Bornean banter and birds: Part 1
- Denis Walls
- Jun 13
- 4 min read
Updated: Jun 15
Denis Walls | Convenor
Editor’s note: The following article is the first in a series written by BirdLife Northern Queensland’s (BLNQ) new Convenor, Denis Walls. It was originally published in Cairns Birders Newsletter: The New Frogmouth Number 21 of 23 May 2025. Denis then kindly offered the series to BLNQ for publication in Contact Call. Here is Part 1…
Stella and I recently returned from over three weeks in Sarawak and Sabah in Malaysian Borneo. We joined Birdtour Asia on a tour run by our friends James Eaton and Rob Hutchinson. The last time we did this was in 2007, and the tour is now different with an extra week added for the wilds of Sarawak when previously just Sabah was covered.
The reason for this change is largely to do with the fact that the only place to see the scarce and extremely localised Black Oriole is up on a mountain at a hut called Paya Maga in eastern Sarawak.
Reaching Paya Maga involved getting porters and hiking 5 km, wearing gumboots and leech socks because of the thick, squelchy mud and stream crossings.
And here, in the photos below, is the charming pied a terre in which we found ourselves in Paya Maga, as well as how we got about.
It rained non-stop for one of the days we were there, but the photo of the Paya Maga hut and a Black Oriole perched in the mist proves their existence and allows us to claim a tick in our bird numbers. Not our style really, but quite an adventure I must say….
Actually, there were other targets on this trek – principally rare frogmouths (such as the extremely localised Dulit Frogmouth in the photo below), pittas, rainforest kingfishers, and the iconic Rail-babbler which I saw last year in Peninsula Malaysia.
We also ventured up to the remote village of Bakalalan, near the Indonesian border, on terrifyingly muddy and slippery roads.
Many of my photos of these forest locations are indifferent or non-existent with a bridging camera in poor and often crepuscular light. The backup photographic troops will be sending better ones in due course, I hope.
Species splitting is now rife in Borneo as elsewhere, and is enough to give you a splitting headache with most bird books already out of date. I’m sure this has much to do with nationalism or, in this case, regionalism. It’s Bornean this and Bornean that being added to many of the birds that were previously considered the same as the ones in Peninsula Malaysia. DNA may do that to you! But should it?
Above and below I’ve included a selection of some of the birds my bridging camera was capable of capturing to a reasonable degree, all seen in this first part of the trip.
I do love Trogons, not just because they are stunners but because they are usually quite obliging photo-wise.
Green Broadbill, Temminck’s Sunbird, Asian Paradise-flycatcher and Chestnut-backed Scimitar-Babbler are also bed-wetters.
And what about that Malay Civet which visited us at Paya Maga looking for chicken scraps?
Every return or lengthy stop required extensive leg and body examinations for leeches which don’t just get you from the ground, but like to drop down from passing vegetation, to leave you wondering who in the group has just knifed you because you blocked their view of the pitta.
There were six of us and Paul was the sanguinary leader with multiple bleedings, even under the armpits. I was mid-range only dripping copious amounts of blood on two major occasions. Some had no bites at all: funny how leeches seek out some and not others. They’re a great talking point and way to bond with other group members over your suffering, or while you bear resentment to those who escape the leeches’ bloody predations!
Like a thriller and to keep you in suspense, in my next episode, you’re going to see the pheasant to end all pheasants: which may replace the Resplendent Quetzal as my World Number 1. I’m gasping at the thought of it.
