Danum Valley, Borneo.
When I caught the van to Danum Valley I luckily chatted with one of the research assistance who informed me of some recent photo trapping that had uncovered a wild Rhinoceros. A few months later the Rhinoceros was caught and being thoroughly tested and hopefully breading stock with females in captivity. The idea is find a female that doesn’t have ovarian cysts which seems to run in captive Rhinos. One way or the other this boy is going to breed. The idea is to let the female back into the wild with this male and hope they raise a kid together. There is already a Rhino enclosure that is 5 square kilometers and will house the rhino, his girl, and the baby to come.
The next thing I hear about is night-photographers out searching for ‘flying frogs’ and glowing mushrooms. I pull into the hostel, which is cheap in comparison to the options and I go out to have a bottle of water on the porch. Across the street before me is a young female Orangutan. She’s sitting looking at me before she moves on down the street to some of her ripening fruit or flowering fruit trees. I’m staying with travelling scientists and research assistants on grounds at a hostel style curtained bunk blocks. I had one by myself. I followed ‘Bongo’ down the hill and took a few pictures of her eating fruit and blossoms.
I started out pretty slow by just doing the nature walks and trails. The middle of the days is stiflingly hot and humid. But under the canopy out of the sun it’s considerably cooler. The river has a small beach for the locals to cool off as long as the rains don’t raise the river by a meter and make it quite dangerous. The mornings and the evenings are the best time to see animal activity. I was getting up at 6 am to catch up on the World Cup in Brazil and got to watch the US play against Ghana. Good win for the boys. Good luck against Portugal.
I took a night jeep out down the road one night and we saw a Leopard Cat and a Civet cat sitting on a tree trunk and didn’t seem to worried about our spot lights but photos were lame.
The following day I wandered out to a tree platform that is about 100 feet up a ladder. It’s not an easy climb but totally worth it. The view of the canopy and above is spectacular. When I returned there was a bearded pig on the hostel lawn eating grass, Macaques crossing the road, and Hornbills flying overhead. It was another amazing scene before sunset.
Found some deer on education centers front lawn. They were rather skittish so I couldn't get to close.
Bearded Pig
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