Saturday, October 24, 2009

Walking the Old Logging Trail in Lambir 18th October

Surprising for a place just outside Lambir Hills National Park, which was logged before could still hold some interesting wildlife. Everytime we walked the trails here, we see numerous marks left by the critters that frequents these trails almost without fail.

Birdlife along the tracks isn't all too bad either. Bear in mind, sometimes it is better to view birds in open places such these. It's a wooded area with ample open sections which is great for viewing wildlife. It's brighter, birds more visible on perches. We've spotted three species of malkoha, a couple species of raptor, barbets, broadbills, treewifts, beeaters, crows and other smaller sunbirds.

The elevation is similar to Lambir Hills NP, rising up gently to a maximum of 200m to a ridge and tapers down gently again to the flat swamps of Pantu Buri. From the top of the ridge, Lambir summit is visible in all it's glory. Several places afford fantastic views of the summit.

Along the way to the ridge, there's verdant secondary forests, and in some place a few tall old growths. These sometimes are important perches.

What's more amazing is the number of animal tracks present in the area. So far we've seen deer tracks, wild boars, small and medium sized feline, viverides and mustelids. We even saw sunbear tracks there several times, this was confirmed by local people living near the area.

It's evident that the animals do not respect park boundaries, they don't know any better. Their traditional foraging grounds may have well been outside the park. By instinct they follow the usual route. Secondary logged over forest could still be important areas for these creatures as far as securing food is concerned. Existence of such buffer zones outside could very well be important in securing the life of these animals within the protected area itself.

Our latest finds:

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