Javan Lazarus

 

After an all too brief visit to the US, in early June I jetted off once again to Indonesia on an extended work trip. I would be there a few weeks, which meant at least a little bit of time for birding, mostly on weekends when I wasn't working all day. The joy of my job (besides work that I find genuinely fulfilling) is that it takes me to so many places with good birds, even if it means that I'm usually restricted to brief weekend expeditions rather than proper multi-day trips. This particular trip ended up being a real doozy for birding, with some of the best birds I've seen all year, and some that are probably lifetime highlights. 

Getting to Indonesia from DC is no joke; the flight took me through Qatar, which meant a cool daytime flight over the Atlantic and evening over Europe. The highlight of that was flying directly over the Azores, and getting good looks at Mount Pico, the highest point in Portugal. I had a brief layover in Doha in the middle of the next day, and scanning with binoculars over the tarmac got me only Rock Pigeons and a single Eurasian Collared Dove for my Qatar list. 

Mount Pico from the plane

After a week of work, I headed out to the province of Central Java to look for one of my most-wanted Indonesian birds: Javan Blue-banded Kingfisher. Up until a few years ago, almost no-one had ever seen one- partly because it was considered conspecific with the Malayan Blue-banded Kingfisher of Malaysia and Sumatra, and partly because it's practically extinct in the wild. Eventually ornithologists realized that the Javan form was quite distinctive and merited being called its own species, and after some good efforts by Indonesian birders a couple of stakeouts for this critically endangered bird were discovered.

My destination for this was the hills above the city of Pekalongan, known mostly for its batik clothing. The best way to get to Pekalongan is by train, and of course train travel is always exciting. I ended up springing for a seat in the "first class" section which was actually excellent- big, comfortable seats, a great view out the window, and even complementary nasi goreng for breakfast, all for about $60 USD! It's almost too bad I won't be doing much more travel in Java now that I've seen almost all the endemics, as train travel is just about my favorite way to get from place to place.

At the Pekalongan train station I met up with Anjar, who's the go-to guide for this area. After a quick stop to pick up groceries, we drove up into the hills toward the birding spot. To my surprise, the drive took us through some of the nicest hill forest I've seen on Java, all of which seemed publicly accessible. Despite all its other environmental woes, I am envious of how well-protected the remaining natural areas in Java are- a far cry from the Philippines, where that forest would be cleared in about 30 seconds if a road this nice was built through it. My destination for the night was the Welo Asri river park, a little tourist establishment on the edge of one of the many streams rushing down from the hills toward the park. It was the weekend, so the park was full of local tourists there to swim in the little rocky pools or take pictures of the nice waterfalls. It was a nice, friendly spot, and it's always gratifying to see locals enjoying natural areas and bringing some money in for ecotourism. As is usual for any public spot in Indonesia, it was apparently necessary for me to join in in approximately 800 selfies with locals, from teenage schoolgirls to old men in sarongs and kopiahs.

The view down into the river gorge

It was mid-afternoon by that point, so there was still a good amount of time for birding. We walked uphill from the park along the road, which was quite nice for birding except the constant stream of cars and motorcycles passing by. I caught a quick glimpse of a Pygmy Bushtit, an endemic I hadn't seen in quite some time, and was able to get decent views (and bad pictures) of a male Javan Sunbird, which I had previously only heard singing. A chipping in the bushes next to a small stream proved to be an immature Yellow-bellied Warbler, which was actually a lifer for me- one of the few from the weekend. I also got great looks at an adorable Little Barbet calling next to the road, and great looks at another Javan Sunbird, albeit a very drab female.

Male Javan Sunbird

Yellow-bellied Warbler

Little Barbet

Female Javan Sunbird

Common Grass Yellow

Sundanese Gossamerwing, a stupidly good-looking damselfly

Anjar introduced me to the local park ranger responsible for keeping an eye on the kingfishers, who took us through the woods to one of the blinds that they have set up. We spent a while sitting at the blind waiting for kingfishers but to no avail, as they were apparently elsewhere that afternoon. There was, however, an adorable little Pygmy Cupwing that came in and allowed me to get some decent pictures. On the way out there was a nice assemblage of birds along the road, including Black-winged Flycatcher-Shrike, Black-banded Barbet, and Trilling Shrike-Babblers. The highlight was a group of enormous Wreathed Hornbills flying through the forested mountains far above us. Back at the river park, I spotted a Crimson-breasted Flowerpecker feeding in a flowering tree, which surprisingly enough was also a lifer for me. 

Pygmy Cupwing

Black-winged Flycatcher-Shrike with a photobombing Sooty-headed Bulbul

Trilling Shrike-Babbler, a beautiful bird that refuses to ever pose for pictures

Black-banded Barbet

Wreathed Hornbill

Crimson-breasted Flowerpecker

Nila Flashwing, another absurdly gorgeous damselfly

Colsa cavata, a cute little endemic froghopper

We had dinner back at the river park, then walked up the road again to look for night birds. The first part of the night walk was pretty quiet, with little but a group of roosting Sangkar White-eyes. Walking back down we heard the distant hooting of a Sunda Eagle-Owl, and then finally a Sunda Scops-Owl. We were eventually able to locate it for pictures, along with a typically demented-looking Javan Frogmouth that never posed properly for a picture.

Sunda Scops-Owl

Javan Frogmouth

I slept at the river park in a bare-bones room with just a thin mattress on the floor- basic but all I needed for a night in the woods. Around 2AM I was woken up by a thunderous crashing noise from the mountain slope nearby, which I immediately could tell was a landslide. In the morning I went down to the river to check it out and saw that a decent portion of the hillside had given way and gone tumbling into the river- just on the other side of where there were several families with young kids camping! I have to say I'm glad that I only spent one night there, because that particular thought would have kept me up all night...

