Happy Spring to All!
Greetings as we welcome the official first day of spring here in the North!
For you photographers in the group, especially you aspiring wildlife photographers, I am excited to announce that I have just completed the second of my online courses in my “Bird Photography Masterclass” series, and it is now live. In this new course, which I have called “Birds, Camera, Action” I share the camera settings and techniques I use for successful bird photography, especially focusing on how I shoot birds in flight.
In an effort to get sales going, and since I know some of you may be eager to get out and work on improving your bird photography this spring, I’m releasing this course with a special introductory price of only $49 for a limited time!
Follow the link below to learn more, and sign up before March 29 to get this special price.
Spring Art Sale and Fundraiser
To celebrate the start of spring and give you a chance to freshen up your decor, I’m putting my entire selection of open edition prints on sale for 25% off.
Also, to continue my support of orangutan conservation in Borneo, I will donate 100% of sales from all the prints in my Orangutans Gallery from now till Earth Day April 22 to the Gunung Palung Orangutan Conservation Program, also known online as @SaveWildOrangutans. So please consider making a purchase to support a good cause.
Here are a Few of my Favorites
An orangutan climbs into the canopy in this unique view from above, captured with a remote camera. Overall winner of the 2016 Wildlife Photographer of the Year.
Baby orangutans have to be able to hold on to Mom from birth, and they get a pretty wild ride through the rain forest as she travels daily to find food.
An adult male orangutan in his prime is an impressive sight to behold.
As always, thanks for tuning in, and for your support of my work and the causes I support. Hope you can get out and enjoy the spring weather if you are in the Northern hemisphere! It’s looking beautiful here in Massachusetts right now.
Warmest regards,
Tim Laman
PS. Just a reminder, we are only offering this introductory price of $49 on my new course “Birds, Camera, Action” until March 29 and then it will go up to $99. Why you ask? Well, I need a cash infusion after spending so much time making this course. So now is your chance to get a deal!
A New Baby Orangutan and Happy New Year 2023!
Dear Friends,
Happy New Year, and all the best to everyone for 2023!
As we kick off the new year, I have some exciting news from my recent trip to Borneo. On Dec 11, as I was already packing up to depart the next morning from the research station in Gunung Palung National Park, I got word that one of the field assistants had found the female orangutan named Berani, and that she had a new baby! Luckily, I was able to rearrange my travel to spend two days photographing Berani and her new baby before traveling home.
The research team had been tracking Berani’s pregnancy since the summer. We first suspected she was pregnant in June 2022, but were unable to get definitive results. By August, when we tested her urine again, the pregnancy test came back with clear results – positive! When the team found her again on December 11th, Berani was with a tiny new infant, who we believe is only a few weeks old.
The team has known Berani since 2008, when she was first found with her mother, Bibi. She was likely 3-4 years old at the time. By 2013, Berani had become independent from her mother, and in 2015 Berani’s younger brother, Bayas, was born. Now, we will be able to follow development not only of Bayas, who is now 7 years old, but Bibi’s new granddaughter, giving us more opportunities to follow and understand juvenile development in wild orangutans, who have the longest birth intervals of any mammals on the planet.
Milestones like these remind us how incredible and rewarding long-term research projects are. It is thanks to continued support from Indonesian counterparts and sponsors, as well as an international base of supporters and donors, that we are able to continue this important research!
As we start the new year, I’d like to invite you to become a regular supporter of our orangutan research and conservation work in the Gunung Palung area if you are not already. The website www.SaveWildOrangutans.org is your portal to learn all about our work.
By joining us, you will receive our monthly newsletter, and know you are making a contribution to the long-term protection of orangutans and all the biodiversity in the amazing Gunung Palung landscape. If we can get enough people making small contributions, even $5 per month (the price of one fancy coffee), it will really make a difference for the programs that our project can carry out.
As an extra incentive to becoming a monthly contributor, if you join before Jan 10 contributing $10 or more, you will receive one of my 12 inch orangutan prints of your choice in April, 2023.
