I have been lucky enough to escape the Northern Hemisphere winter for a few days, and I am back checking up on our Eddy Covariance system in the oil palm plantation near Bintulu, Sarawak, Malaysia. In fact, aside from a few issues, the systems have been working very well. Following conversion in 2016, the palms on the site are now starting to establish themselves (see left of the image – Image by Dominic Fawcett).

The most annoying issues are the spiders that seem to think the intake filter is a good home (you can see the logic here, with food being literally sucked towards them). The latest visitor to the tower is an Eagle.