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On the way to town

7/16/2014

Yesterday, while walking to town for internet access with Warren, we came across two critters of note.

The first is a buffy fish owl. We saw it on the way to town, but I just had my macro lens and no big flash. However, I was able to get a pretty cool shot of it diving from its perch for prey (which it caught).

So we kept on a little bit and this character was by the road...

At about four and a half feet and thick-bodied, this was a decent sized snake. It did not like the attention and as soon as we saw each other it buggered off

So on the way back from town, I took a look at the owl perch and there he was again. So I went and got a proper lens and flash for such things, and here is a fine pic of a buffy fish owl.

Buffy fish owl with a rat in its talons

And so just a walk to town can be quite fun here. Tonight on my way to post these blog entries, another snake was encountered and hope to get that up tomorrow. Soon there may be a day here and there without a post as I have some night work to do, but will post as much as I can when I can.

Guano happens

7/16/2014

So, this cave is full of bats and birds. What do they do? Well, poop a lot. Most of it falls on the floor inside of the tourist trail, some of it falls on the tourist trail, and some of it falls on me and my camera while I am trying to photograph the place. Fun stuff.

So let's have a look at a few of the many things that live on the floor, relying on the nutrient-rich rainfall, so to speak.

This little golden cockroach is mostly only found under the big colonies of wrinkle-faced bats. It is kind of a neat little thing burrowing in the guano

This is the larval form of some insect, which I hope to determine later. It is so cool as it takes the broken up plates from the insect exoskeletons and glues them to its back for camoflage and a kind of body armor. It will use other things, but the ones like this one are the coolest looking

I think this is a fungal gnat, but this is Borneo and there are things here I need time to work out

A 2mm long spider. Now that is one itsy bitsy spider

There are tens of thousands of cockroaches in the caves here. When they molt, they come out of their shell as a whitish yellow. Males have wings, females do not

A beetle that is common in some parts of the cave and absent in others. Maybe this is the adult of the larva I previously posted?

A parasite. This could be something groomed off of a bat or a bird

There is of course a lot more, but this is a start

The missing room

7/16/2014

Today's mission was to traverse across a steep slope 150 feet off the floor to view one of the last two areas of Simud Hitam that we have not been able to either visit or have our LiDAR laser mapping machine see from some vantage point. So, let's get right to that bit with a couple pics of the traverse.

Manfred sitting at the main rig point while Guy makes his way across.

Guy looking for a second rebelay to rappel down to the saddle

Almost there... and then he was and rigged a tie-off so the traverse is now rigged and safe to bring the laser scanner over and map that area of the cave. That should happen soon. And all the corrugated metal sheets are so that if anyone tries to sneak in they will make a lot of noise and wake the guards.

Life is the Pits (part 2)

7/15/2014

After finding all the entrances, we headed back down the hill and into the hortizontal part of the cave to look at things from the bottom of the pit. The idea was to line up what we saw on the surface with what we could see from the bottom.

A different angle from a shot I put up a yesterday. And, now we get to play "spot the caver." Because these are just test shots, and Guy was wearing a photographer's nightmare dark green, we get to have a fun game. The entrance you can see up high is the same one from Part 1 of Life is the Pits

A waterfall of golden cockroaches

We found one truly amazing site at the bottom of the giant guano pile, a waterfall of cockroaches! The guano pile is so steep that it is just about ready to landslide, which is called the angle of repose. When the cockroaches burrow around in it, the physics changes and it slips downhill. Here on the upper left the roaches are cascading into a giant heap, they then work their way down and to the right, and those are highways of roached heading back up on the right. The video is amazing.

An easier version of "spot the caver"

Getting late here, so I will end with a butterfly from the visitor's center

Borneo is for butterfly lovers

Life is the pits

7/15/2014

Today's mission was working with Guy van Rentergem, an engineer from Belgium. He is the project cartographer and videographer among other things. Today he needed to locate some of the pit entrance up on the hill above Simud Hitam and I agreed to go along and take pictures and help out as I could.

Guy at work

We headed up top to see what was what. The hill is pretty darn steep, but there are trails and in a number of places wooden ladders and rope handlines. The trails are well-maintained because the bird nests are so valuable that there are guards at every entrance year round.

Working our way up the hill on a steep trail

And there are a couple giant King Kong gates to keep out nest thieves

Near the top of the hill were the entrances we were interested in. They dropped into both the entrance passage and the bit pit in Simud Hitam. The views were spectacular, with the giant open air pit and the swiftlets flying around and small waterfalls. World class beautiful. Very hard to photograph with the sun hitting some spots and deep shade in others. But I did what I could.

