talk : Managing Shorebirds at Bako-Buntal Bay.

Dear members and friends,

 We would like to invite you for an interesting talk about Managing Shorebirds at Bako-Buntal Bay. 

Speakers:  Oswald Braken Tisen, General Manager & 

                    Rambli Ahmad,  Ecologist, Sarawak Forestry Corporation.

Date:         Wednesday 24 April 2019

Time:          7.30-9.30 PM ( Please be on time)

Venue :     Islamic Information Centre (Lower Baruk)

                 Jalan Ong Tiang Swee (behind Swinburne University)

Entrance: Free of charge but donations are always welcome.

Please register  by email latest by 23 April by email mnskuching@gmail.com to confirm your seat.

Managing Shorebirds at Bako-Buntal Bay 

Bako-Buntal Bay(BBB)  extends from the northern tip of the Santubong peninsula, down its east-facing coast, and eastwards to Kuala Bako. The bay formed between the Santubong and Bako peninsulas contains extensive intertidal mudflats fringed with mangrove forest.

 BBB is  the first and  only East Asian-Australasian Partnership (EAAFP) Flyway Network site in Malaysia. Thousands of shorebirds winter here   every migratory season.  Thus, it plays an important role in providing a roosting and feeding area for the migrants   to complete their journey. 

A Sarawak state-wide survey of waterbirds in 2011, conducted by Malaysian Nature Society, recorded a total of 35,338 birds in the whole of Bako-Buntal Bay Flyway Network Site, representing 50% of all shorebirds counted in Sarawak, making BBB the most important site for migratory birds in the State.

There are at least 30 species of shorebirds which  stopover from September-February each   year.  Threatened   species like Nordmann’s Greenshank, Chinese Egret and Far Eastern Curlew can be found along the coastline of BBB in the wintering months. 

Malaysian Nature Society  Kuching Branch has invited Mr Oswald Braken Tisen, General Manager, and Mr Ramli Ahmad, Ecologist, both of  Sarawak Forestry Corporation to talk on  managing  BBB and the shorebirds in these areas.

What does the future hold for these birds?

How do we manage these  birds? 

 Please come and join us to find out. 

Regards,

Cynthia Lobato

MNSKB Secretariat

Talk on Waterbirds & Wetland Survey of the Sarawak Coasts.

Dear members and friends,

This time we invite you for an interesting talk about the Waterbirds and Wetland Survey of the Sarawak Coasts.

Date:          Tuesday 26 March 2019

Time:          7.30-9.30 PM ( Please be on time)

Venue :     Islamic Information Centre (Lower Baruk)

                 Jalan Ong Tiang Swee (behind Swinburne University)

Entrance: Free of charge but donations are always welcome.

 Presenters

Daniel Kong and Rose Au are both long-time members of MNS Kuching Branch .When there was a call for volunteers to take on the task of surveying the waterbirds  of Sarawak a few years ago,  they came forward to help. The survey took more than a year.

It has been an adventurous experience they will always remember-the many long miles of walking along the coastlines in the hot sun, the lovely coastal people they met and lots of home-cooked  fresh seafood had made it all worth it.

Please register by  email with mnskuching@gmail.com latest by Sunday 24 March

What’s The Waterbirds and Wetlands Survey of the Sarawak Coast?

The Amazing Race – 1,000+ km in 5 mins!

Chart Toppers – what are the top 5 species?

What Now?

The Jewel in Crown – where is it?

Every year millions of waterbirds fly up and down the East Asian-Australasian Flyway 

How many come to Sarawak?

Where are the most important sites?

Which are the key species?

Are the populations increasing or declining?

 Come and join Daniel  and Rose as they share with you their findings and awareness programmes with the local coastal communities from the survey of the Sarawak coasts.

Regards,

Cynthia Lobato

MNSKB Secretariat

Talk on Birds of Borneo,A celebration of Borneo's wonderful birdlife

Dear members and friends,

We are inviting you for talk about the Birds of Borneo.This talk celebrates Borneo’s wonderful bird life. Seen through a telephoto lens, the beauty of many of Borneo’s birds is simply amazing.

