Kinabalu Park and Birds at Silau-Silau Trail

Borneon (Lesser) Green Magpie showed up that morning during short walk along Silau-Silau Trail in Kinabalu Park. Looked like there were three (3) rings attached to both its legs - two on the left and one on its right leg.

A second Borneon Green Magpie with untagged legs flew in and joined this tagged Green Magpie later on. Whitish eyes of these pair of Magpies really stand out. This is an endemic bird of Borneo, found only in this part of the world which made this sighting extra special for me. I've been to Kinabalu Park only once before many years ago with the Bird Group from Malacca and Negeri Sembilan. Only had Pocket Guide to Birds of Borneo and Handbook of Kinabalu Park with me. EBird and the availability of Blogs have really changed the birdwatching (and bird listing) landscape! Also spotted along Silau-silau trail was this Borneon Treepie below and Square-tailed Drongo Cuckoo. The Ochraceous Bulbul perched on a branch for a while and flew off before I could snap a picture of it. A flock of laughingthrush species were out and about, gregarious and hardly stayed still.

The flowing stream along Silau-Silau trail added to the tranquility and beauty of flora and fauna. The pink flowering plant in the picture above reminded me of the ones that I have seen before in Fraser Hill, Peninsular Malaysia. We were at montane level in Silau-silau trail.

One of the laughingthrush that I could manage to capture with my camera, below:-

Mount Kinabalu as viewed from the town of Nabalu, our first stop before reaching Kinabalu Park.

Homes on the base of Mount Kinabalu and the signboard welcoming visitors to Nabalu town, Kota Belud, Sabah. I've never climbed to the summit of Mount Kinabalu before so I can only just imagine how the view of these homes all lighted up, would look like from the summit at dawn or dusk.