Article and pictures by Musa Musbah, MNS Miri, Dec 2009
The Night of 15 December 2009 a few of us decided to go on a short boat trip along Miri River to scan for firefly displays. We secured a large boat belonging to Pak Par. We chose a large boat because of the possibility of encountering crocodiles. Sg Miri has seen increased numbers of crocodile sightings recently. Strange enough, our boat was in the past actually used by Pak Par to catch crocodiles.
Fortunately for us and the crocodiles, we didn’t see any of the reptilians that nite. According to Pak Par, at high tide, all the crocodiles would be hiding up the riverbank. However he was confident that we would be seeing some firefly displays.
We used a small horse power engine to scour the river, in the boat were was my brother in-laws, son and nephew. We started off at 19:06. The moon was in its a last waning phase, which made the night very dark indeed. The day’s tide is almost at the highest level, there was no current movement in the river.
The first firefly colony was spotted at 19:19 as we entered into the first dark area of the river. The displays were high up on the tree branches. There was a reasonable population of probably 70 individuals displaying. We counted a total of 8 display trees formed by more or less the same number of individual fireflies.
Our boat took that particular moment to breakdown, the propeller pin broke. Without the engine we drifted slowly to Sg Dalam, a small tributary of Sg Miri.
At the junction we drifted to another display, this time on a low tree. We managed to catch some fireflies and put them into a plastic vial for later identification. While waiting for help to arrive, we watched firefly displays. We counted 5 trees nearby having fireflies display.
Shortly after, Pak Par came in a smaller boat with a new propeller pin. They took around 15 minutes to replace the pin.
We started the firefly recce again by entering Sungai Dalam proper. There we discovered 48 display trees, each with a firefly population of perhaps 11-15 individuals. These were counted using a night vision scope we brought along for the purpose. We carried on further until we found less and less display trees.
Unidentified Display Tree leaf
We came out of Sungai Dalam and move up Sg Miri in the direction of Dato’ Permaisuri Tomb.
From the junction to Sg Dalam upwards, we found a total of 15 display trees, two of these included displays on two huge Binjai trees. We saw less and less display trees as we got to the Bakun Hydro Power lines, at this point we turned back.
We saw few display trees on the way back. We reached Pak par jetty at approximately 22:50hrs.
The Night of 15 December 2009 a few of us decided to go on a short boat trip along Miri River to scan for firefly displays. We secured a large boat belonging to Pak Par. We chose a large boat because of the possibility of encountering crocodiles. Sg Miri has seen increased numbers of crocodile sightings recently. Strange enough, our boat was in the past actually used by Pak Par to catch crocodiles.
Fortunately for us and the crocodiles, we didn’t see any of the reptilians that nite. According to Pak Par, at high tide, all the crocodiles would be hiding up the riverbank. However he was confident that we would be seeing some firefly displays.
We used a small horse power engine to scour the river, in the boat were was my brother in-laws, son and nephew. We started off at 19:06. The moon was in its a last waning phase, which made the night very dark indeed. The day’s tide is almost at the highest level, there was no current movement in the river.
The first firefly colony was spotted at 19:19 as we entered into the first dark area of the river. The displays were high up on the tree branches. There was a reasonable population of probably 70 individuals displaying. We counted a total of 8 display trees formed by more or less the same number of individual fireflies.
Our boat took that particular moment to breakdown, the propeller pin broke. Without the engine we drifted slowly to Sg Dalam, a small tributary of Sg Miri.
At the junction we drifted to another display, this time on a low tree. We managed to catch some fireflies and put them into a plastic vial for later identification. While waiting for help to arrive, we watched firefly displays. We counted 5 trees nearby having fireflies display.
Shortly after, Pak Par came in a smaller boat with a new propeller pin. They took around 15 minutes to replace the pin.
We started the firefly recce again by entering Sungai Dalam proper. There we discovered 48 display trees, each with a firefly population of perhaps 11-15 individuals. These were counted using a night vision scope we brought along for the purpose. We carried on further until we found less and less display trees.
Unidentified Display Tree leaf
We came out of Sungai Dalam and move up Sg Miri in the direction of Dato’ Permaisuri Tomb.
From the junction to Sg Dalam upwards, we found a total of 15 display trees, two of these included displays on two huge Binjai trees. We saw less and less display trees as we got to the Bakun Hydro Power lines, at this point we turned back.
We saw few display trees on the way back. We reached Pak par jetty at approximately 22:50hrs.
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