One of the openings to the big pit. I'm guessing that this opening is about 200 feet above the floor

One of the waterfalls had a rainbow effect going on. Guy was making videos of all the things we saw today, and he got some very good footage today

Careful when you grab that video recorder Guy, that spider is in the Hunstman family

I still don't have a decent shot of the male, but my shot of the female white-crowned shama worked

I'm going to break this into two posts so as not to make any one post too huge. I'll end with a random pic.

How about another orangutan sighting! This youngster and its mama were eating the fruits off the vines. They were very hard and you could really hear it crack when they bit into it

Let's go to the caves!

7/14/2014

Gomantong Caves consist primarily of two caves, each with a horizontal entrance and quite a lot of pit entrances up high. For the last two days I have been mapping the colonies of bats and birds that roost on the walls and ceiling of the lower cave, Simud Hitam (Black Cave). We are just trying to figure out how much stuff is living up there.

I am also working on figuring out which bats live where in the cave. In a big cave with very high ceilings, the way to do this is to spend a lot of time in the cave under the roosts and wait for a dead or dying bat to fall to the floor. Yes, where there is life there is death, and here it provides us an easy way to know what's up there.

So a few photos from my trip to the cave today, where I was happily wandering around solo with my lights, big flash and camera, and a ton of gear in my pack (it weighs about 20 pounds for this type of work).

We arrived at the visitor center and unlike a lot of cave trips, already had all our things ready to go. However, there was very nice bird sitting on a lamppost in the parking lot so it got some attention.

Crested serpent eagle at the Gomantong Caves visitor center

That would have been enough, and time for caves, when the monkeys started jumping around just down the road so I went over to photograph them.

The ever-so-beautiful red leaf monkey

And that would have been enough, and time for the caves, when the orangutans were spotted!

Baby orangutan heading over to mom. She was eating a durian fruit and the baby would come over and get a bite every once in a while. It was wonderful to see

So unless an elephant was going to walk by, it was time for the caves. What a great start to the day, though.

The walk from the visitor's center to the longhouse at the commercial cave's entrance is a boardwalk through great forest with lots of wildlife

The main entrance to Simud Hitam, the black cave, so named for the many black-nest swiftlets that roost here

This is a test photo for a pic I am working on. The pit you are looking at the bottom of is 85 meters deep. The little hut in the cave is a guard shack to protect the nests from being stolen. They had a theft attempt just yesterday but they caught them as I understand it

Often cited as the tallest guano pile in the world, this extends up and into the darkness for a long ways. I know, that isn't helpful but the guy with the actual height is back at camp. I will update with exact height soon. I think it is well over 100 feet high

A look at a small portion of the ceiling with a telephoto lens. The dark blots are bats, mostly in the genus Hipposiderus. The grayish masses are swiftlet net colonies.

Okay, so finally some cave shots. But that's all I have time for tonight. I leave you with a blue fly or bee of some sort.

A very cool-colored insect heading in to a flower

Return of the blog!!!!

7/13/2014

When I last had internet, we were leaving KK and flying to Sandakan. That happened, and then we drove to the small village of Sukau where we are lodged at the Greenview Bed and Breakfast.

The jungles of Borneo, also known as oil palm plantations. Yes, much of the jungle is gone to palm plantations, and it is sad to see endless palms from the air

A traffic jam on the way to Sukau

Our happy home that we share with a few tourist types and most of the world's mosquito population

Okay, that gets us to a reasonably comfy basecamp compared to many I've been in. We Have electricity and even air conditioning, a hot water shower (lacking at the King Park hotel in KK) and breakfast and dinner served up hot. It's not really in the forest at all, so very limited as to what I might be able to get out and see at night, but that's what it is.

And how and why am I just at this moment posting away again? Okay, there is WiFi at the Greenview, but so far between the seven of us we were able to get one website to load. No hope and can't even get email out. I have very low end data service there and so every once in a while some email comes in and I can read it.

We tried everything we could and there just wasn't any way to get decent internet. Then, Joe, the guy who runs the place sorta mentioned that there is fast, 24hour free WiFi in Sukau! Um, maybe he could have said something sooner, but for now it seems like a simple 15-minute walk will allow me to post.

So, Warren Roberts and I walked down after dinner, sat down outside this locked and closed building and there it was, fast internet. I will try to find out more about this as it is a wonderful benefit to the people here.

