It’s a hefty day of travel when you are going to the other side of the world. I mean that. And when I say “day” I truly mean that too. We left Philadelphia airport on June 28th and arrived in Jakarta on June 30th. In fact, it took a full THIRTY hours of travel to get to our destination, aka MORE than a day, and in the process we all but missed out on June 29th, 2019. We had a mere 2 hours to celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary as we dashed across the Qatar airport to our connecting flight. All along Ross was joking that this is how one goes about avoiding their anniversary.
When we finally arrived in the lovely land of Indonesia, we grabbed a taxi at the airport, paid the tourist tax on our ride (aka an inflated taxi rate for foreigners), and headed to the city of Bogor where we hoped to snag a cheaper ride and continue on our way because we still had a ways to go to get to our final destination. The fact that it was Sunday morning when we arrived really played into our favor as the roads were significantly less trafficked and we made excellent time. The capital city of Jakarta is notorious for having some of the worst traffic in the world and it wouldn’t be unheard of to sit for hours and go essentially nowhere. (Keep that in mind when I tell you a story later on in the trip.) We hopped out of the taxi at the bus station and climbed into a nearly full bus. The bus was full but at least it had AC. From the bus we then jumped into a run down mini van-type vehicle. The seats in the bemo (aka mini van-type vehicle) didn’t have any cushion and the leg room was nothing to speak of, but at least we had seats. From the run down bemo we then hopped onto two ojeks, aka motorbikes, and took the bumpiest road I’d been on in quite some time for the last hour and a half of our 40-hour long journey. It seemed that each leg of travel was a downgrade from the one before it. What started as a private taxi eventually became a motorbike and let me tell you, riding on the back of a motorbike for an hour and a half down a cobblestone road carrying a giant backpack on your back with no seat cushion to sit on makes for one sore behind. Every single bump, which was essentially nonstop, was felt. It was quite the exhausting journey to get to Halimun, our final destination. Trust me when I say I can handle a lot but I told Ross I absolutely refused to go back out the way we came in, the motorbikes were that bad!
Unfortunately, Indonesia is not a country where you can easily bird while going from point A to point B. The fact that native forest is all but wiped out on the island of Java and the fact that thousands of wild birds are illegally trapped and put in cages can make bird spotting difficult. We had arrived early morning and it wasn’t until 2pm that I saw my first wild bird. I didn’t get a great look at it but when I told Ross I saw a bird, he simply said, “I can assure you it was nothing good.” That’s because we were riding through degraded habitat and all of the good birds that you might have been able to find a century ago are now residing in cages as a decoration for the front of someone’s home. We saw hundreds of native birds in a cage screaming for help and frantically jumping around hoping for freedom. For those of you that are not aware, wild birds are very routinely trapped and kept in cages in Indonesia. The bird markets in Jakarta are infamous and might even be deemed “cultural” but believe me, there’s nothing cultured about them. The birds are kept in tiny cages, stacked one on top of another, often 7-8 cages high. The birds don’t have access to clean water, food, toys or any real luxury, and worst of all for every bird that survives to get to this point, 10 others died along the way. Birds are routinely caught by trappers and then shipped in less than ideal conditions (I’ve read stories of birds being smuggled in shoved in water bottles.) The crash of countless species in Indonesia can be linked to this horrendous practice and it really is the reason why one can walk in the forest and not hear or see much activity at all. Check out the Silent Forest campaign for more details. Without the songbirds, the forest becomes eerily quiet. Anyway, some areas are protected and have remaining populations of scarce species and we were off to tick them!
Halimun Salak National Park, the first stop on our Indonesian bird finding quest, contains the largest tract of undisturbed lowland/montane forest left on the island of Java and sits between Mount Halimun and Mount Salak. The road we were riding in on goes through part of the national park and there’s a research station along the road where we initially planned to camp, but having a space to lock up our bags was convenient so when we met the park ranger we decided to forgo our tent for the night and opted for a room. We weren’t expecting to get any birding in on our first day considering the amount of travel, but somehow we still had an hour of daylight left when we arrived so we scrambled onto the road to get out birding but didn’t see much more than a Javan Whistling Thrush.
