I’ve just returned to Thailand after a couple of months working around the British Isles, and so it’s time to deal with all the pressing domestic issues that have piled up in my time away. Flat vehicle batteries had to be charged, and the brakes and suspension on our ancient Toyota pickup needed attention.

We are in the process of building a small wooden house on some land we own, and had ordered the delivery of concrete support pillars. Once vehicle issues were dealt with, my wife an I headed off to supervise their delivery, and to see just how overgrown the land was after three, rainy season, months with no attention.

I never fail to be amazed by just how fast growth occurs in the wet tropics. The grass was now thigh-high, while small trees nearly a metre high had miraculously sprouted. Morning glory vines had spiralled up the legs and across the verandah of the small bamboo house we were using as temporary accommodation while building our main house. Given time it would, no doubt, have completely devoured the small structure.

The delivery of the pillars was uneventful. We had planned to attack the rampantly growing vegetaion with a strimmer, but given the torrential downpours that were occurring every 30 minutes or so that plan was postponed for a later visit. This left the decision of what to do with the sacks of concrete that had been deposited in the back of our pickup. Carrying them back to Phuket, only to bring them back again, seemed pointless, with the added danger that we might end up with several sack-shaped concrete blocks given the amount of rain falling. So we decided to transfer them into the bamboo hut for safe keeping, covered with a tarp for good measure, until our return. Hefting 50kg sacks on to my shoulder was a powerful reminder that I am neither as young or strong as I once was. What I once would have accomplished with ease now involved a great deal of puffing, panting and groaning. Once the sacks were safely secured inside we took a little time to inspect our temporary abode. As nature began to reclaim its own, it was no real surprise to find that others had liked the shelter of our bamboo house just as much as we had. Two rather long shed snake skins were draped across the beam above the verandah, but as there was no sign of their former occupants we were not too concerned. The floor of the verandah, directly in front of the door, was stained a dark blue from what looked like the poo of some fruit-eating animal. Looking up revealed the culprit. A rather cute looking fruit bat was hanging from the nipa palm leaf thatch roof of the verandah, about two feet above my head.

This guy was a lesser short-nosed fruit bat (Cynopterus brachyotis) to be precise. These are common fruit bats throughout much of Southeast Asia, across a wide range of habitats. If you are a farmer, you may not like these guys as they will eat your fruit crop – they’re especially fond of wild figs and wild peppers, but will also eat cultivated mangos and bananas – but the flip side is they are important pollinators and for seed dispersal. Normally they roost in groups but, according to the literature, young males may be solitary. So this might be a young male. Apart from their small size, a key identification feature of lesser short-nosed fruit bats are the whitish wing bones and edges of their ears. Our uninvited lodger, who I christened Hamo, was not all worried by our unexpected arrival, exhibiting a mix of mild curiosity and slight annoyance at being woken from his slumber.

Will he still be around when we return? We shall see.

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The name orangutan is believed to come from two Malay words, ‘ura? hutan‘ meaning ‘forest people’ or ‘forest men’ (Wayan Jarrah Satrawan) . Apart from humans, they are the only species of great ape (or Hominid, to use the scientific term) found outside of Africa. Three species of orangutan are currently recognised, the Bornean orangutan, the Sumatran orangutan, and the relatively recently described Tapanuli orangutan.

Nowadays, orangutans are found only on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. That was not always so; at the beginning of the Pleistocene (the geological epoch that started around around 2.6 million years ago) a number of orangutan species were found all the way from central China, through what is now Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Malaysia, across east to Sumatra, Java and Borneo. But by the end of the Pleistocene, around 12,000 years ago, some species had become extinct and range of those that remained had shrunk to the two islands. We don’t know for sure exactly why this happened; there are currently two popular theories. We know that during the Pleistocene (often called the Ice Age) the climate cooled, and large areas that had been tropical forest then became more open savannah that did not favour the slow moving, fruit-eating orangutans. Tropical forests survived on Borneo and Sumatra, providing orangutans with a refuge. Sea level fell perhaps 120 metres, thus the Sunda Shelf seabed between Southeast Asia and the islands of Borneo, Sumatra and Java became dry land. As the land warmed, and tropical forest returned to parts of their original range, so sea level once again rose. Borneo and Sumatra became islands, trapping the remaining orangutans. The second theory is that hunting by man, and in particular the development of bone tools such as bone spear and arrow tips. The sharp decline towards the end of the Pleistocene appears similar to the rapid extinction of other species following the arrival of modern man (e.g. the giant lemurs of Madagascar). Almost certainly, both factors played a role. The relative importance and timing of each is still a matter of debate.

