tree climbing and bird watching

We have to do a project for the tropical ecology field course I'm taking.  I've always wanted to learn about birds but have never really motivated to do it, so I though I could use this opportunity to work on my birding skills.  Brian is really pretty good with birds and was game to work on this with me, so I even have a tutor!

We've been birdwatching from different locations in primary and secondary forests and will see if there's a difference in the number or type of species in these two habitats.  A great way to bird around here at the Danum Valley Field Center is to use observation platforms to get up above the canopy.  It's amazingly hard to see things from the ground here...

Here's a look at a platform in primary forest.  This one is about 30m up, and you climb ladders attached to the tree to get to it.  

The view once you're up is amazing.  Yesterday, we were up to the top by 6am to catch the sunrise.  I think if you were good at identifying birds by call, this would be a fantastic time to be up in the platform.  There's little overlap between AK and Borneo, so Brian didn't know many of the calls, and I was way out of my league trying to id by sound.

The next platform we hit was in secondary forest. Climbing was a trip!  There was the same system of ladders attached to the tree, but the tree has grown so much the rungs are pretty useless in most places!  Roman fixed some ropes for us in case we slipped, so it's a-ok to give it a go.  Here's a look, I'm standing on the rungs of the ladder cage:

and here's Brian working his way up

We didn't see many birds, which was a bit surprising as this was a nice riparian corridor in primary forest.  Maybe we just hit a bad day?  Anyways, we did see a really cool snail and this lizard.  he's an agamid, they're the big diurnal lizard group in old world tropics.

So now on to the next tree...  Roman, our professor, rigged this big Koompassia excelsa for us.  These are the beautiful tall Dipterocarp trees with very smooth, almost white bark and no lower limbs.  The smooth bark and no lower limbs help keep them from getting covered in vines.  They're a climax species here, and pretty typical for southeast Asian rainforests.

Once Roman had the ropes up, Brian and I could jug our way up to see birds.  Pretty sweet.  Here's a view up the ropes to the canopy.  We saw some black-headed bulbuls, a black eagle, a serpent eagle, some sort of spidercatcher, a lot of little brown birds, and... an asian fairy bluebird!  (here's a link w. a pic, but it doesn't do justice)  

Here's Brian.  He had the shady side of the tree, but that's ok by me as it meant battling some brush with possible snakes/bees/nasties...  fortunately there were only a few ants.

and here's me on the sunny side of the tree.  It's finally not raining!