In the grounds of Tabin Wildlife Resort, in fact dominating the entrance to the communal dining area, is a fruit laden tree. It is positively alive with wildlife of all kinds. This morning at 6am (we’re getting used to these early starts), twenty Rhinoceros Hornbills were feasting on the bounty, flipping the small red fruits into the air to deftly catch them with their enormously impressive bill. Around them a horde of bulbuls and bluebirds fed, gulping down the acorn sized fruit whole. A gibbon swung by, to secure his breakfast, and a black squirrel scurries up and down the branches to pick the choicest offerings. Beneath, the wooden decking is littered with discarded pulp and fallen berries which act as a magnet for butterflies of several kinds. So much life from a single tree.
The tree at Tabin is literally the focal point for the guests here who gather in the early morning to snap away at the birds. Apparently at another tree further along the entrance track, people sit there all day on picnic chairs, when it is fruiting, just waiting to see what turns up. The local guides here have already spotted 40 species in our particular tree, so in some respects there is little need to explore further. But we have been exploring this forest quite a bit and have seen so much; too much to mention in this short blog scribbled in a snatched few minutes between excursions.
It is though wet here in Tabin, very wet. You arrive soaking with sweat, you get soaked as you walk through the punctual afternoon rains and you melt within minutes of showering due to the high humidity. I look down at my shorts to see them soaked, and no, it’s not what you think! It is the sweat transferred from my wrists that naturally rest there as we drive around. Everything sticks to you and you seem to live in a state of permanent discomfort. But you know what? You get used to it and just crack on.
Let’s get back to that tree shall we? You could almost call it the tree of life, because it is the lifeblood to so many creatures. As the predictable rain fell this afternoon, I watched vividly coloured Asian Fairy Bluebirds tussle with Puff-backed Bulbuls over the choicest fruit, while huge Rhinoceros Hornbills bounced from branch to branch overhead. A Red-eared Barbet added exotic colour and some frustrating green thing tazzed around refusing to give a good view. The birds, squirrels and gibbons will do their bit to spread the seeds of the tree far and wide ensuring that another generation of fruit bearing monoliths grace this beautiful forest for another generation of humans to enjoy. If it survives. For this treasured island of greenery is but a remnant of what once must have been a truly amazing swathe of unbroken forest stretching across the whole of the island of Borneo. Sadly, most of the forest has been destroyed to make way for depressingly monotonous palm oil plantations. How many billions of creatures have been displaced and destroyed thanks to the unrelenting demand for this ultimately useless vanity product is beyond calculation. My goodness will man never, ever learn?
Playing catch-up! I want our next catch up to be by that tree! What a sight the hornbills must have been!
It was impressive and some people do really get out the deck chair and sit and watch the tree all day. There was a similar, maybe the same, tree in our hotel grounds in Honolulu and that too attracted lots of birds – sadly non native.