This link will take you right to the “JOIN US” page for Save Wild Orangutans. https://www.savewildorangutans.org/join-us/
Berani’s New Baby
Here are a few more shots of the newest addition to the healthy population of WILD orangutans in Gunung Palung:
A newborn baby orangutan has to be able to hold on to mom’s hair and skin from birth. Berani’s new baby seem to have a good grip with her hands, but we saw her flailing a lot with her little feet to get a good grip.
Berani was constantly touching her baby, to make sure she had a secure grip.
When she needed her hands for feeding or travel, Berani often held her baby against her belly with a foot, like you can see in this photo.
It was hard to get a glimpse of the baby’s face which always seemed to be buried in mom’s chest. But when Berani traveled upright along this branch, we finally caught a glimpse of the baby’s tiny face. We believe she is less than two weeks old when this photo was taken on Dec 11, 2022. It will be exciting to follow her growth and development over the coming years as our long term research continues.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for your support!
UPCOMING IN 2023!
Are you an underwater photography enthusiast? Would you like to dive with me in the Raja Ampat Islands of Indonesia, one of the world’s most spectacular diving destinations and a paradise for underwater photography? I’m leading an underwater photo workshop at @Papua_Explorers resort from 6-16 August 2023 with underwater photographer @Kizilkaya_Zafer. Learn all about it at this Link: https://www.papuaexplorers.com/underwater-photography-workshop/
Back From Borneo
Well folks, I’m home for a little while after more than three months overseas. It was a long trip, but really great to get back to the rainforest of Indonesia’s Gunung Palung National Park after a couple year hiatus due to the pandemic. I am working on a couple different projects there this year, and one of them is a new feature for National Geographic magazine celebrating the rich diversity of life in one of the best remaining lowland rainforests in Indonesia.
I’ll be heading back for one more trip before the year is out, but wanted to give you a little sneak peak on what I’ve been up to. Be sure to stay tuned and re-up your NatGeo membership to get the full story coming out next year!
Clockwise from top left:
- Before a Rhinoceros Hornbills swallow a large fig, they toss it around in their beak and soften it up. Then with a toss of the head, it goes down the hatch.
- Hornbills aren’t the only ones feasting on figs. This Gold-whiskered Barbet tossed this fig in the air many times before it wolfed it down.
- It’s not all tree climbing and birds! I’ve also been documenting the full range of biodiversity in the park. Mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects, you name it. Whatever we can turn up, I’ll shoot. This beautiful snake is a female Bornean Keeled Green Pit Viper (Tropidolaemus subannulatus)
- A panoramic view from high in a Dipterocarp tree. This tree I climbed in September had a fantastic view out over the vibrant lowland forest of Gunung Palung National Park.
BEHIND-THE-SCENES: SHOOTING IN THE CANOPY
It was exciting to be exploring the rain forest canopy in Borneo again. After using my bow and arrow to rig a line over a tree branch, I pulled up my climbing rope and used a harness and ascenders to climb. Then depending on the situation, I often rig a small platform surrounded by camouflage material to come back to and shoot from for several mornings. Or if it was a short term effort, I would just hide myself with camouflage material and sit on a branch with my camera for a couple hours.
Self-portrait on the way up a big Dipterocarp. I’m about 30 meters off the ground at this point.
Blending in to the canopy with a camo poncho and lens cover from Tragopan Photography Blinds (https://photographyblinds.com).
Thanks for tuning in to my adventures. Wish me luck as I soon head back to Borneo to spend some more time seeking out images of the elusive rainforest wildlife!
Stay safe everyone, and be sure to get your dose of nature therapy!
Warmest regards,
Tim Laman
PS. My new book BIRD PLANET is out (available wherever books are sold), and we are adding new images form BIRD PLANET to my print gallery at TimLamanFineArt.com for our upcoming holiday print sale, so please stay tuned, and start thinking about your holiday gift ideas!
Back to Borneo!
Hello Friends,
Greetings from the rain forest of Borneo! I’m writing this on my iPhone while sitting under a fruiting fig tree where the orangutan mom and juvenile we have been following have been feeding for the past couple hours, unfortunately their position is high and obstructed. Thus I have some down time here to catch you up on my latest news.
