Tuesday, March 14, 2006
It's Raining, It's Pouring...
The rains are back with a vengeance today. That means more leeches of course, but to be honest i'm getting used to them crawling on me. Obviously you want to keep them where you can see them (there is an infamous story here about how one of the current Rangers had to help a panicked lady trekker in removing a leech from a "very personal" area of her body...) but now i've seen how they move and usually hunt down your warm spots before starting to suck, i can see how people might get quite fond of them.
Like Karen tonight - she happily let one start to suck on her thumb and decided to let it have a little drink. After 15 minutes she thought she'd better try to ease it off (with a little hairspray loosener) and now has a very fetching bandage on it. Gila girl... (that's Malay for Crazy, btw).
Nick threw a sicky today - his hand was trodden on my Aman's studs last night during our Footie kickaround and has swollen up a bit. He reckons he wouldn't be able to hold a broom properly. Bless... That left just Vicky and I to carry the Group banner today.
No Rosali at work either today, so Outdoor Nursery with Dusain was very quiet - a few bananas and sugar cane to the store, a sweep of the slippery wet feeding platform and then some peace and quiet at The Office.
After that we spent some more observation time at the feeding platform, mostly in bright sunshine between the showers, and were rewarded with a visit by all 3 of the big males - Mr.G, Mariko and Grand Boy. On top of that Miskam and her baby Mais made a flying visit.
On the way back we bumped into Sylvia and a crowd of botanists who were marking and cataloging different species of plants and trees in preparation for a new guided trail they are planning to construct. We tagged along with them and learnt plenty of facts, i especially liked the plant whose bark you can dry out and burn like incense to ward off evil spirits (!!) and a won't forget a plant called Laparde in a hurry; in WWII it's fruit was given by the locals to poison Japanese troops who had treated them badly!
Talking of poisons, we found another smaller Viper near the walkway and we also noticed that the original one now had a bit of a lump half way down it's length - so it probably wasn't too hungry any more...
Grabbed a quick coffee with the group before lunch and found out that one of them was the chief botanist for the whole of Sabah! Amazing who you meet here...
Despite the rains they also wanted some photos taken of all 28 tagged species, so after lunch i went with a Ranger, Beddy, and Karen to capture the images they wanted.
This included the biggest single-leafed plant in the world (or something like that)...
The route took us right past the feeding platform once again (more observation!) and then on through the Outdoor Nursery just as Osama (yes, honstly...) and Miko, who are almost inseperable, came walking past.
Managed to grab a few more cute shots of the "specimens" there too of course... ;-)
Quiet night in tonight, all of us getting a little spooked by "The Forgotten" on DVD...
Like Karen tonight - she happily let one start to suck on her thumb and decided to let it have a little drink. After 15 minutes she thought she'd better try to ease it off (with a little hairspray loosener) and now has a very fetching bandage on it. Gila girl... (that's Malay for Crazy, btw).
Nick threw a sicky today - his hand was trodden on my Aman's studs last night during our Footie kickaround and has swollen up a bit. He reckons he wouldn't be able to hold a broom properly. Bless... That left just Vicky and I to carry the Group banner today.
No Rosali at work either today, so Outdoor Nursery with Dusain was very quiet - a few bananas and sugar cane to the store, a sweep of the slippery wet feeding platform and then some peace and quiet at The Office.
After that we spent some more observation time at the feeding platform, mostly in bright sunshine between the showers, and were rewarded with a visit by all 3 of the big males - Mr.G, Mariko and Grand Boy. On top of that Miskam and her baby Mais made a flying visit.On the way back we bumped into Sylvia and a crowd of botanists who were marking and cataloging different species of plants and trees in preparation for a new guided trail they are planning to construct. We tagged along with them and learnt plenty of facts, i especially liked the plant whose bark you can dry out and burn like incense to ward off evil spirits (!!) and a won't forget a plant called Laparde in a hurry; in WWII it's fruit was given by the locals to poison Japanese troops who had treated them badly!
Talking of poisons, we found another smaller Viper near the walkway and we also noticed that the original one now had a bit of a lump half way down it's length - so it probably wasn't too hungry any more...Grabbed a quick coffee with the group before lunch and found out that one of them was the chief botanist for the whole of Sabah! Amazing who you meet here...
Despite the rains they also wanted some photos taken of all 28 tagged species, so after lunch i went with a Ranger, Beddy, and Karen to capture the images they wanted.
This included the biggest single-leafed plant in the world (or something like that)...
The route took us right past the feeding platform once again (more observation!) and then on through the Outdoor Nursery just as Osama (yes, honstly...) and Miko, who are almost inseperable, came walking past.Managed to grab a few more cute shots of the "specimens" there too of course... ;-)
Quiet night in tonight, all of us getting a little spooked by "The Forgotten" on DVD...
// posted by storri @ 1:06 pm 