The Bornean orangutan, Pongo pygmaeus, is the most abundant of the three species. Despite that it is still considered critically endangered, with only around 100,000 remaining in the wild. Habitat loss, through logging and burning forests, clearance for palm oil plantations and for agriculture, are major factors in this. Individuals being killed through conflict with humans, increasing as natural habitat is lost and orangutans may damage farmer’s crops, is also a major factor. The planned new capital city of Indonesia, Nusantara, currently being built in East Kalimantan, Borneo, is planned as an environmentally friendly city with major reforestation projects being part of the project. However, such a major urban development, with road and infrastructure and perhaps hundreds of thousands more people to feed, also has great risks for the orangutans in the region.

At over 33 years old Bugang (meaning ‘The Batchelor’) is old. Typically wild orangutans will life for 35-40 years. Mature males like Bugang weigh around 75kg and possess large, fleshy cheekpads (or flanges). In Bornean orangutans these have a distinctive forwards curve to them. Bugang lives on one of the artificial islands created at Samboja Lodge, within Samboja Lestari tropical Forest Restoration and Orangutan Rehabilitation Programe, East Kalimantan, Borneo. This project, Bugang is too old to be successfully released to the wild, so lives on one of the specially created islands in a natural environment. The lodge and programes are run by the Borneo Orangutan Survival Fountation (BOS). BOS is a global organisation dedicated to the protection and restoration of tropical rainforest and the survival of orangutans. I visited Samboja, and being very impressed with the work they do there, both in restoration and education of the public. As this image of Bugang would not be possible without the work they do there, ten percent of profit from any sales of this print will be donated to BOS.

Further reading

Stephanie N. Spehar et al., Orangutans venture out of the rainforest and into the Anthropocene.Sci. Adv.4, e1701422(2018).DOI:10.1126/sciadv.1701422

Sastrawan, Wayan. (2020). The Word ‘Orangutan’: Old Malay Origin or European Concoction?. Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde / Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia. 176. 532-541. 10.1163/22134379-bja10016. Link

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In preparation for an upcoming trip to Borneo and Sulawesi I’ve started going through some of my old images from previous visits. I took this photograph a little over ten years ago, in the Tana Toraja region on the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia. This is Rantepao buffalo market, known as Bolu market. In years gone by, Tana Toraja highlands were known for their trade in slaves, guns and coffee. Fortunately nowadays only the coffee trade remains. The Toraja people are known for their cave cemeteries high on cliff faces. Funerals of wealthy individuals involve the slaughter of numerous buffalo and pigs, buffalo considered essential to assist in the journey to the afterlife. A small buffalo may sell for around 5 million Indonesian Rupiah (~300USD). As in other parts of SE Asia the rarer white buffalo are much prized and will fetch many times this sum. This young lad will probably be in his late teens now. On that day he did not have the best of jobs, shoveling buffalo dung while wearing flipflops. So if you’re having a bad day today, think of him. It’s been ten years last in either Borneo or Sulawesi, it will be interesting to see how much life has changed in the intervening years.

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Fine Art Prints and ready to hang Canvas Gallery Wrap prints

So Here’s the sales pitch. If you like my stories and images you might be interested in viewing my canvas wrap prints, fine art prints, posters, all available direct from the photographer (that would be me) stock images (and more stories) on my main site: www.colinmunrophotography.com

I’ve just added this photograph to my collection of canvas gallery wrap prints for sale. Canvas wrap prints, also known as ‘gallery wrap’ are where the canvas is stretched over a wooden frame (known as stretcher bars) and wraps around. Thus the image goes all the way to the edge. They arrive ready to hang, with no additional framing required. My canvas prints are archival quality (not to be confused with cheap, mass produced canvas prints) using state of the art pigment ink technology. Tests indicate such prints are fade free for 100+ years out of direct sunlight.

The Pink Whipray aka Tahitian Stingray Pateobatis fai (formerly Himantura fai).

