Back in Cebu City

Well, we're back in Cebu City in the Philippines after a successful two weeks in Borneo. We pretty much struck out on the mega rarities but still saw about 160 species including about 110 lifers. Best bird was probably the Garnet Pitta I was able to whistle into close range. We also saw six species of hornbills including the super Rhinocerous Hornbill and the hard to find White-crested Hornbill. We got quite a few babblers and bulbuls but did poorly on trogons, woodpeckers and raptors. We completely missed the Whitehead's trio at Mount Kinabalu. All in all it was a great trip and we came in under budget spending about $1400 for the two weeks. I'll file a complete trip report with pics when we get back to the states in three weeks.

Next up will be a day trip to Olongo Island next week to look for shorebirds. After that we'll make a trip to Bohol to visit Raja Sikatuna National Park to look for some of the endemics like Yellow-breasted Tailorbird and Streaked Ground-babbler we have missed on past trips. I'm armed with calls this time so maybe we'll do better.

Hello from the jungles of Borneo

We've been here in Borneo for only four days and so far have seen 101 species of birds including 63 lifers. And I've only had to suffer four leech bites. The biggest one was a two inch tiger leech our boatman removed from my neck. It took about half an hour to stop the bleeding. We spent three days at Sepilok Forest Edge Resort which has some a great trail through the forest and two days at Robert Chong's Kinabatangan Jungle Camp. Our sightings include six species of hornbills, two pittas, six babblers and lots of other good stuff. We also have seen seven species of primates including Orangutan aand Bornean Gibbon. We'll post some pics later. Tomorrow we're off to Poring Hot Springs for more great birds. Selemat tinggal.