Speaker: Hans Hazebroek

Date:       Saturday 9 March 2019

Time:       7.30pm -9.30 pm Please be on time.

Venue:    Islamic Information Centre (Lower Baruk)

                Jalan Ong Tiang Swee (behind Swinburne University)

• Please register by sending email to mnskuching@gmail.com latest by Wednesday 6 March.

Birds of Borneo 

This talk celebrates Borneo’s wonderful bird life. Seen through a telephoto lens, the beauty of many of Borneo’s birds is simply amazing.

Northeast Borneo’s highlands and mountains have been in existence for at least 7 million years. This has helped rainforest persist longer on Borneo than in Sumatra and Java. Thus, Borneo (especially northeast Borneo) has been a refuge, preserving rainforest bird diversity, even when much of the rest of SE Asia suffered rainforest extinction during the colder, drier climates of the Pliocene (5–2.6 million years ago), and Pleistocene (2.6–0.01 million years ago). When climates became warmer and wetter, rainforest was restored in areas that had been too dry, and northeast Borneo became a source from which birds could re-colonise the restored forest. This helps explain why, for example, in north Borneo the White-crowned Shama differs from the White-rumped Shama in the rest of Borneo; the Black-crowned Pitta differs from the widespread Garnet Pitta; and  the White-fronted Falconet differs from the widespread Black-thighed Falconet. It also explains why Borneo has more endemic species (which are only found in Borneo and nowhere else) than Sumatra and Java. And why most of these endemics live in the mountains: lowland species are replaced in mountains at higher elevation by very similar species. For instance, the lowland White-crowned Forktail is replaced by the Bornean Forktail at higher elevations. Moreover, this points to the reason for Borneo to have more species of hornbills, trogons, barbets, broadbills, pittas, flowerpeckers, spiderhunters and frogmouths than any other forest in the world.

Hornbills are ‘indicator’ species of the health of Borneo’s forests. If a forest is healthy there are sufficient fruit trees for hornbills to feed on and sufficient old trees with cavities for them to build a nest. There are 8 species of hornbills in Borneo. Six of these spend their life in tall mixed dipterocarp forests, covering huge distances in search of fruit trees and often defecate (poop) seeds in flight, thus dispersing seeds throughout the forest. Many rainforest trees cannot propagate without hornbills and Borneo’s forests need hornbills to remain healthy.

About the speaker:

Drs Hans P. Hazebroek — Geologist, Nature Photographer and Writer

Books and book chapters written and photographed:

in Sarawak  – 

• National Parks of Sarawak (2000) (with co-author Abang Kashim bin Abang Morshidi)
• A Guide to Gunung Mulu National Park (2002) (with co-author Abang Kashim bin Abang Morshidi)
• A Guide to Bako National Park (2006) (with co-author Abang Kashim bin Abang Morshidi)
• Geology and Geomorphology: chapter in Tanjung Datu National Park— Where Borneo Begins (2015)
• Geology and Geomorphology: chapter in Gunung Penrissen — The Roof of Western Borneo (2017)
• Geology andGeomorphology: chapter in Gunung Santubong — Where Nature meets Culture (in press) 

in Sabah –

• Maliau Basin – Sabah’s Lost World (2004) (with co-authors Tengku Zainal Adlin and Dr. Waidi Sinun)
• Danum Valley — The Rain Forest (2012) (with co-authors Tengku Zainal Adlin and Dr. Waidi Sinun)
• Tertiary tectonic evolution of the NW Sabah Continental margin (1993) (with co-author Dennis N. K. Tan)

Principal photographer for:

On the Forests of Tropical Asia – Lest the memory fade (2014) by Peter S. Ashton  

Contributing photographer for:

Phillipps Field Guide to Mammals of Borneo (2018) by Quentin Phillipps and Karen Phillipps

Orchids of Sarawak (2001) by Beaman, T.E., Wood, J.J., Beaman, R.S., Beaman, J.H. 