But we sure didn't sit long before the kind gentleman across the street invited us into his home to sit in his outer room and use our computers. He was heading right off to Mosque and I hadn't even time to catch his name! Safi is here and there are three young girls (a pic of Warren and the girls next time I get back here. The prayers are continuing and I am down to 30 minutes of battery time, but really want to meet my host!

Okay, let me post a few pictures from my first night walk, which was just around the Greenview and along the road.

A yellow weevil in the garden

When I was fearing very slow internet I made up some quite small size pictures to try and get anything up. I am going back to my usual size from here on out.

Cute wasp under a palm frond

A large grasshopper have a late night snack

Just one more as my battery is almost dead. Yes, we have started work in the cave and hopefully get in some cave pics next chance I can get to town. Will try to get in most nights but can't promise as we are very busy.

A bird! It was sleeping until I came along. I haven't had a minute to look it up yet but will update with a name soon

Signal Hill Observatory Tower

7/10/2014

I took a walk this afternoon over to the Signal Hill Observatory Tower (platform) where a nice view of KK can be had. Saw a few things along the way. One of the cool bits was to find this massive swarm of swifts or swiftlets over a building. It was about 3:30 in the afternoon, and they were just zipping about.

Swifts or swiftlets whirling around

And then, but keeping my eyes open, and up, I discovered some mossy-nest swiftlets nesting under an overhang. I will have much more to say about these birds once we get busy in the caves, where they typically roost, but for now...

Mossy-nest swiftlets nesting under a cement building overhang. By looking closely at the upper right side of the nest, you can see a big gob of goo that they use to glue the nest to the wall and keep it together. Of note, that goo is bird spit

Another nest. In total I saw about five nests in two different locations

So wait, what? Actually pictures of animals? Yes, I will soon get away from the travel pics and down to business, but there just isn't all that much wildlife in KK. However...

An olive-winged bulbul spotted on the trail up to the Observatory platform

And...

A beautiful skink of some sort. I had a look around but don't have an ID on it yet

So, will there be actual animal photos posted on this blog you might ask? Yes, there should be lots once we get out of the travel phase, with hopefully a lot of cave life included.
And, while walking up the hill through the forest I did come across the first mammal of the trip! I froze as it approached and got a wonderful shot of this feline...

A real jungle cat! The fierce and intense look of the eyes, the long whiskers for accurate prey catching, the fangs just slightly visible, and the fierce "meow" it said as I passed it.

Which of course brings me to what should be the money shot from the walk, the awesome view of the town from the hill. I leave it to you to judge how awesome the view is.

KK is a nice city with lots of growth going on. And of note, there are 11 cranes visible in the photograph

I like KK and enjoy the town. I've never taken any of the multitude of tours available from here, but that is why most folks visit. Nice town, nice people, and apparently good tours to be had.

But for the Gomantong Caves team, tomorrow we fly out of here and get ever closer to the caves we wish to be in.

First bat sighting, well-photographed bats, and dinner

7/10/2014

Last night we saw our first bat, flying around a palm tree in a median strip. Watched it for a while and then headed to dinner. And here are the well-photographed bats...

I loved the bats on this car, so asked if I could take a picture of it. Note the parking ticket.

Look, I never said the bats photographed were the same as the first bat sighted! Let's not jump to conclusions here. Also, there is something else interesting going on in this picture. If you don't see it, I will explain at the end of this entry.

So we went to dinner at one of these places where you walk around a bunch of aquariums and point out what you would like to eat for dinner. They have a wide selection including various fish, shrimp, crabs, geoduck, snails, etc. Then you sit down and they go and cook it and bring it out to the table where everyone shares so you get to try a lot of things.

One of the aquarium restaurants. This is not the one we ate at but one far easier to photograph

It was a feast

Walking back to the hotel we saw these odd lights in the median strip trees. They didn't just stay one color, but the colors constantly changed. Seemed odd.

Mysterious changing lights in trees

And as promised, the answer to the interesting bit in the first picture. If you look at the reflection in the windshield, you will see a halo around the sun. Here is a better photo of it.

A 22-degree halo in KK

This is generally called a 22-degree halo because the halo extends 22-degrees out from the sun. This can also happen with the moon or other situations as well. It forms when you have very small ice crystals high up, like maybe eight miles up, and they act on the light either like a mirror or prism. It's a very cool effect and can last for hours.

A little sneak preview

7/9/2014

This expedition is in part to continue the laser mapping of the Gomantong Caves. I will explain more about that once we get there and start actually doing that, but here is a look at some of the results from the 2012 expedition when this project got started.

It is best viewed with high-speed internet. Sit back and enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fYU0Z3dnM0