Traveling to Danum Valley and the Borneo Rainforest Lodge involved a trip upriver and a long drive to Lahad Datu, where we transferred to 4×4 trucks for another two-hour ride through the rainforest on dirt roads.
Pam Durrant on a canopy walk. (Photos by David Durrant)
The Danum Valley, where we would spend the final three days of our trip, is a core area of virgin lowland and hill forest and home to orangutans, crested firebacks, the elusive Bornean bristlehead, and lots of other animals we had never even heard of. The bristlehead, endemic to Borneo, is a bird high on David’s list. Pete, our guide, was determined that we would see one before we left.
Pete had arranged for a couple of renowned Bornean botanists, Anthea Phillipps and Anthony Lamb (see sidebar), to accompany us on this part of the trip. Anthea grew up in Borneo and got her botany degree in England. She and Anthony are authors of numerous books on the flora of Borneo. As longtime residents both were excellent birders and easily identified everything (plants, birds, animals, etc.) we came across. They were a wealth of knowledge on the flora of the area and kept Pam busy pointing out new orchids, ferns, etc. On one of our walks Tony stopped and pointed to a tree whose trunk was surrounded with an orchid, adding, “That is probably the largest orchid plant in the world.”
On the first day we saw an enormous male orangutan in the trees near our cabin. As evening approached, in a tree right over our cabin, the orangutan started breaking branches to construct a nest for the night. Knowing we would probably not be this close to one of these incredible primates again, we arose before dawn hoping to catch the orangutan emerging from his nest. As it got lighter, we saw him stirring and soon he swung his way down the tree and ambled across the trail behind our cabin.
Crested firebacks and chicks
While waiting for the orangutan to start moving, we noticed some movement among the ground cover. Standing quietly, we saw a pair of Bornean crested firebacks cross the road, followed by a couple of chicks. These stunning pheasants have a light blue head and crest, dark blue body feathers with patches of orange, and flaming white tail feathers. Unfortunately, the early morning light did not allow us to get a photo of these impressive birds. Another spectacular pheasant that we wanted to see was the great argus—anyone who has visited the Natural History Museum at Harvard University is probably familiar with this beautiful bird displayed in a case on the entry stairs. Unfortunately this was one of the many birds we did not get to see.
An orangutan looks up after falling to the ground.
During our morning walk through the forest, Pam and the rest of the group decided to take a more challenging trail into the forest while David elected to stay on the smoother main trail. As he was walking down the trail he met some of the local guides sitting on the edge of the trail. It turns out that they have been studying the orangutans in this area for several years and one large male was close by. Continuing down the trail, David heard rustling in the foliage beside the trail and saw a huge orangutan munching on ginger leaves. Stopping to watch, David made eye contact and soon the orangutan stopped eating and loped across the trail, not 20 feet away, and into the forest on the other side—another incredible contact with these marvelous animals.
On another walk we stopped to see an orangutan climbing a vine on a large tree. When he was about 30 feet up, the vine gave way and he plummeted to the ground. Shaking himself, he got up and wandered across the trail where we got a great photo of him looking up at the tree seeming to think, “What the heck happened there?”
A feature of the lodge was its canopy walkways suspended hundreds of feet above the ground. We climbed up to the walkways every day to get closer looks at the birds and mammals high in the canopy. On the last day a local guide heard the bristlehead call and soon spotted it way off in the canopy. All David got was a brief view of its bright red head, but Pete had kept his promise!
Night walks
A three-horned rhinoceros beetle.
Night walks and rides featured sightings of a colugo, an angle-headed lizard, a huge scorpion, sleeping birds, a spectacular three-horned rhinoceros beetle, and several species of frogs.
The three days in Danum Valley went by quickly and soon we were on our way back down the dirt road. The organized part of our trip was over. We were off to Mataking, a small island off the coast, where we would spend three days snorkeling and reminiscing over what had been an amazing trip.
David and Pamela Durrant live on East Bare Hill Road at Micheldever Farm, where they watch their own peacocks and chickens as well as visiting wild birds.
Anthony Lamb and Anthea Phillipps: Botanists of renown
Anthony Lamb received his master’s degree in agriculture from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. He has more than 50 years working experience in Sabah, Borneo, first with the Agricultural Department at its research station in Tenom, where he helped introduce many new fruit crops and ornamental plants. Subsequently he helped set up the Tenom Agriculture Park, next to the research station, with its unique collections of wild fruit trees and native orchids, which he has been studying for over 30 years. He has jointly described more than 150 new plant species and authored or co-authored books on native orchids and hoyas, wild gingers, wild fruits, native rhododendrons, and Nepenthes pitcher plants. He currently works part time for the Department of Forestry, identifying species in its orchid herbarium and living collections, and was awarded the Panglima Gemilang Darjah Kinabalu (PGDK) by the governor of Sabah, Malaysia, in 2015. He is married to Anthea Phillipps.
Anthea Phillipps was brought up in Sabah as a child. She got her degree in botany from the University of Durham in the UK and has worked for both the Sabah Museum and the Sabah Parks. With Sabah Parks, she was based at the Kinabalu Park Headquarters and helped establish the park herbarium and the botanical garden. She has written/co-authored/edited books on the islands of the Tunku Abdul Rahman Park, Mount Kinabalu Park, and their plants, including rhododendrons and pitcher plants. She currently writes a weekly newspaper column about the amazing plants that can be seen in Borneo.
—David and Pamela Durrant
