Sungai Lading (2005-2007)

Sungai Lading will always be my second home, though now only in my memories and dreams. But it still seems like just yesterday that I set up an orangutan research site there. Here are a few photos from camp:

with Ibu Haji, R.I.P. bu!

My office at Camp Sungai Lading

Sungai Lading Camp

A view of Sungai Lading camp & surrounding forest from a tree

                            

At Camp Sungai Lading shortly after we finished construction

My room at Sungai Lading, when camp started to flood

Going over data one night with my wonderful assistants

Taking photos of the full moon from the front of camp

Swimming in the peat swamp in front of camp on Christmas 

 Front of camp during the 2006 flood

Front of camp, view of the toilet/mandi rooms

Another view of the front of camp, just after a storm

And a few photos of the Sungai Lading forest:

A view of the Sungai Lading forest from ultralight

                                   

Walking around in the forest in my shorts, no idea why!

Taking a break while cutting transects

 On a transect when the forest flooded in 2006

On a transect at the start of the rainy season

 Two of my assistants collecting data 

The boardwalk along the phenology plot at entrance into the forest

Photo I took of a clouded leopard on way to an orangutan nest

Nichole taking data for her Masters, wearing a WOOL (!) hat to keep away the mosquitos

In the spiny rattan section of the Sungai Lading forest

a langur (Presbytis rubicunda)

an owl near camp

Proof that there were still a few large trees in Sungai Lading (species that didn't float)

 A sun bear walking towards us in on the boardwalk

Katunjung

Katunjung was the nearest village to my study area. This bridge was financed with some of the money I  gave towards village improvements when I first contracted to work in the forest across from Katunjung:

I was invited along with friends from Tuanan on several occasions to weddings in Katunjung. This is a photo of me at a two-day/night wedding in Katunjung with the mother of the bride on one side of me and the head of the village on the other:

The Bride

The Groom

With friends and some of the kids of Katunjung

 

Gotta love Indonesian toilet rooms...

…especially if you are tall!

Leaving Katunjung on way back to Tuanan by kelotok

On way back from Muara Mantukup by way of Katunjung

with friends in the Tuanan kelotok on way back to Katunjung

Tuanan Back in the Day (2004-2005)

Tuanan is now a much bigger, more well known wild orangutan field site than it was back when I was the first student there and before I set off to establish my own field site (Sungai Lading) across the river for my comparative dissertation study. Here are a few pictures of Tuanan and the Pasir from 2004-2005 that are especially nostalgic and much better than the earlier photos I have from 2003, taken before digital cameras were of good enough quality to use in the field:

Camp Tuanan

Tug of War at Pasir Putih on Indonesian Independence Day

Before Sungai Lading, there was Sungai Tunggul (2004)

Before we found Sungai Lading, which ended up being the site that I established and collected data for my dissertation 2005-2007 (and was later burned down ca 2010), there was a temporary site, Sungai Tunggul. This is where I thought I would set up camp. We spent about a week doing an initial survey there, but in the end and after a bit of drama involving the need to keep someone out of jail, I settled on Sungai Lading. Here are a few photos from our time at Sungai Tunggul:

Surveying for a new site is never easy in the swamp...

I once spent many hours at this police station on way back from a survey:

with Odom at Sungai Tunggul

at our temporary camp at Sungai Tunggul

During our first ground survey at Sungai Tunggul

with Didik at Sungai Tunggul