BORNEO BIRDBANDING WITH JERRY & CLARICE, 10/24/16

Here’s where the banding station is!  Zoom in to see Jerry & Clarice.

Jerry Broadus and Clarice Clark went birdbanding in Borneo and joined long-time friend and Morse Preserve bander, Suzanne Tomassi, who is running a 10-year study and banding project in the Danum Valley in northern Borneo, an unforgettable and remote area with perhaps the oldest rainforest in the world with many species still unrecorded by Science. They were there through SEARRP (South East Asia Rainforest Research Partnership http://www.searrp.org/) and Suzanne’s group, the Borneo Rainforest Project.

The Sabah region, featuring the Danum Valley where the banding was done on the right.

Being in Borneo near the end of Ramadan

Suzanne has a fundraising website for the Borneo Rainforest Project wtih an entertaining video that you should watch — both to understand what they need and for the sheer enjoyment of vicariously visiting the place, as we did with Jerry and Clarice. If you send in any amount to them through INDIEGOGO, they will give you a token gift that you couldn’t get anywhere else: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/borneo-rainforest-project#/backers

Jerry and Clarice vividly protrayed the highs (the birds) and the lows (leeches and bad trails with disappearing bridges and slimy mud) and the interesting facilities and accommodations. It’s not the Ritz (though the only other place you can stay in the vicinity is — the very expensive Borneo Rainforest Lodge). They also talked about the available bird books with their competing sets of Latin names for the birds. With all the photos they took, Jerry and Clarice practically made a new field guide, judging by the many great slides they showed us.

Some trails were washed away

Apparently not the first to get lost here.

Concerning bird stories they told us concerned Hornbills (the Chinese have now turned to Hornbills’ bills since Rhino horns have become so hard to obtain) and Swifts with edible nests, now “farmed” and sold in grocery stores.

Bushy-crested Hornbills.

Swiftlet nests on special at the grocery store.

These can cling to branches, so not too closely related to North American swifts.

They recommended if you hire guides to be sure to get the Sticky Rice Guide Service for real birders. Other “guides” available are only there to keep you from getting lost, but not to help in any other way.

 
Banders are forging new territory, as there nothing like the Pyle guides to help them catalog what they’re banding. They take blank bird drawings and fill them in as they go along, basically making the banding guide as they go.

No Pyle guide. Had to take blanks and make the guide themselves as they banded.

Other great birds they interacted with included Kingfishers and Trogons and many many more!  It was interesting to hear that Kingfishers just lie still for banding as long as they’re on their backs.

Oriental Dwarf and Blue-eared Kingfisher

Not your western hemisphere trogons!

It’s not just birds in Borneo! Insects, reptiles, and mammals were everywhere! The logo of SEARRP is one of those unforgettable tiny Tarsiers (pause for people to say “aaaahhh!”). And Orangutans are the critters most people think of when they think of Borneo, and they deserve some thought and protection.

Cute Tarsier decorates Jerry’s SEARRP shirt.

Orangutan, a Borneo specialty, eating a tree (not just the fruit!)

Flying lizards? Stuff of nightmares.

Watch out in the leaf litter!

Not a friendly guy. Jerry has good movie footage of him.

Botanists go crazy there, too! Of course there were plenty of Clarice’s favorites, native Rhododendrons (check out her bumpersticker), including Vireyas, among others. Some of these rhodies are actually epiphytes, and many of them dangle from trees above the trail. Of interest was that many trees have smooth bark (koompassias, for example), which protect the trees and nesters from climbing vines. Eyecatching Durian fruit are loved by Orangutans and people, but are outlawed in hotel rooms due to a lingering odor.

Yes, Clarice has a bumpersticker on her car that she brakes for rhodies.

Clarice always likes to end her presentations with a diabolical quiz, but this time it was like no other. She wasn’t trying to catch us or teach us, but rather she was hoping WE could help HER identify a bird! She and Jerry have a difference of opinion what it could be, and the references available differ widely in possible plumages. I’m afraid we didn’t give them a definitive answer. Hey, it COULD be a bird not previously described to Science, even though it did appear just outside the dining hall…