Sarawak: A Kelabit Highway?

The next morning - January 16, 2012 - we made a pre-dawn start for what turned out (thanks to the rain, and its effect on the ghastly roads) to be our destination for the following three days, the kampung of Pa Mada. The logging road between Long Peluan and Pa Mada is “navigable” – by which I mean, navigable in a four-wheel drive vehicle manned by a really skilled driver.

Fortunately we had such a combination; the road was slick from recent rains, and boasted ruts that could stand in for the Grand Canyon.  Isai and his brother Barahim decided to set off early (by 4 AM), so I wasn’t able to see much of the roadside forest near Long Peluan itself.  

Dawn found us traversing some forty or more kilometers of what appears to be excellent lower montane habitat, amid some really beautiful mountain scenery. The country reminded me of one of my favourite spots in Sarawak, the overlook point at Borneo Highlands - except that there was a lot more of it. Birds along the way were mostly species that also turn up at Borneo Highlands. 

Here, for example, is a Blyth's Hawk-Eagle (Nisaetus alboniger) - a species I last saw circling overhead as Borneo Highlands was declared part of an Important Bird Area.

The big difference, of course, is that the road provides access to a lot more habitat.  Judging by call (I saw one bird well), Mountain Barbet (Megalaima monticola), a species not always easy to find in the better-known spots, appears common in the area (I heard, but did not see, numbers of Bornean Barbets (M. eximia) as well. 

One of our first sightings: a Bar-winged Flycatcher-Shrike (Hemipus picatus), a charming little creature that is the holder (with its sole congener the Black-winged Flycatcher-Shrike [Hemipus hirundinaceus]) of one of the most ungainly English names in the bird world.

Its clumsy name reflects ornithological uncertainty as to what this elegant bird actually is.  Most modern guides put Hemipus in the cuckoo-shrike family (Campephagidae), but recent DNA analysis suggests that its closest relatives are the woodshrikes (Tephrodornis) and that these two Asian genera, in their turn, are related to the helmet-shrikes of Africa and the vangas of Madagascar, with the genuine cuckoo-shrikes as quite distant cousins.  Its ancestors may have colonised Asia from Africa some 30 million years ago.

Unfortunately, that means that the otherwise-welcome suggestion to rename the flycatcher-shrikes "pygmy trillers" (doesn't that sound better?) won't do, because trillers (Lalage) really are cuckoo-shrikes, and these aren't.  So we're stuck with "flycatcher-shrike". Anyway, the birds are still cute.

 We saw both Rhinoceros (a pair) and Wreathed Hornbill (Rhyticeros undulatus) on the drive, and heard Great Argus Pheasant (Argusianus argus).  The above is a perfect example of a "record shot" - It's a terrible picture, but there is no question as to what it is.  That white tail, crossed with a wide black band, can only belong to a Rhinoceros Hornbill (Buceros rhinoceros), my first sighting of Sarawak's state bird in Sarawak.

There were mammals, too: a palm civet, presumably a Masked Palm Civet (Paguma larvata), in the branches of a tree, unseen troops of Bornean gibbons (Hylobates muelleri) serenading us for much of the ride, and a Barking Deer (Muntiacus muntjak) standing on the road edge.  I might have gotten a photo of the deer, but just as I was raising my camera a villager riding in the back of our truck fired his rifle at it.  Fortunately for the deer, either his aim was off or (more likely) his shot was of poor quality.  As the deer bounded off into the brush, I pointed out to Isai that though I respected the need of the locals to hunt, this was perhaps not the way visiting ecotourists might want to encounter wildlife!

Though I kept an eye out for dragonflies I only saw a few en route, including males of Orthetrum glaucum in various states of maturity and pruinosity (the acquisition of the dusty blue deposit that colours the abdomens of mature males).

This flowering Melastoma grew commonly along the roadside.   It is probably the widespread and common "Singapore Rhododendron" Melastoma malabathricum, though there are some more localised melastomes in Borneo.

Another common but spectacular roadside plant: the Bamboo Orchid (Arundina graminifolia), a species that is also a feature along roadsides at places like Fraser's Hill in West Malaysia.

 Rather more impressive is the Nun's Orchid (Phaius tankervilliae). It gets its name from the supposed resemblance of the flower to a nun's cowl. in some places this is a popular houseplant;  one American site recommends it by asking, "Are you looking for a plant with stunning flowers and handsome foliage that's easy to grow and only a total idiot could kill?"  It seems to do equally well along the dusty and muddy edges of a Bornean logging road.  The species ranges from Africa throughout the warmer parts of the  Old World to Australia and the Pacific Islands.

This Bamboo Orchid is playing host to a butterfly, as far as I can tell a member of the large and difficult genus Ypthima (commonly known as Rings), allowing me a nice segue from flowers to butterflies.

This one is definitely an Ypthima, but, lacking a complete illustrated guide to the butterflies of Borneo (as far as I can tell, despite useful but selective books like Butterflies of Borneo and SE Asia by Kazuhisa Otsuka and the soon-to be-published A Naturalist's Guide to the Butterflies of Borneo: Sabah, Sarawak, Brunei and Kalimantan by Honor Phillips, there isn't one) I can't be sure which one it is.  Besides, identification of butterflies in this genus seems to be based largely on the number and distribution of eyespots on the underside, and you can't see that in this photograph.

