Happy New Year everyone! I can’t believe it’s 2023. 2022 went by quickly for me, with some significant life milestones. I graduated from university and started my first full-time job in the sustainability sector. At the end of the year, I was grateful to have the opportunity to visit Sarawak. Sarawak is a beautiful, relatively quiet state in Malaysia located in northwest Borneo island. It is bordered by Sabah, the Indonesian part of Borneo, Kalimantan, and Brunei, a state in the north. I stayed at Kuching, the capital city of Sarawak, along the serene and peaceful Sarawak river. Kuching is a small city, with a population of around 400,000.
The people of Sarawak were very welcoming, warm, and friendly. The culture of the state is strongly tied to indigenous traditions, as Dayak people, an ethnic group native to Borneo constitute around 60% of the country’s population.
The symbol of the Rhinoceros hornbill was ubiquitous across the city, seen in tourist souvenirs, statues, batik art, street decorations and even on river boats, reflecting the state’s appreciation for this elusive bird. Unfortunately, we did not see the hornbill during the trip as it is more common to see them in Sabah. I wish Singapore used more of our unique wildlife from Oriental Pied Hornbills, Otters and Straw-headed bulbuls in our tourist advertisements, souvenirs and street designs.
We visited two national parks during our stay – Kubah National Park and Bako National Park. We arranged for a birding tour with Borneo Birding Tours at Kubah National Park, which specializes in bird tours around Borneo. Our birding guide was Mr Yeo Siew Teck, who is an amazing Sarawakian conservationist whose knowledge and understanding of birds that was inspiring to witness as much as the birds themselves. He was able to mimic many bird calls and deftly identified birds in flight and with their silhouette or call alone. If you are planning a trip to Borneo or live there, please do reach out to the company. I thoroughly enjoyed the birding tour!
Mr Yeo’s journey in birding spans 20 years. He discovered his love for nature after guiding a group of Taiwanese nature enthusiasts and awakened to the beauty of the natural world through binoculars (much like my own story of discovering my passion for the environment). Since then, he has developed all-round expertise in Borneo’s organisms and made important contributions to biodiversity conservation. He helped find a new species of pitcher plant Nepenthes appendiculata, and was the first person to record the sound of a rare, fossorial frog species – Gastrophrynoides borneensis. In Singapore, he also made the first sighting of the Brown Wood Owl at Pulau Ubin in 2007.
Below are some of the incredible bird species we spotted. Most of them were new species for me. We saw around 42 bird species in total!
Thank you to Mr Yeo for this fruitful birding experience! I enjoyed seeing the birds as well as learning from Mr Yeo’s wealth of knowledge on Borneo wildlife and birding experiences around the world. It inspired me to continue birding and foster a deeper appreciation for birds through learning more about their behaviour and how to identify them.
I also had the chance to visit Semenggoh Nature Reserve, Sarawak’s largest orangutan rehabilitation centre where we were fortunate to see two semi-wild orangutans, which are Borneo’s endangered species. These orangutans partially depend on the food provided by humans and are used to human encounters, but they still live in the wild. It was absolutely incredible to see these intelligent creatures up close and observe their natural behavior. They displayed their dexterous climbing and swinging ability while moving between the trees. Seeing how they savored the fruits was also lovely.
Thank you for reading this blogpost! Wishing you all a happy, healthy and peaceful 2023. May you be gifted with resilience, strength and many amazing nature experiences 🙂
My Nature Experiences 
What an amazing trip! I’m glad that you were able to go, and to see so many amazing birds! 😊
Also, congrats on your graduation, and on getting your first full-time job!
Hi Josh, it’s so nice to hear from you! Happy New Year to you and your loved ones 😊 Thanks so much for reading this post. I was so happy I could visit Sarawak and felt really lucky to see the incredible wildlife and explore some of the country’s forests. Hope you are doing well!
Really a treat to see these birds at Kubah National Park, thank you. Nice to see the orangutans, too.
Hi Jet, thank you so much for reading my blog! So glad you liked it 😊 I’m sure you would love Sarawak if you made a visit there!