The pink whipray, aka Tahitian Stingray, is a large stingray, around a metre wing-tip to wing-tip, often found in shallow bays and lagoons. It’s preferred habitat appears to be sandy or sand and coral rubble seabeds. It occurs widely across the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific, from West Africa to Western Polynesia. Like all stingrays they do have a venomous barb near the end of their tail. The venom is not generally considered dangerous to humans, but it can be painful. Equally the barb is long and sharp, so is capable of inflicting a nasty wound. Pink whiprays are generally not at all aggressive, and so the risk is mostly if the animal feels threatened, thus chasing or cornering it is not a good idea. Sometimes they can be seen swimming with the tail raised almost vertical, possibly as a warning.

Pink whiprays feed mostly on crustaceans; crabs, prawns and shrimps; but will also take molluscs. In some locations they will gather in feeding groups in very shallow water (less than one metre). This has created a tourist attraction, especially in parts of French Polynesia.

This continues on my main website, where more information about pink whiprays, and more images, can be found. https://www.colinmunrophotography.com/pink-whipray-pateobatis-fai/

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Fine Art Landscape and Wildlife Prints

I’ve recently returned from ten days in Laos, a truly fascinating and stunningly beautiful country. This is the first of what I hope will be a short series of blogs about Laos. One of the poorest in Southeast Asia, it is leapfrogging into the 21st Century in fits and starts. Laos has many things holding back its development. It has no coastline, so all trade must pass through its surrounding neighbours. The majority of the country is mountainous, still clad in dripping tropical forest, and much of the land has still to be cleared of cluster bombs and other unexploded ordinance (UXO), a deadly legacy of the USA’s ‘secret war’ between 1963 and 1974, when they dropped over 260 million bombs on Laos, making it the most bombed, per capita, country on the planet. Still, six decades later, people are killed or lose limbs every year through old UXO. Laos has some of the worst roads on the planet, but more modern high speed rail than the United States. Most transactions, from hotel booking to hiring an electric motorbike are still done in cash. With the low value of the Laos kip, the smallest banknote you can you can usefully carry is the 1000 kip note, which is worth about 5 cents (US) at the time of writing. Laos is the only country I know where I can become a multimillionaire after visiting an ATM in the morning, and have blown it all by mid-afternoon.

The lady pictured above is Kam la. She and her husband, Boon Tham, are farmers in Central Laos, a little outside the former capital of Luang Prabang. I passed them on my small hired motorbike as they were walking along the new highway that connects Central Laos to Northern Thailand, so I stopped to have a quick chat. Their buffalo had a sudden urge to go for a stroll early that morning. They had finally caught up with her almost at the shores of the Mekong and now faced an eight kilometre plod back home.

Domestic water buffalo (Bubalis bubalis), aka domestic asian buffalo, are descendents of the wild water buffalo (Bubalus arnee) native to Indian and Southeast Asia. The domestic variety are still commonly used for meat, milk and ploughing rice fields. The wild variety is now pretty rare; the few remaining populations are small, widely scattered and most are in decline. habitat fragmentation is a significant cause of decline. Like so many other wild species with domesticated relatives, the junglefowl and domestic chickens, and Scottish wildcats and domestic cats being obvious examples, they are also suffering from inbreeding with their domestic counterparts. Domestic water buffalo are generally smaller than their wild counterparts, with proportionally shorter horns. Wild water buffalo have the largest horns of any known bovid. Unfortunately, despite the large areas of wilderness, no known populations of wild water buffalo exist in Laos.

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Fine Art Landscape and Wildlife Prints

Photography is painting with light, but it’s equally the absence of light. It’s about creating a mood, an emotional response, with the balance of light and shadow; it’s using shadow to draw one’s eye to the light. Technically, this image may be too dark, it’s ceratinly not evenly lit. But that’s the point; what’s aesthetically interesting is rarely what’s technically perfect. Blue Maomao Arch, Poor Knights, new Zealand. Schooling blue maomao (Scorpis violacea) congregate along the sheer walls of the arch, feeding on the plankton rich currents that are entrained and accelerated through between the walls of this long tunnel.

This image was shot in early 2020. I used a Full frame Nikon camera, 20mm Nikon lens, in an Aquatica housing. Although I had a flash (strobe) attached to the camera I chose not to use it for this shot, rely purely in the natural light penetrating the arch.