This is my first trip back to Gunung Palung National Park since before the pandemic and it’s good to be back. Just this morning gibbons, macaques, and orangutans have all been feeding at this tree as well as at least a dozen species of birds, including the colorful barbets, several species of which are just now calling incessantly above.
I’m here with my wife Cheryl Knott who directs the Gunung Palung Orangutan Project and her team of students and assistants. My 18 year old daughter Jessica is working with Cheryl on her project, and my 22 year old son Russell is assisting me with filming orangutans for another major production. It’s great to be here with the whole family and all our Indonesian colleagues working to spread the word about the amazing biodiversity that is protected in this sanctuary.
I’ll be spending at least three months in the field here this year also working on a major National Geographic magazine feature about Gunung Palung’s amazingly intact flora and fauna that represents the full diversity of lowland rainforest species in Borneo.
So please stay tuned and I’ll keep sending periodic updates. It’s not easy to upload new photos from here as I have no internet connection and just enough signal to send this note out by WhatsApp to my assistant back in the US. So she will add some images from my GP archives to this newsletter and I’ll look forward to sharing new images when I can.
Have a good summer everyone, and if you you want to learn more about our conservation work here and don’t already follow us, please check out www.savewildorangutans.com.
How We Filmed the Great Argus Pheasant
The Great Argus pheasant is one of the most spectacular, but also most elusive birds in Borneo. I have been doing fieldwork in the rainforest of Gunung Palung for over thirty years, and have spent a sum total of over five years of my life in the forest there. Yet I have only seen a Great Argus with my own eyes once. Nonetheless, I had a dream of capturing images of this bird performing its courtship display.
Why did I think it was even possible to photograph such a rare and elusive bird? The reason is that male Argus choose a small clearing in the forest, and clear some of the leave to make a display arena. With enough searching in areas where we heard Argus calling, we were able to locate a number of these courts. We then monitored them with trail cameras to see which ones were active. Finally, using modern digital cameras in waterproof housings connected to infra-red triggers (which we call “camera traps”), we “staked out” these courts and hoped to capture footage of displaying males.
As it turned out, Argus male frequent their courts much less regularly than we expected, but never the less, as you can see in the images below, we were ultimately successful! Read on below to learn more about the efforts it took over two years to capture footage for the full behavioral sequence in the recent BBC series “The Mating Game”. As narrator David Attenborough says in his interview about the film on the BBC website (HERE), “I’m sure it’s the first time its been filmed in the wild”.
Argus Male Displays to a Female
At one point, a branch fell right onto the middle of the male’s court at one location. When he came back, before dragging away the branch, the male performed a series of practice displays facing toward the stick, as if it was an imaginary female in his mind. This gives us a good sense of what the female is seeing from her point of view!
At one point, a branch fell right onto the middle of the In this shot, the female is on the other side of the male so we get the backstage view of his display. You can see how he holds his head to one side and is peering through a small gap in the fold of his wing to keep an eye on her, and direct his display directly toward her.
Behind the Scenes
Filming the Argus with Camera Traps
I started this project in 2019 working with Silverback Films to try to film a sequence for the program “The Mating Game” for the BBC. I made three trips to Gunung Palung that year, locating courts, setting up the camera systems, and training my collaborators in use of the equipment. In a partnership with the National Park, ranger Darmawan (his full name) took on the task of checking the camera traps in the field every two weeks, changing batteries, and swapping out memory cards, also working with Gunung Palung Orangutan Project research director and photographer Wahyu Susanto, who helped manage the project in my absence, and send back results.
Although originally I had planned to return more regularly, I was unable to do so because of covid, so Darmawan and Wahyu kept the traps running for over two years. We consulted regularly on WhatsApp, making adjustments to camera positions, troubleshooting equipment, and keeping things going. As you can see in the behind-the-scenes video on the BBC’s website (HERE) where David Attenborough is talking about how difficult filming with camera traps are, these men are the stars who kept everything working and put enough time in in the field so that we eventually captured enough footage to tell the story of these incredible birds.
