Bali Redemption Tour

 

After my epic month-long trip through the Philippines with Doug and Andrew, I wanted nothing more than to stay at home for a month catching up on work, photo editing, and spending time with Nikki. For a week and a half I did just that, only picking up my binoculars to do my daily balcony bird list. Unfortunately, returning home meant returning to work full time, and returning to work in this case meant going on an extended work trip once again. This time it was to Cambodia, Indonesia, and Thailand in a hectic three weeks of Southeast Asia country-hopping. 

Most of my work travel was of course spent going to and from meetings, with the only outside time spent either doing fieldwork or going from my hotel to the office and back. I did, however, have three free weekends that I could spend doing some birding trips. While my last trip to Indonesia had been a quiet one bird-wise thanks to busy work and rainy weather, this time I was determined to take advantage of my little free time to get out and see some more of Indonesia and Indonesian birds. 

The logical thing would have been for me to fly to a different island and try for a totally new suite of Indonesia's many, many endemic birds. That certainly would have been a good way to maximize my number of lifers. However, one part of my approach to birding that I don't like having unfinished business. That's why I spent most of my free time in 2022 traveling through the Philippines to see more endemics instead of traveling to other parts of Southeast Asia with many more lifers. It's also why I decided to spend my first weekend in Indonesia in Bali, an island I'd already been to before and birded fairly extensively. 

My first trip to Bali was in the Before Times, all the way back in 2019 when we could do international travel blissfully unaware of things like global pandemics. It was a great trip, but I did miss out on a few key specialty birds. More importantly, most of my best pictures were tragically deleted in a computer glitch. I'm starting to care more and more about my photo life list, and having that many species without existing photos was an annoying hole in that list. It was also an excuse to get back to a very pleasant and scenic island that I'd greatly enjoyed my first time there.

Since I didn't really have the time to figure out transportation logistics or bird sites, I decided to hire a guide to take me around. I went with Hery Kusumanegara of Bali Birding Tour, the company I'd used my previous visit. This was a good decision, as they're a really great local outfit, and Hery is a great birding guide. I love independent birding as much as the next millennial birder, but when you have limited time and bandwidth it's nice to have someone else to take care of the details so you can just focus on seeing the birds. 

I left Jakarta on the evening of Friday, March 17 and flew into the Denpasar airport, where I met Hery and Markus, the driver. By then it was late enough that there was only time to go to the hotel and sleep before a very early morning wake up. The next morning we left before sunrise to head uphill to the Batu Karu temple, the first stop of our whirlwind weekend tour of Bali. I'd actually been to that temple on my first visit, but knowing very little about what birds were there or where to look for them, I didn't see much of interest (although the temple itself was quite nice). 

This time, we birded along a small road outside of the temple complex itself. This was the area where Javan Owlet, our main site target, had often been seen. The sun had risen by the time we arrived and no owlets were calling, but we looked around anyway, trolling playback. While the owlet wasn't immediately apparent, there were some other nice birds around, including Greater Racket-tailed Drongos, Rusty-breasted Whistlers, Brown-cheeked Bulbuls, and Scarlet Minivets. We heard a Javan Scimitar-Babbler calling, but weren't able to see it. A large bird flew over which took us a bit to locate but turned out to be a Dark-backed Imperial Pigeon! This was a bird I had only heard previously, so it was great to get a good look and decent pictures of this elusive species.

Greater Racket-tailed Drongo: a very common bird that I still don't have decent pictures of.

Brown-cheeked Bulbul

Dark-backed Imperial Pigeon

The morning birding area

Finally, after half an hour or so of looking we heard the call of a Javan Owlet! It took a bit more searching but we were finally able to find one glaring down at us from a palm tree. It stayed there for several minutes, and I was able to get what are certainly some of the best pictures of this species. I had only heard it on my trip to Gunung Gede and it has a reputation for being a real bugger to get a good look at, so this was a far better start to the weekend than I could have hoped for.

Javan Owlet!

We headed back to the car, catching a few migratory Chinese Goshawks flying overhead as we were about to get in. The next stop was the Bali Botanic Gardens in the mountain town of Bedugul, an hour or so away from the temple. It was a scenic drive through Bali's famous rice terraces, and I wish I'd stopped for a proper picture (although I guess I got lots of pictures on my last visit). We did stop for a gorgeous Javan Kingfisher- not an extremely uncommon bird, but often a shy one that it seems like most birders see from a car while driving. 

