Saturday, April 28, 2018

Sepilok - Day 1

The next morning I woke up surprisingly refreshed and went for a pre-breakfast walk around the grounds where I finally got a White-breasted Waterhen to stay still long enough for a decent photo:

White-breasted Waterhen

Better yet, it was SUNNY!  I don't think we saw the sun in Sepilok the last trip.

The first item on the agenda today would be visiting the Orangutan Sanctuary.  There was no guarantee we would see wild Orangutans this trip so it was a must visit location for Tim and Andrea and we came along because you never know what else you might see.

As it turns out, no Orangutans showed up for the morning feeding (but crowds of people did).  We ended up getting semi-decent views of 3 orangutans in the trees nearby, distant views of some Red-leaf Monkeys, and good views of both Pig-tailed and Long-tailed Macaques.


"Here comes my dismount"..
Balancing Macaque

But, the most entertaining thing we saw were the young Orangutans at the nursery playing.  It's hard not to fall in love with these great apes at first site. But, pictures through the glass aren't easy.

Bornean Orangutan

One of the best things about the Orangutan nursery is that one of the two viewing rooms is air conditioned.  That's a real luxury in the heat and humidity of Borneo. Mmmmm...air conditioning...

Tim and Andrea went back to the Orangutan Sanctuary for the afternoon feeding while we caught up on some sleep and just relaxed around the lodge which has great grounds full of wildlife.

Rufous-backed Kingfisher:
Rufous-backed Kingfisher

Many-lined Sun Skink:
Many-lined Sun Skink

Dollar Bird:
Dollarbird

The evening activity was a night walk at the Orangutan Sanctuary.  Apparently, it was a good place to look for Tarsier which was a priority this trip for me.  It was also a good place for lots of other critters.  Before we even entered there was a Red-tailed Racer snake above us in the tree.  But, it was curled up and hiding.  We found plenty of other animals that weren't hiding:

Dark-eared Tree Frog:
Masked Tree Frog

Giant Bent-toed Gecko
Giant Bent-toed Gecko


We also saw 3 Bornean Keeled Pit Vipers.  All three were up high and not much more than a white outline but I did manage to get a decent photo of one that shows the arrowhead shape of the head:
Bornean Keeled Pit Viper

Anyone want to see a Huntsman Spider the size of a man's hand?

Hand Sized Huntsman Spider

Too bad...I posted it anyway!

File-eared Frog:
File-eared Tree Frog

As we were exiting the Sanctuary, the word got out that a Slow Loris was close.   By the time I got there the only view I had was of its backside.  Pretty cute still...right?
Philipine Slow Loris Butt

Over all, it was a nice walk at the Sanctuary but we struck out on Tarsier which I hoped wasn't becoming my nemesis animal.

After another good meal back at Forest Edge we did a walk on their grounds and found a few more night critters including more frogs, a huge snail, and this Painted Bronzeback:

Painted Bronzeback

So, it was a pretty good day and best of all we had good weather and beer in an ice bucket to end the day.

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