Bornean banter and birds: Part 4 – Kinabatangan River, Sabah
- Denis Walls
- Oct 13
- 4 min read
Denis Walls | Convenor
Editor’s note: This is the fourth article in a series being published in Contact Call with permission of the author Denis Walls. It was originally published in Cairns Birders Newsletter, “The New Frogmouth” Number 24 of 13 June 2025.
Jennifer H Muir
The Kinabatangan River
The Kinabatangan River in Eastern Sabah has long been known as a biodiversity hotspot. But like all ‘hotspots’ that you’ve already visited, as we had, you worry that it might have become a bit ‘cooler’ due to clearing of the natural habitat and/or human impact. And it is true that, on the southern side of the river, there is more and more oil palm.
However, I am delighted to report that, thus far, the populations of Proboscis Monkey, seven species of hornbill, a small troop of Pygmy Elephants, as well as the storks, herons and kingfishers, seem to be doing okay based on the evidence and reports from our short stay.
We missed out on Orang Utan on the river, unlike the last time, but learned that they were thriving further down-river so it may simply have been a question of fruiting trees. This time we saw Orang Utan and Red Leaf Monkeys near the Gomantong Bat and Swift Caves prior to arriving at Kinabatangan.
Gua (meaning cave in Indonesian) Gomantong is the largest cave in a group of nine in the area, about 85 km from Sandakan, and the most important source of edible birds’ nests in Sabah. The dank, smelly cave is definitely not to everybody’s liking. I don’t mind cockroaches, although I wouldn’t have them for my dinner, and great clusters of them benefitting from the rich bat and swift droppings wouldn’t be on most people’s Bucket List!
It’s where David Attenborough famously stood in the guano when making one of his wonderful wildlife documentaries. Outside the raptors await – Crested Goshawk and Crested Serpent-Eagle were prominent. With flimsy ladders right up to the nests, the risks the locals take to collect them are extraordinary and the economic return small. Middlemen, as always, take most of the profit.
Birding at Kinabatangan entails being on a boat morning, afternoon and night with the number one target the Bornean Ground-Cuckoo, which we glimpsed after more than an hour of playback. We were lucky because we had seen it in 2007 when it was slightly easier to observe.
The overuse of playback deserves a separate article which I’ll leave for afterwards, but it is becoming a serious issue in the birding fraternity. With the increasing growth of birding as a new photographic ‘sport’ throughout Asia the checks and balances, imbued in most long term birders, are sadly missing. There’s money to be made and the bird must not only be seen but well photographed for tips and online ratings.
Now to hornbills! I’ve got to explain the love that Stella and I have for them. We shared our first abode on account of two Oriental Pied Hornbills! They were canoodling on a rooftop in Telok Intan in Perak, Peninsula Malaysia passing fruit to each other. This was the sign (sigh, how romantic) that I should give up my plum posting to Taiping (the city of peace) in northern Perak for the squalid settlement of Langkap, near Bidor, where Stella got her posting: both of us there as English language teachers spread throughout the country. All this and more features in our book ‘In Malaysia’ - an anecdotal and informative account of three and a half years spent in a Malay kampung – soon to be a major motion picture if only we could get a pair of bird-loving, gritty actors to play the parts!
Anyway, back to reality. Late afternoon is the best time to see Bushy-crested, White-crowned, Rhinoceros, Oriental Pied, Black, and Wrinkled Hornbills on the River with Wreathed flying overhead. Drool, drool.
Rhinoceros is a champion of course, and White-crowned is simply a bizarre-looking and difficult to find hornbill. The latter is actually the only one that’s carnivorous.
Most of the big hornbills require large territories, so it is a bit of a puzzle that so many species can survive and seemingly thrive in and around the river. In general, large hornbills like Rhinoceros, Wreathed, Wrinkled, and Helmeted (more on them next article) need big, untouched territories of around 60 sq km for roughly 50 pairs to survive, according to research in the Sepilok area. That is increasingly rare anywhere in Borneo and yet, in Kinatabangan, the birds are hanging on, at least for the moment.
We had to move on. As the Loving Spoonful said, “paradise is nice but you can’t stay there forever”. Little did they know that our final spot was even more of a paradise – Danum Valley. See you next time for the final instalment.