Javan Kingfisher

Rice fields captured from a moving car- not my finest landscape photo

We arrived at the botanic gardens at mid-morning, and immediately started looking for my main target there, Javan Bush Warbler. As it turned out they're much easier than most bush warblers- it was just a matter of finding the proper shrub, playing the call, and waiting a couple seconds for an angry Javan Bush Warbler to appear. Pictures were much more difficult of course, as it is still a bush warbler. We also heard the calls of a Javan Hawk-eagle as we were looking for the bush warbler, and soon a pair of them started soaring overhead. I had seen these before in Java, but it was great to run into them again- the largest and rarest raptor on Java. We also had a Black-banded Fruit Dove perched distantly, which was a bird I had only heard before, so it was another good addition to my photo list, even if all I got were some rubbish record shots. 

The typical view of a Javan Bush Warbler

Javan Hawk-Eagle

Black-banded Fruit Dove

The Bedugul Botanic Gardens

From Bedugul we headed downhill once again, down the northern face of Bali's central volcanoes. We stopped along the way for a spectacular view of the three lakes of the Bedugul caldera. Even after the pandemic Bali is arguably a little over-touristed,, with its streets clogged with westerners on motorbikes and locals being crowded out by gentrification. There's a good reason for it though; between the gorgeous volcanic scenery, glistening green rice paddies, vibrant local culture, and beautiful Hindu temples it really is one of the most beautiful islands in the world. Hopefully they can find a way to make tourism a little more sustainable. 

The Bedugul caldera (I have much better landscape pictures in my last Bali blog entry)

Down on the northern coast of Bali, we drove another hour or so before we got to a water treatment facility located right along the ocean. As any birder knows water treatment plants are almost guaranteed to have good birds, so I had hopes of adding some waders to my Indonesia list. As we got out of the car we spotted a Javan Plover, a bird I'd seen in Jakarta back in 2019 but didn't have any pictures of. It was great to finally get a good picture of one, and to eliminate yet another annoying hole in my photo life list. The best bird, however, was a pair of huge Beach Thick-Knees that we (accidentally) flushed as we walked by the shore. I'd seen this in Bali my previous time and gotten an absolutely awful picture, but this time they decided to circle over us several times, giving amazing looks and allowing me to get great pictures. Thick-knees have to be some of my favorite shorebirds, just by virtue of being incredibly weird. On the same spot I also saw a lovely little Malaysian Plover, a species I'd only seen once before, and a Cerulean Kingfisher that was too shy for good pictures. On the drive out I spotted a White-shouldered Triller on a wire in the process of murdering a grasshopper.

Javan Plover

Beach Thick-Knee

Malaysian Plover

White-shouldered Triller with an Oriental Longheaded Locust (Acrida cinerva)

This little butterfly turns out to be from the genus Theclinesthes, which is supposed to be endemic to Australia. It's either a mega vagrant or somehow ship assisted- either way a cool record!

We had a late lunch at a little restaurant near Bali Barat National Park, located on the far western end of Bali. To my surprise, there was a group of Bali Mynas hanging out in the trees next to the restaurant! The Bali Myna is one of Indonesia's few conservation success stories of the past decade; they were almost driven extinct in the wild at the turn of the century thanks to the caged bird trade, reaching a low of 6 birds in 2001. Even as recently as 2019 when I was in Bali they were quite rare and most birds were from the released captive breeding program. These days the population is recovering quite nicely thanks to captive breeding and nest preservation programs, and they can even be seen breeding within towns next to the national park. The bird situation in Indonesia is pretty dire, thanks to rampant habitat destruction and an unhealthy penchant for exotic caged birds, so it's nice to have at least one exception.

Bali Myna

Our next stop was the edge of Bali Barat National Park, where we were looking for Javan Cuckooshrike, one of the few actual lifers I expected to get on this trip. We also searched for Black-thighed Falconet, a Greater Sundas endemic I still hadn't managed to catch up with. There were no falconets to be seen (only Yellow-vented Bulbuls perching like falconets), although we did have a single Woolly-necked Stork fly over, along with lots of Aerodramus swiftlets of some sort. Swiftlets in the Philippines are tough to ID, but in Indonesia they're absolute bastards, as there are three species of sympatric swiftlet that look essentially identical except for the materials they choose to build their nests out of. These ones had very pale rumps and fairly prominent tail forks, which I think means they're probably White-nest Swiftlets, although I don't know if I'm supposed to ID it to species even with very good pictures.