When I started this project, I assumed that the Argus males would behave something like Birds-of-Paradise, visiting their courts daily during a peak breeding season. We just had to find the courts and be filming during those peak periods. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Over the two years of the project, we found no regular seasonal patterns of visits, and visits to the courts went in spurts and were completely unpredictable. Males did show up more often on their own, and did some practice displays, but during the entire project, there were only six times where we filmed a male displaying to a female! Still, that was enough, since we captured them from different angles and with different camera positions that could be edited into the sequence!
The original plan was that once we had an idea of seasons and the most active courts, I would go out to spend a month or so sitting in a blind, to try to film the closeups that would help make a good sequence. Since I couldn’t go, Wahyu stepped up, and made four trips to Gunung Palung to try to film the Argus in person from a blind. He put in an incredible 40 days in blinds! Finally during his last trip, a male came and spent over two hours at the court, calling, clearing leaves, and giving Wahyu plenty of chances to get some much needed closeups. So hats off to Wahyu for pulling off that difficult assignment that really made the sequence come together.
The sign of an active court - some small feathers dropped by an Argus!
Gunung Palung National Park ranger and Argus camera trap monitor Darmawan attaches a mount to a tree on the edge of a court in preparation for deploying a camera. In the back, Wahyu checks the court for fresh sign.
Darmawan adjusts a camera trap box mounted higher on a tree for an overview shot of the court.
Tim, Darmawan, and Wahyu run though a checklist on the remote camera, double checking all settings. When you are going to leave a camera in the forest for two weeks or more, you need to make sure everything is set!.
The moment of truth: Arriving to check a camera after two weeks, and opening the back of the waterproof box to see if there are any results. Is the camera still working? Are there any hits? Are they Argus Pheasants, or just bearded pigs, mouse deer, and pig-tailed macaques? Camera trapping is very challenging, but when you capture something unique, it can be very exciting and rewarding as well.
Succeeding in filming or photographing aspects of animal behavior that have never been shared with a wide audience before is one of the things I get most excited about. This Argus project has been a great example of that. There are still so many cool stories that remain to be revealed from the natural world!
Thanks for tuning in to my adventures. This one got a bit long, but I hope you enjoyed it if you read this far! Do let me know if you like these in-depth back stories to my work. You can always drop an email to studio@timlaman.com.
Stay safe everyone, and be sure to get your dose of nature therapy!
Warmest regards,
Tim Laman
PS. We are offering a 20% discount on prints in honor of Valentine's Day. So if you were thinking about purchasing a Tim Laman original print for yourself or a loved one, now is a good time! www.TimLamanFineArt.com.
PPS. If you’d like to see the full episode of “The Mating Game”, you can find it streaming on the BBC in the UK, or on Discovery+ in the US. Here is a link to the trailer. You’ll see a brief glimpse of our Argus display in there in the middle! The Mating Game
Save Wild Orangutans and get a Free Print
As many of you know, my longest term personal photography project is documenting the orangutans of Gunung Palung, in support of the science and conservation work of my wife Cheryl Knott’s project and her NGO, the Gunung Palung Orangutan Conservation Program (a US 501c3).
So it is my pleasure to offer some free prints to supporters this month. We are attempting to build some “crowd sourced” funding for the organization, so that we can grow our education and conservation programs in the communities around the park, with the aim of long term forest and buffer zone preservation for orangutans and all the other biodiversity.
I hope you will consider becoming a monthly contributor. Any small donation is welcome, but if you are able to commit to $10/month or more, you will receive your choice of one of three of my prints shown below in December, in time for Christmas. So you could keep it for yourself or give it away as a gift! Please go to this LINK to learn more and sign up.
You’ll also become a member of our “Save Wild Orangutan” team as a monthly donor, and receive our exclusive updates from the field and blog posts for our members which I think you will enjoy.
Thanks for your consideration of this opportunity!
Wildlife Photographer of the Year Winners Announced
This past weekend the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition announced the winners and had the gallery opening at the Natural History Museum in London. Tim was specially commended in the Creative Visions of Nature category and highly commended in the Gerald Durrell Award for Endangered Wildlife. You can see the winning images below. Check out the competition's online gallery and vote for one of Tim's images.
