Huge thanks to everyone who came on my October 2025 orangutan photo tour and massive thanks to the Big Give for doubling our donations to the Orangutan Foundation from this trip. Time and internet connection are a bit limited at the moment but here are the first few shots from the week along with some video clips of the orangutan release that we were invited to attend. There’s more information here about future Orangutan photo tours. There’s a few more photos of baby orangutans taken on these trips here.

Our base for our time in Borneo was Rimba lodge which you can see in this photo in the bottom right. The perfect place to explore the national park from each day.

On our very first journey upstream to reach Rimba lodge we had five great sightings of wild orangutans from our boat by the river. The following afternoon we had a brief downpour allowing us to capture photographs of orangutans in the rain.

Early morning with the mist loitering above the forest.

We aim to be out on the river in our boat at sunrise each morning as it’s such a great time for wildlife.

This first time I’ve ever witnessed this behaviour. A baby orangutan breast feeding while its mum seems to be feeding herself from her other nipple.

It’s thought that this could be a way of self soothing for the mum. There was certainly no shortage of food in the forest with so much fruit everywhere.

As always on these trips we had so many great Proboscis monkey sighting every day.

A very young baby Proboscis monkey

More images and information about Proboscis monkeys can be found here.

A wonderful sighting of a wild orangutan feeding on the fruit of Rasau palm by the side of the river.

We were invited to watch the release of Mona – a ten year old orangutan – back into the wild. The Orangutan Foundation have cared for her for over eight years since being rescued from the pet trade. Lamandau wildlife reserve where Mona found her freedom is normally completely off limits to visitors but they timed her release with my visit and invited my guests.

We also had the privilege of seeing these very young orangutans and a gibbon who are on soft release in Lamandau having been rescued from the pet trade. This means they spend time in the trees each day and are fed by staff until they are old enough to survive back in the rainforest.

The macro possibilities are endless in these forests.

With plenty of opportunities to practice our close up photography.

A great encounter with this dominant male orangutan.

As always the bird life in these forests was such a pleasure to see – a separate blog post will follow later in November about birding in Tanjung Puting national park.