Netster 宅男

Horn­bill illus­tra­tion, the sym­bol of Sarawak, the native peo­ple, the beau­ti­ful Bor­neo island, the mys­ti­cal for­est and the haunted river.

This illus­tra­tion was a taken dur­ing my stay at Impe­r­ial hotel Miri. The dec­o­ra­tion for the com­ing Gawai wasn’t that impres­sive but I was amaze by the illus­tra­tion of the Head Hunter and the Hornbills.

“Sarawak Bumi Kenyalang” or “Sarawak the land of horn­bill” use to be a head hunter land. “Is that the rea­son why we have lot of horn­bills?” “Meat eater…?” Okay no ideas about the bird, but I am very cer­tain that I have not seen one in Kuch­ing! Maybe due to devel­op­ment these birds have flown! Or it sim­ply hard to find, maybe you have to go deep into the Bor­neo island to find them.

Don’t worry, I am feel­ing lucky and I have track this birds in Malacca! I have never seen the real life Horn­bills and now I have. Beau­ti­ful isn’t it?

Rhi­noc­eros Horn­bill is pro­tected in Malaysia under the wildlife Act 1972. These birds live on dense low­land ever­green forests, exclud­ing swamp forests and hill dipte­ro­carp forests. Also found up to 1,200 m. Com­mon in pri­mary and sec­ondary forests. Very beau­ti­ful bird in deed!

1.   Black horn­bill with white abdomen and white tail with broad black band across the center.
2. Large orange bill and recurved casque distinctive.
3. Con­spic­u­ous and noisy.
4. Fly­ing with rush­ing wing beats and call­ing with loud bray­ing notes.
5. In cap­tiv­ity, lifes­pan of between 10 – 16.
6. Eat fruits, lizards, tree frogs, bird eggs, spi­ders and large insects. In zoos, the diet includes meat, fruits, eggs and day-old chicks
7. Clutch of 1 – 2 eggs. Incu­ba­tion period between 37 – 46 days nestling period 78 –80 days.

I was so stu­pid to think that there was just one type of horn­bill all the while. Read more see more, Netster!

This June is “Gawai Day”¹ or also known as “Gawai Dayak” how­ever Wikipedia also call it as “Dayak Never Die/DnD” sounds like James Bond. Any­way, I hope I would have time to do “nga­bang” (means house vis­it­ing in Iban lan­guage) dur­ing this fes­tive sea­son. My friend (he a Chi­nese Bidayuh) should be back from Sin­ga­pore but not sure if I can get few nice shot of long houses at night. Sounds like I have to over night… ermmm why I feel lazy already?

Happy Gawai to the Sea² and Land³ war­riors of Sarawak!

1. Gawai Day or Gawai Dayak’Dayak Never Die /DnD, a fes­ti­val cel­e­brated in Sarawak on 1 June every year is both a reli­gious and social occa­sion. The word Gawai means a rit­ual or fes­ti­val whereas Dayak is a col­lec­tive name for the natives races in Sarawak; the Iban, Bidayuh, Kayan, Kenyah, Kelabit, Murut peo­ple and a few more. Thus Gawai Dayak lit­er­ally means “Dayak Fes­ti­val” – Wikipedia.org [↩]
2. The Ibans are a branch of the Dayak peo­ples of Bor­neo. They were for­merly known dur­ing the colo­nial period by the British as Sea Dayaks. Ibans were renowned for prac­tis­ing head­hunt­ing and tribal/territorial expan­sion. A long time ago, being a very strong and suc­cess­ful war­ring tribe, the Ibans are a very feared tribe in Bor­neo. They speak the Iban lan­guage – Answers.com [↩]
3. The Bidayuh is a name of a tribe on Bor­neo island. They are a sub­group of the Bor­neo Dayak tribe. Bidayuhs orig­i­nally came from the west­ern part of Bor­neo. They were called Land Dayaks by the British who colonised the the part of Bor­neo called Sarawak which is now a state in Malaysia – Answers.com [↩]

My friend Wei San with another friend Ai Leen came all the way from Kuala Lumpur and Malacca for a few days visit in Kuch­ing. Well it a shame to say that I wasn’t really knows my own town. So as you can guess I am learn­ing while bring­ing them around with few other friends. We vis­ited Jong’s Croc­o­dile Farm, Semong­gok Wildlife Reha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre and Sarawak Cul­tural Vil­lage. More