In Borneo, the Scarlet-rumped Trogon Harpactes duvaucelii is the smallest and also the most common of this family of brightly coloured birds. They usually perch in the understorey of the forest, feeding mainly on insects. We found this male steadfastly defending its territory together with 2 other birds, one of which must have been a juvenile. Despite the birds’s perching habit, it is really quite difficult to get a good shot as they always seem to be partially behind leaves or twigs.

Finally! A pair of Greater Painted Snipe Rostratula benghalensis. A phone call from Denis (thanks, bro!) sent me rushing to a rice paddy by a very busy road just outside Kota Kinabalu. Well what do you know, it was the exact spot I stopped just two days ago and from which I saw nothing. In the scope, in fading light, we saw that the birds were incubating 1 egg and in a most precarious nesting spot. It was right in a corner of a half ploughed rice paddy and in a distance there were 3 tractors which had just called it a day. And tomorrow??? I just have to content myself that these are highly secretive birds and that they are actually more common than they are seen.