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Fine Art Landscape and Wildlife Prints

Five-lined snapper (Lutjanus quinquelineatus) aggregate under an overhanging wall, Similan Islands, Andaman Sea. There are a number of closely related, blue lined snapper, that occur, mostly on coral reefs, in the tropical and subtropical Indo-Pacific. The common bluestripe snapper (Lutjanus kasmira) and the Bengal snapper (Lutjanus bengalensis) all have similar patterns and overlapping ranges, including the Andaman Sea. Differentiation is not always easy, and the academic literature has at times been confusing. Modern genetic techniques are helping clarify relationships, to a degree at least. Perhaps a more important question, and one harder to answer, is why very similar species that appear to occupy similar ecological niches, and with broadly overlapping ranges, actually exist. What is the driver for speciation, genetic and reproductive isolation? This is a harder problem to investigate because studying the behaviour of highly mobile species inhabiting deeper waters on offshore reefs is difficult, time consuming and expensive. Colour patterns involving horizontal stripes is a feature that has evolved separately in many species of fish, especially schooling fish (e.g. fusiliers, snapper). Various hypothesis have been proposed as to why horizontal stripes might be advantageous. It may be difficult for a potential predator to identify individual fish in a tightly formed school, all horizontally striped, as the stripes may be more obvious than the outlines of individual fish (often called the confusion effect). It may be difficult to judge the speed of horizontally striped prey as swim past if they are swimming in the same orientation as the stripes are aligned.  Others have suggested that that stripes help co-ordinate movement in schooling fish; as the school changes direction so does the orientation of the stripes, providing a strong visual cue.  Zebrafish are used in many laboratory studies, partly due to their ease of rearing and fully sequenced genome. Working with striped and unstriped zebrafish morphs, scientists found that striped individuals showed the strongest tendency to form schools, and would preferentially form schools with individuals that most closely resembled themselves. How much of this behaviour transfers from zebrafish, fish that inhabit the shallow streams, ponds and rice paddies of South-east Asia, to large schooling fish on deep, offshore reefs. Who knows? Deeper offshore reefs don’t easily lend themselves to manipulative experiments where confounding factors can be controlled. Observational studies can be conducted in large public marine aquaria, but extrapolation to truly natural behaviour must be done with care. It is likely that much of our understanding of behaviour and interactions in such difficult habitats will continue to be opportunistic, conducted from recreational dive boats, with some coming from big-budget natural history documentary filming, such as the BBC’s Blue Planet series, where the money and expertise exists to overcome some of the major logistical problems. There is so much we don’t know about the how and why of the ecology of such reefs, and that situation is unlikely to change anytime soon.

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Fine Art Landscape and Wildlife Prints

Photography and video, free-diving, in shallow surf, for me at least, presents some of the most challenging situations in photography.

The visibility is generally terrible, rarely more than two metres and often less than one. The waves and shallow water make staying underwater difficult unless massively overweighted (which brings its own problems when you need to breathe). Waves will unexpectedly sweep you up on to oyster and barnacle covered rocks – which tend to leave you looking like you’ve had a fight with a cheese grater, or worse still, may smash the plexiglass dome port of the camera housing. Passing waves occasionally pick up and then dump a truck-load of sand, reducing visibility to zero, to be followed by a washing machine of bubbles as the wave breaks.

In these conditions auto-anything becomes pretty useless. Exposure is all over the place and the water is full of all sorts of crap flying past you (or you flying past it). So manual exposure and manual focus is really the only way to obtain useable images. Underwater flash cannot be used either; with so much suspended sand in the water that would act like tens of thousands of small mirrors bouncing light back into the camera.

But despite all that, the rewards can be well worth it. Often, just in the shallows is where the action is. Especially close to sunset. These are schooling sardines, swirling around in around a metre to a metre and a half depth, just of the shore, just as the sun was touching the horizon. Crocodile needlefish (Tylosurus crocodilus) cruise around the edges of the school like hunting dogs, looking to pick of a straggler that gets separated from the main body, whilst small schools of small-spotted darts (Trachinotus baillonii) zip in and out picking up planktonic crustaceans and fish fry.

Photographing in these conditions will never yield the clean, sharp, colourful images so loved by advertisers and photographers alike, but they do record a reality not often featured in underwater photography magazines or glossy brochures. They also, I hope, capture the atmospheric look of turbid, energetic waters. For me, if I get in the water and the fish are there (there are times I get in the water, buffeted by waves, but see little) and I get out of the water with no major lacerations and my camera gear still intact, then the evening was a success. If I end up with useable images, that’s a bonus.

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Fine Art Landscape and Wildlife Prints