other places instead. Finally, we decided not to postpone it any further so we put together a quick itinerary and invited a bunch of other friends. Sadly, all declined as they didn’t think it was that interesting. In fact, not many know of Maludam. Fewer still know about the existence of a national park there, or about the rare red langurs. Through this blog entry and my photos, I hope visitors to my site will be more aware of this beautiful park and its terrific potential for eco-tourism.

 

We started driving from Kuching around 3:30PM in the afternoon and arrived in Sri Aman at 6:15PM, just in time to head to the waterfront and snap some sunset photos. After that, we had our dinner at a small kopitiam. Four dishes (which were too salty!) and rice cost us about RM20 each person including drinks. Incidentally, the full moon was out that night but only half of it visible because of the half-eclipse. Non of us brought along a tripod so we didn’t bother taking any photos.

 

After dinner, we drove around looking for a suitable hotel to stay in. There are no international chains or star rated hotels in a small town like Sri Aman but there are a number of decent hotels to choose from. We visited three, checking out the rooms and rates before deciding on one close to the town center. Then we headed to a supermarket to pick up food and drinks for the journey the next day and then headed to our chosen hotel.

 

Our room which slept three was very good value as we paid only RM20 (discounted rate) for a night’s stay. Soon as clean towels were brought up to our room, I hit the shower then got ready for bed. No live World Cup match was on that night so the hotel and surrounding areas, cafes and shops were quiet. All three of us turned in early as we had to be up by 5AM to resume our journey to Maludam.

 

Photo gallery

Click on each photo for the larger size.

Left, on our way… Right, at the top of Bukit Begunan, the tallest point along the Kuching-Sibu trunk road.

 

  

Left, two men paddling across the river in a small sampan. Right, the Lochness monster invades Sri Aman!

 

Left, Nessie turns out to be a big log floating in the river… Right, birds flying in the evening sky.

 

 

Left, birds flying in the evening sky. Right, sunset at the Sri Aman waterfront.

 

Left, in the evening, food stalls selling grilled seafood, chicken and other foods pop up by the waterfront. We didn’t visit any of the stalls. Right, taking sunset photos.

 

Right, Sri Aman town.

 

Left, sleepy town. Right, a pair of white doves welcoming visitors driving into town.

A “fishy” outing

 

 

Went on another photo outing, this time to catch and photograph peat swamp fish species.

 

Carinotetraodon sp., possible Carinotetraodon salivator.

 

Carinotetraodon sp.

These tiny little puffers are sooooo cute. One puffed up into a tiny ball as big as a marble and I was fortunate to have my camera ready just then!

 

Puntius hexazona

 

Puntius hexazona

 

It was also my first time seeing the beautiful six banded barb, Puntius hexazona as well as another colorful rasbora.

 

Rasbora sp.

 

Still waiting for my fish guru to ID that one. I made up a name for it in the meantime, the "Rainbow rasbora" as it appears to have colorful bands running the length of its body.

 

How sad that more and more streams are turning into smelly polluted streams. We visited many places in the countryside to look for blackwater rivers and peatswamps to explore but runoffs from poultry farms, pig farms and vegetable gardens have done a lot of damage.

 

 

It was only after driving around and exploring for several hours that we eventually found a stream still nice and unspoiled. *sigh*

 

Photographing a juvenile pikehead.

 

A Luciocephalus species, predatory pikehead.

Far away in the countryside, we also had the good fortune of spotting a hornbill in flight. Not the large greater hornbill but a smaller species. I couldn't change lenses fast enough so no photo of that hornbill. Maybe a “birding” or bird watching trip next time!

Tiny freshwater pufferfish

This tiny one, about 1.5cm long, just ate an insect larva and is looking for more.

This species of freshwater pufferfish, believed to be Carinotetraodon salivator,  is the cutest little puffer I’ve ever seen. Pretty interesting to observe them swim around in a tank, eyes moving about searching for prey.

The large one is about an inch long and the small one is about 1.5cm long. Before I took these photos, I fed them damselfly larvae and soon as I dropped the larvae in, both started going after them. Some of the larvae hid among the Egeria densa leaves but the puffers eventually got to them.

There was a big dragonfly larva too, as big as the smaller puffer and the larger puffer kept nipping at it. By night, it'll probably be fishfood.


The larger, 1 inch adult “stalking” a damselfly larva.

Besides insect larvae, they also feed on small snails and fish. So they are a good choice to naturally control a small snail infestation in a freshwater tank!

Photo quality is pretty poor cause the water is dark, stained with tannins and I'm shooting at 800-1600 ISO through plastic. Here are more photos of this little fish:



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