Finally, we heard the shrieking calls of a Javan Cuckooshrike, and were eventually able to track a pair of them down deeper in the woods. This was another rather uncommon bird with very few passable pictures online, so it was great to get decent looks and decent photos. We heard some other good birds along the way like Javan Banded Pitta and Fulvous-breasted Jungle Flycatcher, but none were lifers for me and Hery assured me we would get much better looks the next day, so we didn't try very hard to see them.

Javan Cuckooshrike

Probably a White-nest Swiftlet?

Erebus macrops, a very cool huge forest moth

Red Percher

We walked back out of the woods and then down the road a bit to an open field with a stunning view of Mount Ijen on East Java looming in the background. We spent some more time scanning for falconets, but once again came up empty-handed, but for some Orange-breasted Green Pigeons perched in distant treetops. I did see a couple of cool Crab-eating Frogs and a Chocolate Royal hairstreak in the cow pasture, so all was not lost. We passed a big group of photographers on the way out being guided by a colleague of Hery's, but it turned out all they were looking at was a Green Imperial Pigeon. 

Some kind of Aerodramus swiftlet...

The good old Grimp

Crab-eating Frog

Chocolate Royal

Mount Ijen in the distance. Little did I know I would be on that volcano just a couple weeks later...

We got back in the car and drove slowly toward Gilimanuk, the town nearest Bali Barat. We scanned every exposed tree branch for falconets, and to my surprise it actually worked- I spotted a Black-thighed Falconet perched on a dead tree devouring the remains of a Cave Swiftlet. I was able to get a little closer and get great looks and decent pics of another lifer for the day. I know tiny raptors punch above their weight but I was still impressed it could take down a swiftlet, which is at least half its size. 

Black-thighed Falconet eating a Cave Swiftlet

Our final stop before sunset was a little Hindu temple right along the beach, where there was a known nest of Yellow-eared Barbet, another fairly common bird I'd never managed to connect with. We waited around a nesting tree without success, and although there were several Yellow-eared Barbets calling, none of them were visible. Eventually we walked around the temple complex a bit and finally got good looks of a singing bird on top of a tree, inflating its little throat sacs as it vocalized.

Yellow-eared Barbet

The temple area

Looking west toward Gunung Ijen

Our last stop for the night was the headquarters of Bali Barat National Park, where we hoped to see a Javan Porcupine, a mammal target of mine. Hery bought a bunch of fruit from the local market in Gilimanuk and we set it outside one of the known burrows of the porcupine. We spent an hour or so after dark waiting for the porcupine, but there was no sign of movement whatsoever. We headed to a nearby Hindu temple where they'd also been known from and saw no porcupines or other mammals, though there was a cool endemic gecko and a few frogs. Back at the porcupine burrow, nothing had shown interest in our bait besides a couple of big snails. I probably could have seen it if I'd stayed there until midnight, but I was absolutely knackered after a long day of birding. After my first foray into mammal-watching I can say that it's not particularly difficult to understand why most hobbyists choose to look for their feathery cousins that can be seen at reasonable times and don't require hours in the dark squinting through a thermal scope. 

I believe this is a Jatna's Bent-toed Gecko (Cyrtodactylus jatnai), although if someone who actually knows herps wants to correct me they're welcome to...

Asian Common Toad

Common Southeast Asian Tree Frog

Another Jatna's Bent-toed Gecko, I think

Record shot of a Southern Red Muntjac

The next morning, our first stop was the headquarters of Bali Barat National Park, where the park rangers put out fruit for wild birds. That's been a hit with the local birds, and as soon after sunrise the feeding area was full of dozens of gorgeous Bali Mynas. Some of them wore bands, indicating they were from the captive-bred population, but most seem to have been hatched in the wild. The species isn't out of the woods yet, but it was a tribute to the successful conservation effort. As for how the views were, well, just see the pictures below.