This one is a lot easier: a Common Bluebottle (Graphium sarpedon).

This butterfly, photographed quite late in the afternoon, appears to be an Orange Staff Sergeant (Athyma cams).  The female's stripes are orange, hence the English name. 

As we inched our way lower in elevation and closer to Pa Mada, the forest slowly changed, becoming (so it seemed) gradually taller, lusher and greener.

Trees began to sport the richly-flowered, clambering vines of orange bauhinia (Bauhinia bidentata).

Not far from our destination, a waterfall-fed stream provided a welcome opportunity to wash off the traces of a long and muddy journey...

… and the rocks in the stream-bed provided perches for brilliantly-iridescent damselflies of the genus Vestalis (though which species of this difficult group we are seeing here I cannot say).

I suspect that better naturalists with more time could find all sorts of wonderful things along this road.  If it could only be fixed up and properly maintained, and the forest around it protected, it could be one of the scenery and wildlife highlights of Sarawak - a Kelabit Highway, perhaps, from Long Banga to Bario?  I've suggested the idea to a few people in the Kelabit Community, and I hope it gains some traction, for the sake of the forest, its creatures, and the Kelabit themselves.

Sarawak: To the Longhouse

Isai Raja, whose fruit farm was featured in my last post, is a member of the Kelabit people.  The Kelabit hail from the highlands of eastern Sarawak, an area I had long wanted to visit, so when Isai invited me to join him on a visit to his homeland I was delighted to accept. On January 14, 2012, Isai, his brother Barahim, and I flew over the lowlands along the Baram River…

...to Long Banga, one of the few airports in the Kelabit Highlands. The area around Long Banga itself has been heavily logged, and as if that wasn't enough it was the site of a disastrous forest fire over a decade ago.

Isai's plan was to take me off into the forest to see birds (and to give him, and the residents of the highland kampungs, some idea of the potential of the area as a birding tourism destination).  A combination of rain, road conditions and outside events changed our plans considerably over the ensuing week, but it was still a memorable experience, in a very lovely and surprisingly rich area of Sarawak.  

This was, in part at least, a family visit, so our first stop was to see Isai's  parents at their rice farm.

The slogan on Isai's mother's shirt urges readers to vote for the Barisan Nasional,  the national coalition that has governed Malaysia since independence. The couple are sitting next to a traditional hearth, or tetel, once the centre of life for the Kelabit community.

 Rice is a staple in the Kelabit Highlands, and the local variety is known to be particularly flavourful – presumably because of the soil conditions in the area rather than anything genetic. Bario rice,  from the largest town in the highlands, is a famous delicacy in Sarawak. Here, the harvest dries in the sun on a sheet of (I think) woven palm leaves.

Our goal for the day was Long Peluan, a kampung to the north along a tributary of the Baram River, close to an increasingly scarce patch of unlogged dipterocarp forest.   For the benefit of non-Malaysians, Selamat Datang,  the legend over the gateway to the village, means "welcome" in Bahasa Malaysia. 

As I quickly learned, the people of Long Peluan (and indeed of every place I visited in the Highlands) are as good as their word.

Though its architecture has been westernized, the building style at Long Peluan (and indeed in other highland kampungs) is still based around the longhouse: a very long house indeed, with individual living areas all opening out onto a lengthy common hall.

At one end, used for formal receptions and community meetings, the walls are painted with traditional designs, their curlicues apparently based on the upcurved casque of the Rhinoceros Hornbill (Buceros rhinoceros).

The main feature of the hall is the traditional tetel, its upper level stacked with firewood.

Its posts are hanging places for trophies: the antlers of a Muntjac or Barking Deer (Muntiacus muntjak) and the display plume of a male Great Argus Pheasant (Argusianus argus).

Raffia baskets and bamboo fish traps hang from the walls, ready for use.

There are smaller buildings, too, often used for storage; I found myself referring to these as "shorthouses", but I doubt that the term will catch on!

Barahim arranged for us to take an afternoon boat trip along the river that runs past the kampung.  We saw very little wildlife; the only birds of note were the disappearing shapes of what were probably a pair of Bushy-crested Hornbills (Anorrhinus galeritus)flying into the forest.  According to the people at Long Peluan, this is the common hornbill in the area - but a brief glimpse was all I was able to get.

Instead, we watched the winged fruits of dipterocarp trees, pinwheeling constantly into the waters below to be snapped up by waiting fishes.  

That evening, an impressive cicada paid a visit to the longhouse.  Some 82 species of cicada have been reported from Borneo, with at least a dozen known from Bario, the chief town in the highlands.  It appears to be a Six-o-Clock Cicada (Megapomponia [formerly Pomponia] merula), a Bornean endemic and one of the largest cicadas in the world.  It must be one of the noisiest, too, with a stridulating call that sounds like the combination of a trumpet and a buzz-saw.  You can hear it here.  Fortunately, this one kept quiet!