Java Reunions

 

In July of this year I headed to Indonesia, my first time outside the US in more than a year (the previous time being my trip to Malaysia and Indonesia last June). As per usual this was a work trip rather than a birding trip, which meant that my birding time was restricted to the weekends. Still, I managed a few proper birding outings during my 2 weeks in the country, as well as a chance to reunite with old friends and with birds I hadn't seen in far too long. 

The first part of my trip was in Yogyakarta, the same city I visited two years ago for a different project. On that trip I'd met up with Panji, a local birder friend I'd connected with on the internet, and when I contacted him this July it turned out that he had just moved back to Jogja and was free for a morning of birding the day after I arrived. Since our previous birding outing had focused on the local specialty birds like Javan Coucal and Javan Kingfisher, this time Panji suggested we head to Progo Hill, a little park on the outskirts of the city. 

Panji picked me up early on the morning of July 13 and we took his motorbike from my hotel out to Turgo Hill. Turgo Hill is a basaltic hill on the side of Mount Merapi, the huge (and very active) volcano that looms over the city of Yogyakarta. It's got a shrine at the top dedicated to a local sheikh that's a destination for Javanese pilgrims, but the more birding-relevant feature is that it's next to a nature preserve with a nice patch of montane rainforest. Local birders visit it frequently and it has an impressive list of Javan endemics. Being so close to Yogyakarta, the hub of Indonesia's devastating caged bird trade, it's also popular with the bird trappers (who apparently enjoy unfettered access to the restricted areas of the protected forest next door), and Panji warned me that the birds could often be scarce. He was correct, as it turned out.

It was pleasantly cool and cloudy when we got there and bird activity was, to put it politely, rather minimal. At an overlook we had a single Black-naped Fruit Dove perched mostly hidden in a tree, a flock of Javan Mynas, a noisy Black-naped Oriole, and a few Olive-backed Tailorbirds but nothing particularly special. Hiking up the hill we heard some nice birds, including a Sunda Forktail singing in a ravine, a little flock of Crescent-chested Babblers grunting away in the undergrowth, and the hooting calls of a Javan Scimitar-Babbler but barely got a good look at anything. The birds were overall sparse and shy, even if we came away with a respectable list. The local insect and plant life was a little more cooperative, so I at least came away with some good iNaturalist content. 

Javan Myna

Long-tailed Shrike

Common Bushbrown (Telinga janardana)

Javan Flying Dragon

Some sort of cool fly (Plagiozopelma sp.)

Long-flange Millipede (Orthomorpha coarctata)

An undescribed species of leafhopper (Sochinsogonia sp.)

Bearded Begonia (Begonia hirtella), I think

We had a snack at the park entrance and then headed to a different part of the hill where there was a trail going further into the woods. Panji parked his bike in a stand of bamboo near what had once been a national park entrance and soon after we started walking we came across a mixed flock with an interesting assortment of birds, including a couple of Javan Leafbirds and a group of Brown Honeyeaters, a species native to eastern Indonesia that's been introduced in Java thanks to the caged-bird trade. As we walked uphill and the forest transitioned from planted bamboo to more native trees we started to see and hear some better birds, including Orange-spotted Bulbuls, Sunda Warbler, Javan Heleias, Yellow-bellied Warblers, and even a distant singing Javan Blue Flycatcher. As we were walking down we found a great mixed flock with Blue Nuthatches, Javan Fulvettas, and a Greater Green Leafbird, which is getting extremely rare in Indonesia thanks to rampant trapping. Unfortunately everything stayed high in the canopy in the most backlit spots possible, so I had very few photo opportunities.

Brown Honeyeater

Yellow-bellied Warbler

Black Golden Orbweaver (Nephila Kuhli), one of the biggest spiders I've ever seen

Homoneura quinquevittata, a cool endemic fly

Common Faun (Faunis canens)

Black-kneed Meadow Katydid (Conocephalus melaenus)

It was almost noon by then so we decided to call it a day and head back into Yogyakarta, where we finished the morning off with a sambal tasting session. It wasn't the birdiest outing I'd ever had, and the less said about the photo ops the better, but I had set out to have a fun time re-connecting with cool birds and a good birding friend and in that sense it was a great success. 

Panji and I before ingesting vast amounts of spicy sambal

The rest of the week was full of fieldwork and intense all-day work sessions in the office, so I didn't get much birding in besides early morning walks around the hotel grounds. I did still see some good birds, including Yellow-rumped Flycatcher, White-rumped Shama, Javan Leafbird, and the virtually extinct-in-the-wild Javan Pied Myna, but that was only because they were proudly displayed in tiny cages outside people's houses. Indonesia is one of my absolute favorite countries for many reasons, but I have to admit that the constant visibility of the caged bird trade is a pretty difficult part of being.