Regards,

Cynthia Lobato

MNSKB Secretariat-- 

Talk: A 240-to-86-million-year-old subduction margin in West Sarawak

Dear members and friends,

We are inviting you for talk about the geology of West Sarawak. We will look at how, more than 80 million years ago, the crust of the Pacific Ocean dipped beneath the crust of the Asian continent. Among other things, this caused volcanoes to erupt and today we can see these volcanic rocks around Serian. 

Speaker:  Hans Hazebroek

Date:       Tuesday 26 February 2019

Time:       7.30pm -9.30 pm Please be on time.

Venue:    Islamic Information Centre (Lower Baruk)

                Jalan Ong Tiang Swee (behind Swinburne University)

• Please register by sending email to mnskuching@gmail.com latest by Sunday 24 February.

'Melange’ rock: a jumble of rock fragments of many sizes and compositions embedded in a slaty matrix. Such rocks suggest submarine sliding and slumping.

A 240-to-86-million-year-old subduction margin in West Sarawak

It has long been suspected that there is an ancient Plate Tectonic Boundary in Sarawak approximately along the valley of the Lupar River. This ‘Lupar Line’ geologically separates West Sarawak from North Sarawak. There are huge differences of the geological make-up between these two areas. Many geologists have regarded this Lupar Line as a ‘suture’ or scar, marking a former ‘subduction margin’ (where ocean crust was thrust beneath continental crust) that was thought to have been active between about 80 and 60 million years ago (Late Cretataceous to Early Eocene). However, new data show that there was insufficient nearby magmatic activity for the Lupar Line to be interpreted as a subduction margin. In other words, a volcanic arc was absent at this time. Therefore the Lupar Line is now considered to be a large fault zone. 

Much new radiometric age data*) derived from West Sarawak and West Kalimantan rock samples has led to a drastic revision of the tectonic model: A much older subduction margin existed in West Sarawak about 240-86 million years ago (Triassic to Cretaceous). Subduction was directed westward (at an angle to the Lupar Line) with Pacific ocean crust being thrust beneath the continental crust of Sundaland. Sundaland is an extension of the Asian continental crust that includes parts of Borneo, Malaya, Java and Sumatra, as well as the shallow seas (the Sunda Shelf) in between. West Sarawak was part of the easternmost extension of Triassic Sundaland. Pacific ocean crust was subducted in two pulses along the long-lived subduction margin: 

• An initial subduction pulse between about 240-200 million-years-ago (Late Triassic). The Serian Volcanic Formation and the Jagoi Granodiorite represent the volcanic arc (a string of volcanoes) at this time, accompanied by deposition of sediments that contain fragments of volcanic rock (‘volcaniclastics’ of the Kuching and Sadong Formations) in the forearc basin (the region between the oceanic trench and the associated volcanic arc). 
• A later subduction pulse between about 140-86 million-years-ago (Early Late Cretaceous). At this time the Schwaner Mountains form the volcanic arc in SW Borneo and the volcaniclastic Pedawan Formation is deposited in the forearc basin. 

*) obtained and interpreted by the SE Asia Research Group, Department of Earth Sciences, Royal Holloway University of London.

About the speaker:

Drs Hans P. Hazebroek — Geologist, Nature Photographer and Writer

Books and book chapters written and photographed:

in Sarawak  – 

• National Parks of Sarawak (2000) (with co-author Abang Kashim bin Abang Morshidi)
• A Guide to Gunung Mulu National Park (2002) (with co-author Abang Kashim bin Abang Morshidi)
• A Guide to Bako National Park (2006) (with co-author Abang Kashim bin Abang Morshidi)
• Geology and Geomorphology: chapter in Tanjung Datu National Park— Where Borneo Begins (2015)
• Geology and Geomorphology: chapter in Gunung Penrissen — The Roof of Western Borneo (2017)
• Geology andGeomorphology: chapter in Gunung Santubong — Where Nature meets Culture (in press) 

in Sabah –

• Maliau Basin – Sabah’s Lost World (2004) (with co-authors Tengku Zainal Adlin and Dr. Waidi Sinun)
• Danum Valley — The Rain Forest (2012) (with co-authors Tengku Zainal Adlin and Dr. Waidi Sinun)
• Tertiary tectonic evolution of the NW Sabah Continental margin (1993) (with co-author Dennis N. K. Tan)

Principal photographer for:

On the Forests of Tropical Asia – Lest the memory fade (2014) by Peter S. Ashton  

Contributing photographer for:

Phillipps Field Guide to Mammals of Borneo (2018) by Quentin Phillipps and Karen Phillipps

Orchids of Sarawak (2001) by Beaman, T.E., Wood, J.J., Beaman, R.S., Beaman, J.H. 