Bali Myna

The same can't be said for the Gray-rumped Myna, Bali's other endemic and one that's really on the brink; there are probably fewer than 250 individuals left in the wild, a number that's still decreasing as a result of the caged bird trade. It was previously considered a single species, Black-winged Starling, found from West Java east to Bali, but the three subspecies were recently split to become their own species. Hery told me that that led to greatly increased interest in the species as a caged bird, as it was upgraded to Critically Endangered, and all the soulless bird collectors wanted one of each before they went extinct. It's a perverse sort of logic, the same sort of thing that led to a wave of bird extinctions in New Zealand and elsewhere a century or so ago, and it's the reason that things don't look good for many species in Indonesia. Thankfully, we did have a single Gray-rumped Myna show up to the feeding, and we got unusually good views and great photo ops to boot. 

Gray-rumped Myna (seen here with Javan Mynas)

Elsewhere by the headquarters we saw a small group of beautiful Green Junglefowls, another species I'd seen in 2019 but lost all pictures of. There was also a small flock of Lemon-bellied White-eyes moving through the trees, a proper lifer for me. Otherwise it was mostly Scarlet-headed Flowerpeckers and Olive-backed Sunbirds.

Female Green Junglefowl

I know that Green Junglefowls look like chickens, but the key differences are that they are 1) wild, 2) a different species, and 3) very fancy.

Lemon-bellied White-eye

Our next stop was another little temple near the park (Bali has lots of temples, in case that wasn't already clear), where there was a hide set up for Javan Banded Pitta. It didn't take too long after we sat down for a pair of gorgeous Javan Banded Pittas to show up and feed on the mealworms proffered for them. As always I have mixed feelings about bird blinds and bird feeding. On the one hand I'd rather find the birds on my own as they're going about their usual business in the forest rather than coming in to a feeding station like chickens. On the other hand it really revolutionizes photo opportunities for otherwise-tough birds like pittas and babblers, and if we're honest with ourselves putting out some mealworms on occasion isn't *that* much more invasive than the other way birders usually see pittas, which is getting them all riled up with playback until they end up on a visible perch. There's definitely something to be said for getting extended looks at a bird like a banded pitta because, well, wow.

Female Javan Banded Pitta

Male Javan Banded Pitta

Common Darkwing

As it turned out, the second day on Bali was a day full of bird hides. The next stop was within the national park, where there was another hide for Fulvous-breasted Jungle Flycatcher and Yellow-rumped Flycatcher. Neither were lifers for me but I was always happy to get more pictures, and both showed quite nicely at the hide. 

Fulvous-breasted Jungle Flycatcher

Immature male Yellow-rumped Flycatcher molting into adult plumage

Grenadier

Great Orange Tip

The next hide was a bit away, near the open field where we'd unsuccessfully searched for falconets the previous afternoon. This hide held some very cute Horsfield's Babblers, along with a Common Sun Skink coming in to help itself to the mealworms. It was, I will admit, kind of nice to do birding that just meant sitting and waiting for something to come by, rather than stumbling through the undergrowth hoping for a mixed flock or something. I enjoy both actually, but some variety is welcome.

Horsfield's Babblers

Common Sun Skink

The last stop of the day before I had to head to the airport was yet another hide, this one in a mangrove area where we spent about an hour waiting for Cerulean Kingfishers. Two of them did eventually show up, though it was mostly just quick flybys and it was only when I was almost ready to get up and leave when one perched a little closer to us. 

Cerulean Kingfisher

Common Water Monitor

Finally I had to bid goodbye to Hery and head to the airport. My flight wasn't until that evening, but it was Nyepi, the Balinese Day of Silence. This meant that many streets were blocked off due to parades and processionals, and the drive to Denpasar that ordinarily would be a little over 2 hours ended up being more like 5 hours. I still got to the airport with plenty of time for my flight, and with time to enjoy the enormous flock of White-headed Munias and Scaly-breasted Munias hanging out in the palm trees by the departure area.

Mostly Scaly-breasted Munias

White-headed Munia

It was only a brief trip to Bali but a very successful one, with six lifers and many more photo-lifers, including some species with very few photos ever taken. Hery and his team are great, and I look forward to birding with them again the next time I'm in Indonesia. Bali is also a great island for birding, aside from all the usual attractions. If I'm back I suspect it will be to enjoy many of the non-bird parts of the island...