The results of the landslide- diminutive by landslide standards although you wouldn't know it from the noise it made... 

At sunrise the next morning I got back in Anjar's car, and we headed uphill to the second kingfisher spot, hoping for more luck. I spotted a Javan Forktail as we crossed a bridge over a river, and on the other side heard the squeaky calls of some kind of kingfisher. Below the bridge there was a little blind set up, where we settled down and waited. We didn't have to wait long- it was less than 10 minutes before a gorgeous male Javan Blue-banded Kingfisher came in and perched right in front of the blind! He was soon joined by the female, and we spent the next half hour or so watching as the pair darted up and down the river, perching on rocks or bamboo to eat fish and shrimp they had caught from the stream. It was an incredible look at a critically endangered bird, one thought to be almost extinct. Considering that these were in rocky, hilly streams near to human habitation, I suspect part of the rarity may just be that their favored habitat isn't usually surveyed, but either way it was an absolutely mega bird and one of my favorites of the year.

Male Javan Blue-banded Kingfisher

Female Javan Blue-banded Kingfisher

If I was a proper bird photographer I probably would have stayed there all day to make sure I had the best possible picture of Javan Blue-banded Kingfisher. I'm not, though- just a birder with a camera who wants to get decent pictures while also chasing lifers. Instead we headed to another little village nearby, where there was a trail going up into the hills that apparently had some decent birds along it. The "trail" proved to be little more than a tiny footpath used by local farmers and their livestock to get up to their plots on the steep slopes, and hiking it was mostly a lot of scrambling up 60-degree slopes in the hot sun. The forest was scrubby and disturbed and the birds were few and far between, but there were some good ones- a quick flyby from an Eyebrowed Wren-Babbler, lots of calling Flame-fronted Barbets, and to my surprise good numbers of Pink-headed Fruit Doves, surely one of the best doves anywhere in the world.

Pink-headed Fruit Dove

Flame-fronted Barbet

Javan Flying Dragon

Striped Ringlet (Ragadia makuta)

Neptis vikasi

Crimson-tailed Marsh Hawk

Crimson-tailed Marsh Hawk munching on a fly

 

The main remaining target of the morning was Brown-banded Barbet, another uncommon Javan-endemic barbet. We looked for it on the whole hike and tried some speculative playback, but to no avail. It was only when we got to the highest point of the trail, a little promontory with a gorgeous view of the valley, that we finally had a single Brown-banded Barbet come in briefly to playback, disappearing before I could get pictures. On the way down we saw Yellow-throated Hanging Parrot and a beautiful little Streaky-breasted Spiderhunter before getting back to the car.

Brown-banded Barbet

Streaky-breasted Spiderhunter

Some sort of gorgeous cicada (Scieroptera sp., I think)

Common Bluebottle

Bigg's Brownie

Camponotus singularis

The view from the top of the hike

We headed back down to the river park to take a brief rest and have some breakfast (and in my case to have even more selfies taken with Indonesian tourists). I'd seen more or less all of my feasible targets, so I took the opportunity to have a quieter morning, taking pictures only of the cool moths that had accumulated on the walls of the buildings.

Autumn Leaf

Some unidentified crambid moth

Cleora sp.

Miltochrista arcuata

Agathia sp.

Eoophyla gibbosalis

My train didn't depart until later that afternoon, so there was still time to kill up on the mountain before we had to head down. Anjar asked if I wanted to see Javan Gibbons, which of course I very much did as they would be a mammal lifer for me. Anjar took me downhill to a random spot in the woods the ranger told us about, and sure enough there was a family group of Javan Gibbons hanging around (literally) in the trees next to the road! A bit further downhill we came across a troupe of Javan Lutung, another endemic primate albeit much more common than the gibbons.

Javan Gibbon!

Gibbons don't have tails so I guess I shouldn't be surprised they have butts, but it was still a little surprising

Javan Lutung are generally pretty cute, but occasionally they stray into uncanny valley territory with their big black eyes and Voldemort-style noses

We found a path into the woods and walked for a bit to find some birds. It was gorgeous forest, but it was in fact completely devoid of birds- almost creepily so. I guess the downside of having a public road through such good-quality habitat is that it makes it more accessible to Java's infamous bird trappers. A few decades ago this forest probably would have been full of shamas and green magpies, but they're all gone now- nearing extinction in the wild if they're not there already. It was a sobering reminder of the ecological problems Java still faces, even as its forest areas remain well protected. Thankfully, there were at least enough cool insects to keep me occupied- perhaps more than usual thanks to the lack of avian predators...

Caryandra spuria

Malayan Assyrian

Nila Flashwing

Some kind of cool ichneumonid wasp

Little Maplet

Choreutis argoxantha

Some sort of lizard beetle

Parallel-spined Spiny Orbweaver

Etlingera coccinea, a beautiful ground ginger

Back at the river park, the park ranger (whose name I wish I remembered) told us he had found a roosting owl, so we followed him into the woods. Sure enough, there was a very fuzzy immature Sunda Scops-Owl roosting on an open branch. I took a few pictures and then left it alone to get its rest.

Sunda Scops-Owl

By then it was mid-afternoon, so Anjar drove me back down to Pekalongan where I got on the train back to Jakarta. It wasn't a particularly lifer-heavy weekend, but it included one of my absolute most-wanted Indonesian birds, with some other cool endemics and great mammals and insects to boot, all a fairly short distance away from Jakarta. I certainly highly recommend the area (and Anjar as a guide), and it's nice to see it getting the attention it deserves from birders and photographers.