Thanks Kenny

Today I received these images of a leopard cat and a western tarsier, taken last week in Tabin, by my great friend Kenny Ross. Doubtless more of his pictures will appear here soon.

Thanks Kenny.

Today in Sepilok I...

...again visited the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre;

...completely forgot that I'm a gritty field naturalist and cooed over baby orangutans;

...was amused to see intelligent primates being watched by other primates;

...clicked a gratuitous orangutan selfie (two mums and their two babes behind me in this photo);

...again visited the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre;

...watched Debbie up a tree;

...saw Damai having a roll in the dust;

...fell for the beauty of a blousy melastome;

...met Wong Siew Te, the charming, committed, expert, communicative founder and CEO of the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre, and heard about his many years' experience in the forest and the work of his dedicated team with sun bears;

...learned that all Natalie needs before being experimentally released into the wild is a helicopter ride to the core area of Tabin (anyone have a spare helicopter?);

...and (as all the real sun bears were really far away) may have taken a sun bear poster selfie. Just maybe.

From Pench

Today I received this photo from my friends Graham and Tina who travelled with me in British Columbia last year and in India last month. It is of Collar Wali, an elderly Pench tigress. She was special to them because, after days of bad luck in Tadoba, she was their first ever tiger, seen on their first drive in Pench. She was special to me because all of my jeeps saw her that morning, plus one of her two-year-old male cubs the afternoon of the same day; for many of my clients she was likewise their first tiger.

I well remember my own first tigers, a mother and a three-month-old cub in Ranthambore, a decade ago. After many subsequent tigers, they walk with me still.

Collar Wali in Pench by Graham Nuthall

Poor Old Michael Finnegan

So it is that trusty Hazwan and I find ourselves at Sandakan airport awaiting the arrival of the second Naturetrek Sunda Clouded Leopard Quest group.

Wish us luck.

Sunda clouded leopard photographed in Tabin,
depicted above the door of the office in Lahad Datu
of Tabin Wildlife Resort

Ruby

The name given to the Sunda clouded leopardess in Lok Kawi Wildlife Park is Ruby. I learn from Quentin that some eight years ago she was confiscated as a large cub from a hunter in Ranau near Kinabalu. For a while she was cared for by Quentin's niece and, being extremely tame (the leopardess, not the niece), she would roll on her back to have her tummy tickled.

A tummy I should love to tickle

Lok Kawi also has, Quentin tells me, a male leopard with three legs who is not on public display. It is hoped that the two may be introduced to one another and that they may breed. However, male clouded leopards in captivity have a history of killing females so the zoo is wary of putting them together without thought. Given the male's disability and the species' strong sexual dimorphism in size (males weigh around 25 kg and females 15 kg) it is possible that a very large enclosure with trees and climbing frames would allow Ruby to escape from the male should he prove aggressive.

There are thought to be some individuals of the Sunda clouded leopard in private hands in Kalimantan; plus some of the Sumatran subspecies in private collections on that island. However, Ruby and the three-legged male are the only Bornean animals known to be held legally in captivity. Let us hope, for the good of the species and our understanding of it, that unclouded love is their destiny and that soon we will hear the patter of tiny paws at Lok Kawi.

Nests

Some centuries ago it occurred to a bright spark to risk his life by shinning up a flimsy, treacherous bamboo ladder to collect nests, made by swifts of their own spittle, from the lofty roof of a great cave. Next (though I imagine my chronology is as flimsy as the ladder here) it occurred to him to eat the saliva nests. So tasty did he find them that a spit-nest-harvesting industry flourished in the cave and news of the delicacy spread all over Asia. Today we find ourselves in a world in which it is taken as perfectly normal that there should be airport shops (in this case in Kota Kinabalu) devoted to the sale of bird-spit-nests.

We are a strange, incomprehensible animal.

More mainstream airport shopping,
with a Bornean twist

This afternoon, post-airport and post-flight, I am again at Sepilok Nature Resort, awaiting the arrival of my second Sunda Clouded Leopard Quest group tomorrow. It is lovely to be here; to nest, however briefly. It is lovely, anywhere in the world, to be greeted by name by smiling staff. It is lovely to be met by the manageress with the words, 'It's nice to see you; you make the place lively.'

I think the word she was looking for is 'noisy'.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world (the cold side), in a nest I spent three months watching last spring, two precious white chicks hatched from dark tan eggs this morning. Congratulations to the staff and volunteers of the Hawk and Owl Trust and of Norwich Cathedral and most of all to our peregrine pair.

The first feed for two peregrine chicks in Norwich this morning,
image property of the Hawk and Owl Trust

The lovely gardens at Sepilok Nature Resort

Rarely-spotted

One of the thorns in my side when leaving India was not having seen a rusty-spotted cat on my Big Cat Quest. In theory it would have been possible to see one either in Satpura or around Gir but luck and park regulations were against me and I saw none.

It is surprising, when one fails to see a relatively rarely-seen animal, how many friends and clients pipe up with tales of their own encounters with it. One is caused to smile and congratulate, all the while seething with ugly envy.

I do not seethe, however, for Helen and Chris who are lovely folks. They travelled with me around Madagascar a couple of years ago and loved the lemurs as I love them myself. Now they find themselves joining me in Borneo for the start of my second Sunda Clouded Leopard Quest tomorrow.

Perhaps they will have the same luck in Kinabatangan with the flat-headed cat, and in Tabin with the Sunda clouded leopard, as they had in Satpura with the rusty-spotted cat. Selfishly I hope so.

Rusty-spotted cat by Helen Pinchin