birds of likas lagoon

15th - 18th june 2008

visited likas lagoon since last sunday until thursday with karim to practiced in getting sharper image with my digiscoping kit. out of 1600 frames, only around 20 frames considered good enough to have a place in my hard disk hahaha :p

main reason for not getting sharper image because of the heat haze (start shooting around 9am) and and i need to replace my aluminium tripod with carbon fibre for better control in vibration like gitzo or benro :)

some of my shot and digiscoped with nikon fieldscope ED82, srb-griturn Mk II adapter and fujifilm f31d

purple heron around 100 metre

intermediate egret

wandering whistling duck

white-browed crake

read more from my blog birders of borneo

happy birding and digiscoping :)

text and photos by jason bugay reyes

Sumatran Rhinocerous

sumatran rhinocerous
Originally uploaded by horukuru

This Sumatran Rhinoceros was photographed at Lok Kawi wildlife park. May be not many of you know how vulnerable this species are. Presumably In Borneo itself, there are less than 15 individual left in the wild. This one at the wildlife park was lost her horn and blind. Which makes her cannot survive in the wild. The Sabah Wildlife Department and also some NGOs such as WWF doing a hard work now in order to save these special mammal from extinction. If we don't do anything now, our children may not have a chance to see this special creature.

Photography: Jason B. Reyes
Text: Jollence Lee

Sabah Harvest Festival

Sabah(North Borneo) has a diverse culture. Its has about 32 different ethnic group of people and more than 88 spoken dialect. Despite this many different cultures and tribes, they share the same type of festival(Harvest festival) which is now they celebrated it together also unite them.

The tribes believed that many many years ago, their God "Kinoingan" has saved the people from starvation by sacrificing his only daughter "Huminodun" by turning her into food. Her finger become ginger, her leg into tapioca and also turn her into rice. This belief has been pass down through generations. After every harvest they normally will perform a ritual, calling back the rice spirit. They believed that every rice has a spirit and when they harvest and cut the rice, it will hurt the rice. So they perform the ritual.

Every month of May after finish harvesting the rice, they will celebrate this harvest festival. That is where they will gather together in one place to eat and have their rice wine. During the event also they will have a various competitions such as blow pipe competition, drinking rice wine, catapult, stilt walking race and also "Unduk Ngadau" which very much like a beauty contest where they will choose a young lady to represent "Huminodun". She must have a native blood, any of the Sabah tribes to join it.

Be sure to visit Sabah and witness this colorful event. It is something not to be missed.

Here some photos for you to see:

Photography and text by : Jollence Lee