On July 17 I headed to Jakarta for the second part of the work trip (the less fun part involving endless meetings with government). This time my coworker and I decided to take the train, which proved to be an excellent decision. The train from Jogja to Jakarta takes 6 hours compared to a 1-hour flight, but once you take into account traffic to and from the airport it's barely longer, and instead of a cramped plane we got to sit in huge seats with free wifi as watched the rice fields and volcanoes of central Java pass by outside the window. 

Gunung Sumbing

Gunung Ciremai, the site of some previous (mis)adventures

Despite a packed work schedule in Jakarta I did have a full weekend "off" (with lots of incidental work), which meant time for morning birding outings. On Saturday morning I headed to the Ragunan Zoo, a well-known birding spot I hadn't visited since January 2023. As the name suggests most people go there for the captive animals, but it's also a nice green space with a bit of actual wildlife. I got there just after it opened at 7AM and there were already quite a few birds around, including singing Velvet-fronted Nuthatches, a bit of a surprising bird for urban Jakarta. Red-breasted Parakeets, Black-naped Orioles, and Pink-necked Green Pigeons were all over around the entrance, and I managed to get some decent pictures once my camera lens finally unfogged.

I'm not sure why Red-breasted Parakeets are doing so well when most other Indonesian parrots are being trapped into oblivion, but I'm not complaining

Black-naped Oriole

Pink-necked Green Pigeon

Inside the zoo I had a thoroughly enjoyable morning of birding with a surprisingly good list of birds for an urban location jam-packed with people. Along with the usual birds like Sooty-headed Bulbuls, Malaysian Pied Fantails, Javan Munias, Scarlet-headed Flowerpeckers, and Coppersmith Barbets I saw a gorgeous Blue-eared Kingfisher hanging out near a water feature, a Freckle-breasted Woodpecker feeding above the primate enclosure, a brilliant male Small Minivet feeding in the treetops, a family group of Yellow-bellied Warblers (a species I didn't even know was found in that habitat), and Grey-cheeked Green Pigeons feeding on fruiting palms. While they were escapees, it was still fun to watch the Yellow-crested Cockatoos and Sulphur-crested Cockatoos flying overhead screaming. Asian Water Monitors were all over in the ponds and moats, and I found a little Southeast Asian Tree Frog hidden in some shrubbery.

Blue-eared Kingfisher

Baby Malaysian Pied Fantail

Yellow-bellied Warbler

Sooty-headed Bulbul

Small Minivet

Female Scarlet-headed Flowerpecker

Javan Munia

Freckle-breasted Woodpecker

Yellow-crested Cockatoo, part of an established population of escaped caged birds

Grey-cheeked Green Pigeon

Asian Water Monitor (Varanus salvator)

Orange Skimmer (Orthetrum testaceum)

Common Southeast Asian Tree Frog (Polypedates leucomystax)

Yellow Featherlegs (Copera marginipes)

While I had too much weekend work to do a proper multi-day birding trip, I did still want to get out of Jakarta and see some endemic birds. Pretty much the only option for that was Gunung Gede, a dormant volcano a few hours south of the city. This was another spot I was familiar with from previous trips to Indonesia–in this case way back in 2018 when I did my first birding trip to Indonesia. Back then I spent two full days hiking up and down the mountain, camping at high elevation. I enjoyed that enough that I decided to return, this time along with Desi Triana, a Jakarta-based bird guide who Panji recommended. Even leaving early in the morning we would only have time to get halfway up the mountain, not high enough for many of the specialty birds but still enough for many good ones. I was particularly hoping for Javan Trogon, possibly my favorite bird of my first trip to Java and one I hadn't seen since then despite many return visits. 

We left from Jakarta before sunrise and made the drive out to Gunung Gede. That early in the morning there wasn't much traffic and we were at the trailhead by 7:30 AM. There were a few birds hanging around the forest edge, including Orange-spotted Bulbuls, Javan Flowerpeckers, and Ornate Sunbirds, but it wasn't until we were a half-kilometer or so into the forest before we started to see proper forest birds. Walking uphill, we spent a while following a big mixed flock with Javan Fulvettas, Horsfield's Babblers, Crescent-chested Babblers, Sunda Warblers, Pied Shrike-Babblers, Trilling Shrike-Babblers, and Javan Heleias. A surprisingly bold Rufous-tailed Fantail allowed me to get my first-ever decent pictures of the species, and a tiny Pygmy Cupwing popped up from the undergrowth next to the trail to yell at us, so close I could barely focus my lens.

