SOUNDS OF SABAH
I was lucky enough to visit Sandakan in Sabah, Malaysia for a few days. South East Asia was where I started my career, and the forests of peninsula Malaysia created my first interest in wildlife sound recording, so I was very happy to be back in that beautiful part of the world. I managed to get two short days at a forest reserve not too far away and had the most wonderful experience I have had for a long time. I could not carry any heavy or bulky gear in my luggage but had slipped my Olympus LS10 into my bag and hoped that would be enough for whatever chance I might get. The results were not perfect but were passable; the toughest thing is hand-holding such a small machine to use the built-in mics, as they immediately pick up any movement of your hand.
The first morning saw me up and out in the dark to experience the new day dawning, I was buzzing with anticipation. The most noticeable thing in a tropical rainforest - apart from the vegetation is the plethora of sounds: insects, birds, mammals, amphibians and even the dripping of the vegetation itself. Here are a few moments as the early morning mist was rising off the canopy and the night-time condensation dripped off the leaves to the forest floor:
To my ears the forest itself really is like a living organism with each creature playing its special role to keep it all functioning properly. In that piece the buzz of insects was most noticeable along with the dawn chorus of the birds. But far away was the mournful call of the Bornean Gibbon (Hylobates meulleri), they make yelping calls which increase in speed until it reaches a small crescendo, not as impressive as some other gibbon species but still nice, you can hear the peak at about 18 seconds in this next piece, the sound carries over long distances and this group were probably 1km or more away from me:
All gibbon species in Asia have hauntingly beautiful songs.
It can be surprising just how far some sounds can carry across this dense vegetation, sometimes it is by design because if you are an animal which exists at low densities or has a large home range then you need to be able to advertise your presence to others of your species if you are to find a mate or warn off the competition. As I stood soaking up the sounds and the smells (at 32 deg C there are plenty of those too!) I heard two such species calling some distance away and decided to try and track them down to see if I could get close enough for a half-decent recording with my little machine.
The first was an Argus Pheasant (Argusianus argus), I had heard its short call - a ringing "kwow-wow" at regular intervals, so I trekked off in the general direction. I found a forest track which made the going easier and taking a guess at where it might be I slowed my pace and crept along as quietly as possible. Suddenly from my right I saw a large grey body move across the track about 20m ahead of me, at first I thought it was one of the large monitor lizards that are found here, but a second glance told me it was a male Argus Pheasant - bingo !
But now I was confused, I have seen glimpses of these before and usually that is all you get - a glimpse of a tail disappearing in the undergrowth, but this guy just stood there silently watching me. I slowly removed my backpack and got out my camera for a few shots, then slowly over the space of the next 10-12 minutes I edged forward a centimetre at a time - camera in one hand recorder in the other ! It must have been habituated by tourists or something because it let me get within about 5m of it and simply watched me. It was an amazing experience.
Next I heard two Rhinoceros Hornbills (Buceros rhinoceros) fly in right above my head - this was the second species I was hoping to capture. Now, these are large heavy birds with a stunning beak and head colours, their presence is detected by the call - a gruff strong "ger-ronk!" befitting something this solid, when perched it is shortened to a "wok" call. They settled in a tree above us so my attention now turned away from the silent pheasant now behind me to the hornbills above me. I have noticed in the past that Argus Pheasants seem to be stimulated to call by external noises - they will often call at approaching thunder for example. This one seemed to be stimulated by the Hornbills because suddenly it let loose behind, me nearly creating cardiac arrest (Warning: this next piece has a very loud call at 11s and 26s):
Rhinoceros Hornbill (photo SFC)
Now the “techo's” will know the recording of the two Argus calls was horrible as it was so loud it overloaded the recorder and is badly "clipped", but I wanted you to experience the shock I got being focused on Hornbills 20m above my head and suddenly having this guy yelling out behind me.
This was almost too much for my senses but the Argus continued to call and I finally got my levels turned down enough for a non-clipped recording, the Hornbills held their ground (or tree?) and continued calling:
Note that this is what is known as the "short call" of the Argus - it also makes an even more impressive "long call" which is an elongated version of this.
It was hard to know where to turn next with all this activity from two remarkable species, but the Hornbills got bored and went off giving their "ger-ronk" flight call, at the start of this next piece you can also hear the characteristic whistling of their wings as they took to flight, quite often this is the only sound you might hear if they fly overhead above the canopy:
People often say that more than half the battle for an interesting recording is getting yourself in the right place at the right time, and that more than half of that is down to luck, I guess I had a very healthy dose of the latter that day !
