Sarawak: Sama Jaya, Etcetera

My return to Sarawak after the Bangkok CITES meeting in March 2013 was, unfortunately, a rather brief one. It gave me little chance to get out into the field, though I did manage a few brief trips.  This entry, therefore, is a bit of a miscellany - but one mostly devoted to one of my favorite activities: taking my grandson Ryan for a nature walk in the Sama Jaya Park in Kuching.

Exploring nature with Ryan is fun for both of us - I often say to people that the reason Ryan and I get on so well is because we are the same age.  And I can't think of a better way to bond with a child.

As I have said (in earlier posts on similar subjects), though all children love nature, the things that catch the eye of a small boy are not necessarily the ones that would excite every adult.  It takes a small boy (or someone like me, I suppose) to pause to admire a skink (though it would take an experienced herpetologist to identify this one - probably a Mabuya of some sort).

Frogs are also pretty sure-fire points of interest for small boys, even if they are members of a very common species like this Green Paddy Frog (Hylarana erythraea).

Ryan always enjoys running into Sama Jaya's resident troupe of Long-tailed Macaques (Macaca fascicularis) and their babies.

Anything in the creepy-crawly category (a term I abhor, mind you, but here I am using it) is also worthy of attention.  These bright yellow assassin bugs (Cosmolestes sp.) are a common sight.

This is the sort of caterpillar it is wise to admire, but not to touch (as I can confirm from painful personal experience).

Butterflies are less fascinating for small boys, but I like them.  Notice the ballerina-like stance of this Banded Swallowtail (Papilio demolion).

Obviously this butterfly can not only pose like a ballerina, it can leap like one.  Oh, well, at least you get to see (most of) its underside this way.

More Sama Jaya butterflies: a Brown Pansy (Junonia hedonia)...

…a Malay Lacewing (Cethosia hypsea)...

...and a Branded Imperial (Eooxylides tharis), a species that I always find exciting to see even though it is much commoner than any butterfly as exotic as this has any right to be.  Notice that this one is missing one of its tails.

Ryan has learned to be particularly tolerant of my fascination with dragonflies.  This was the first time I had found Agrionoptera insignis, a particularly handsome species, in Malaysia, despite repeated trips to Sama Jaya (I had come across the species before in Australia, where it is known as the Red Swampdragon; Singaporeans call it the Grenadier).

There  were, in fact, quite a few of them about.  This is a female, with a thicker, duller abdomen and more pronounced yellow striping on the thorax. [Correction (30 August 2016)!  This one is actually a female Lathrecista asiatica, called Scarlet Grenadier in Singapore].

Sama Jaya, in fact, has all sorts of small-scale delights, whether they are of interest to small boys or not. Take this exquisite little epiphyte, for example.  I haven't the faintest idea what it is, mind you: can anyone help?

Aside from our stroll through Sama Jaya, I did have a few other chances to get out in the field during our brief stay.  A morning walk behind the Permai Resort, led by Hans Breuer, turned up a male Asian Fairy Bluebird (Irena puella)...

…and, to accompany such a colourful bird, the most colourful of Sarawak's mammals: a Prevost's Squirrel (Callosciurus prevostii).

A visit to Chupak with Vincent Wong turned up a number of common dragonflies, including this female Neurothemis terminata…

… a bright red male Orthetrum testaceum...

…and any number of Orthetrum sabina.

Here's a pair of Orthetrum sabina "in wheel".

Of course, on a birding trip one sees birds: in this case, a Little Egret (Egretta garzetta)...

.. and an Oriental Pratincole (Glareola maldivarum) that appears to have a parasite of some sort - a tick, perhaps? - attached to its throat.

Finally, just to show that in Sarawak you don't have to travel far to encounter nature, here is a dragonfly that wandered into our apartment one evening.  It took me quite a while to figure out what it was, but it turns out to be (I think!) a female of the usually-nocturnal Zyxomma obtusum.  The males of this species are highly distinctive, but the very different female (as is often the case) can be a puzzler - at least for me!