Regards,

Cynthia Lobato

MNSKB Secretariat

An Introduction to the Insects

Dear members and friends,

We like to invite you for a talk on insects of Borneo by Chien Lee.
Date :Saturday 26 Jan 2019
Venue: Islamic Information Centre Lower Baruk
Time 7.30-9.30 pm
Please register by email mnskuching@gmail.com by latest on 25 January

An Introduction to the Insects of Borneo

With an estimated three million species, insects are by far the most diverse forms of organisms on the planet. The greatest diversity are found in the tropics, and Borneo is a hotspot for some of the most amazing and varied forms. Because no field guide books exist on Bornean insects, many naturalists and guides are faced with a daunting task when it comes to identifying species they encounter here. In this workshop we will learn an overview of the insect orders and families that can be found in Borneo, discuss techniques for their field identification, and learn about their fascinating behavior and adaptations.

Ch’ien Lee’s background is in Biology (Ecology).

He also studied Entomology.
Did field studies on animal presence and usage in different habitat types.
A freelance wildlife Photographer since 2005, he has photographed Batang Ai National Park, Mulu in Sarawak and other places in Sabah.
His subjects included mammals, snakes, orchids, and birds.
Participated in scientific expedititions in Batang Ai, Ulu Baleh and Payeh Maga.
Contributing photographer to Phillipps Field Guide to Mammals of Borneo (2016)

Regards,
Cynthia Lobato
MNSKB Secretariat

Movie night on Migrating birds

Dear members and friends,

You are invited for another movie night on Migrating Birds. Before the movie,  we have a short presentation by two student MNSKB Members,  Jason Teo Jia Hong and Batrisyia Teepol.

In August/September this year, MNS HQ funded  these 2 young members 

for their stay and accommodation,  while Kuching Branch sponsored their airfares and road transportation,  to participate in the Hornbill Volunteer Programme at Belum-Temonggor Forest Reserve in Perak.

Jason will share his experiences at the HVP. With the help of Professor Andrew Alec Tuen and Rose Au, MNSKB helped Batrisyia to secure a Conservation Leadership Programme sponsorship to study shorebirds at Bako-Buntal Bay for 1 year, August 2018- August 2019. Batrisyia will share what she has learned so far from the Programme.

Date : Wednesday 5^thDec 2018

Time: 7.30-9-30 PM At Discussion room (Please be on time)

Venue Islamic Information Centre.

 Please register latest on 4 Dec at mnskuching@gmail.com

Information about the movie.

Migrating Birds - Scouts of Distant World 

Director: Petra Hofer and Freddie Rockenhaus

Running Time: 90 minutes

Country: Germany 

Year 2016

Countries screened in: Malaysia, Myanmar, The Philippines, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Namibia, Mali, Rwanda, South Africa

Every year billions of birds migrate from the northern summer breeding grounds to the southern overwintering grounds and every year billions of birds die on route. They starve, die of thirst, are killed by exhaustion or environmental poisons, by enemies, by winds, or by power lines. Despite this, the migrations take place year after year; generation after generation. This film shows the voyages of migratory birds with breathtaking aerial photography from the Arctic to Africa, from Siberia to Malaysia. It explains how the birds orientate themselves, why they migrate and how, for example,  a young stork finds the way to Africa even though he has never been there. 

It answers questions you may have or have not thought of. It will leave you with even greater respect for our feathered friends. It will get you to ask how we can be part of their journey and ensure birdsreach their destinations. 

Regards,

Cynthia Lobato

MNSKB Secretariat