Orange-spotted Bulbul

Horsfield's Babbler

Sunda Warbler

Trilling Shrike-Babbler

Rufous-tailed Fantail

Entering the national park

The birds got more interesting further up, as did the other wildlife. Endemic Flame-fronted Barbets were surprisingly common and conspicuous throughout the trail, as were the usual Little Pied Flycatchers. Another big mixed flock came by that included a few Blue Nuthatches, one of my favorite birds anywhere in the world, although they stayed high in the canopy. A raspy call in the canopy alerted us to a gorgeous Javan Broadbill sitting right next to the trail! This had been one of my most-wanted birds for the morning, not because it was a lifer but because broadbills are some of my favorite birds and I still hadn't managed good pictures of it. Thankfully this one was nice enough to pose for a bit before flying back off into the forest. Further up Desi was able to call in an Eyebrowed Wren-Babbler, another species I'd never managed to photograph well. Better than most of the birds, however, was a spectacular Kuhl's Anglehead Lizard that Desi spotted sitting motionless in the undergrowth next to the trail!

Flame-fronted Barbet

Male Little Pied Flycatcher

Blue Nuthatch

Javan Broadbill is just as silly-looking as every other broadbill

Eyebrowed Wren-Babbler

Kuhl's Anglehead Lizard (Gonocephalus kuhlii), endemic to West Java (along with a some type of spider mite hitching a ride on its back)

Some sort of cool (Plagiozopelma sp.)

There are over 700 species of moth worldwide in the genus Scopula, all of which look pretty much exactly like this one

Midway up the volcano the main trail turns into a boardwalk as it crosses a pretty little patch of flooded wetlands downstream of the famous Ketupat waterfalls. This can be a good spot for high-flying endemics like Javan Hawk-Eagle and Giant Swiftlet, but this time it was just the usual Cave Swiftlets. After the wetlands we saw a little mixed flock with Indigo Flycatchers and Pied Shrike-Babblers. By then the trail was getting pretty crowded; Gunung Gede is conveniently located both for birders and for local hikers, and it seemed like every Jakarta resident and their grandma was also on the mountain that day. It's genuinely nice to see so many people out enjoying the outdoors, and provides further confirmation for my contention that everywhere in the world should have conveniently accessible green spaces as a matter of public health as well as environmental awareness. Still, I could have done without the many hikers who insisted on playing loud music and/or chain smoking cigarettes the entire way up the mountain.

Crossing the wetlands

Indigo Flycatcher, the prettier cousin of the Turquoise Flycatchers we get in the Philippines

Female Pied Shrike-Babbler

Delias belisama, a beautiful pierid butterfly endemic to Java and Sumatra

Pinalia multiflora, an orchid endemic to Java and Bali

Just uphill of the wetlands we reached the first campsite, which during the weekend turns into a mini bazaar with about a dozen stands selling snacks, drinks, fruit, and barbecued meat to hungry hikers (this leads to about as much plastic and food waste covering the forest floor as you might expect). We stopped here for a while, partly to eat lunch and partly because this is the usual hangout spot of the resident pair of Javan Trogons and their offspring. It took a bit of searching but eventually we located a trio of Javan Trogons just uphill and spent the next half hour watching them as they flitted from branch to branch. Javan Trogons (and their closely related cousins in Sumatra) have to be somewhere in the top 5 best trogons in the world, for their unique color combos if nothing else. They're also hugely range-restricted, and damn hard to see anywhere outside of this spot on Gunung Gede. It had been a solid 8 years since the last time I saw them, long enough that it almost felt like getting a lifer again.

Javan Trogon!

By then it was early afternoon and while I would have loved to spend the whole day looking at birds I also needed to prepare a presentation for the Indonesian government on aging and eldercare. We made our way back down the mountain, still birding of course. There were lots of Mountain Tailorbirds and Pygmy Cupwings in the wetlands of the clearing, and further down we came across a mixed flock with Flame-fronted Barbets, Black-winged Flycatcher-Shrikes, and a beautiful male White-flanked Sunbird. A nice surprise was a little group of Chestnut-bellied Partridges hanging out near the trail, which I even managed to photograph after quite a bit of effort. Near the bottom of the trail we saw a recently-fledged Javan Blue Robin, the last new species of the day.

Mountain Tailorbird (not actually a tailorbird, or even closely related to tailorbirds, though you can forgive early ornithologists for being confused)

Flame-fronted Barbet

Black-winged Flycatcher-Shrike

White-flanked Sunbird

Chestnut-bellied Partridge

Javan Blue Robin was called Sunda Blue Robin last time I was on Gunung Gede, but has since been split from the birds in Sumatra.

After that we made our way back to Jakarta, although what had been a 2-hour drive in the morning turned into a grueling 6-hour drive thanks to the weekend traffic (Metro Jakarta is the only urban I've been to that can compete with Metro Manila in terms of borderline-unlivable gridlock). I bid goodbye to Desi and returned to my hotel to get back to work things. My first international trip in a year was a success both work-wise and birding-wise, and I have to say it's been nice to get back into international birding in general. I'm writing this from the Philippines in fact where I just returned from a great outing with birding friends searching for another poorly-known endemic bird. But that will have to wait for the next blog.