Four weeks of hot and humid travel through the Sabah and Sarawak provinces of Malaysia on the island of Borneo provided opportunities to photograph extreme rarities such as Argus pheasant, Bornean peacock pheasant, Bornean bristlehead and Whitehead’s broadbill. Wallace’s flying frogs, proboscis monkeys, reticulated pythons, Bornean slow loris’ and carnivorous pitcher plants are some of the species that Rand Rudland had hoped to see on this unforgettable natural history trip that had been twice-delayed by COVID. The biodiversity of this three-country island is under heavy pressure due to the enormity of the oil palm industry, heavy logging, mostly for export, and illegal land clearing for farming, but fortunately there is a reasonable network of preserves, national parks, and protected areas where at-risk species are hanging on to their existence.
Join Rand, a retired local physician and an avid naturalist, for a photographic journey through the parks, forests and rivers of Sabah and Sarawak at the Sunshine Coast Natural History Society first monthly meeting of 2023 at the Sechelt Arts Centre on Oct. 6 at 7 p.m.
