In Bandar Seri Begawan (BSB) the capital of the oil-rich nation of Brunei, I stayed at the Empire Brunei, a huge hotel facing the sea. After concluding my meetings by 2pm, we set off for a hill called Bukit Patoi where there was a reserve. The only licenced professional guide in Brunei, Dave, had recommended it as he was unable to guide me. As a bonus we would be crossing one of the longest bridges in Asia, the Sultan Haji Omar Ali Saifuddien Bridge, all of 30km long over the sea and over the Labu forest area to get to it…..
Sultan Haji Omar Ali Saifuddien Bridge….spectacular drive over the water and through the Labu reserve
It took just under an hour to get to Bukit Patoi…
the main entrance and carpark looked promising….the garden was well laid out but there was nary a soul to explain where to go birding….I found trail no. 1 just behind the main building…but there was no indication of how long or how far the trail was….I set off up the hill at 4pm….there was birdsong a plenty but the thick canopy prevented any meaningful sightings…the path got increasingly steep and after about 20 min I arrived at a little mosquito infested hut which said I’d gone 403m and there was another 1.4km to get to the summit….I’d seen not a single bird till this point…. I bashed on for another 100m up a very steep hill and then realised if I went to the top, it would take nearly 1.5 hours and it would be getting dark soon thereafter…..wisely, I retreated and went back down to the garden around the entrance….for a while there was no activity…and I took to shooting butterflies!a flash of emerald greena pair of frisky Rajah Brook butterflies were spectacular
Around 5 pm, more bird song startd up and I saw some birds zipping about up high….
the only decent bird I saw that afternoon was this yellow breasted flowerpecker…high up among the leavesyellow breasted flower pecker
The rain then started and it got darker so I called it a day and headed back, very disappointed at the lack of birdlife….
I had a 930am flight the next morning so had about an hour after sunrise to walk around the golf course….the dawn light started around 545am…
dawn over The Empire BruneiJust about 5 minutes from the main hotel building next to the entrance to the hotel, is the 3rd hole tee…..just after this lakea few common yellow vented bulbuls appearedand as the sun came out, I noticed a few birds hopping around the golf course… I thought they were just sparrows ….a closer look showed what looked like a kingfisher!indeed it was a few collared kingfishers hopping around the course! I’m more used to seeing them up in the trees….Mr and Mrs Collared KF then posed for me….for a moment I wondered if the buff coloured loral spot meant they were Sacred KFs..but I guess there isn’t enough buff on the breast….Now what was that you said dear?lovely blue green huesa flock of egrets flew across the skythe moon looked quite pretty that early morningvery active were the white breasted wood swallows, here pairing up nicelywhite breasted wood swallowwhite breasted wood swallowperched overlooking the lake was this cattle egret…cattle egretsand on the water lily pads, this intermediate egret stood proudlyasian glossy starlingsa brilliant flash of blue and orange flew across the lake…a stork billed KF with its breakfastjuvenile glossy starlinglast bird of the morning was the oriental magpie robinso just an hour on the golf course yielded a few interesting birds…certainly more ROI on time spent compared to Bukit Patoi the day before!
Whilst most nature lovers flock to Sabah and Sarawak in Borneo, I believe that the birding with a local guide should yield some interesting species…..next time I’ll be better organised and spend a few days hunting down the Bornean Bristlehead!
The Natural Traveller 