Our first real day of birding started at 3:30am when both Ross and I woke up wide awake and ready to go. Jet lag is a nice thing to have when you have owls to find! We meandered down the rocky, cobblestone road in the dark with our main nighttime target being Javan Scops Owl. Really there’s only one road to bird when in Halimun, the road that you come in on and the forest on either side is expansive. There aren’t really any trails to walk and the road provides the best view of the trees anyway, so walk the road is all you really need to do. Two cooperative Javan Frogmouths were a nice start to the morning and as we walked, Ross continued to playback the call of our target scops owl while simultaneously scanning the trees with his newest piece of gear, a thermal optic which allows you to pick up heat radiating off of living creatures. (Maybe at some point I’ll write up a whole blog post dedicated to this state-of-the-art piece of gear that basically allows you to see in the dark because it’s pretty darn fancy.)
Imagine our excitement when we finally heard a Javan Scops Owl respond! Ross soon located the owl with the thermal so we knew exactly where to shine a light, but we were completely confused because as the light went on, we were face to face with an Oriental Bay Owl, not a Javan Scops-Owl! It was a totally bizarre and welcomed surprise, but we were sure we had heard a Javan Scops Owl call. We weren’t crazy because after photographing the Bay Owl, we turned a corner and located a pair of Javan Scops-Owls sitting in a tree! Finding the silent bay owl at the same time we heard a scops-owl was an exciting coincidence!
We spent the morning birding the cobblestone road where we turned up target after target including Javan Leafbird, Javan Sunbird, Large Wren-Babbler, Javan Babbler, and Streaky-breasted Spiderhunter. It seemed the flocks of birds were everywhere! With so many birds around, it was hard to peel ourselves away from them, but by mid morning we needed to head down to a nearby stream where Javan Blue-banded Kingfisher has been seen by birders in the past. This target was a top priority as it is only really reliable here and one other spot in central Java. Remember, birds are scarce in Java and even though a bird should be all over doesn’t mean that it is. When we got to “the classic log”, Ross immediately spots a female Javan Blue-banded Kingfisher sitting on a rock! From where I was standing I simply couldn’t see it and by the time I got to where Ross was, the bird had gone. We spent the next hour and a half waiting for it to come back but it didn’t so we opted to walk up the trail and see if we could access the stream from another location. No dice.
We opted to then walk up the road towards the tea plantation, a more open habitat for a few other targets. Halimun park borders a village and the village people have a field for crops. Even though the forest is supposed to be protected, it seems that a new area was cut out of the trees. We were fortunate to have Javan Hawk-Eagle fly over but since it was the middle of the day we had to work a bit harder to turn up a Brown Prinia or Striated Grassbird that was willing to cooperate. Seriously, in just a day’s time we had picked up nearly all of our targets! At one point Ross said to me, “if only you had seen that kingfisher because I don’t think the day could have been much better.”
In the afternoon we once again opted to walk the main road trying to find flocks. This continued to work out well as we added dozens of species to our growing trip list including Javan Broabill, Gray-cheeked Bulbul, Blue Nuthatch, Sunda Minivet, Crimson-winged and Rufous Woodpeckers, and both Javan and Sunda Forktails. Since we had started the morning at 0330 we opted out of night birding, but not completely because we still went for a quick nocturnal walk. We headed to bed early with the goal of once again starting early for owls.
We left our room at 3AM the following morning and walked up the road in the dark listening to the nocturnal sounds of the forest, managing to see Javan Frogmouth, Sunda Scops Owl, and putting a Javan Scops-Owl to roost. Also during this night walk we found Malayan Civet, Slow Loris, and a few roosting birds including Crimson-breasted Flowerpecker and Pygmy Shortwing. The thermal optic makes finding roosting birds easier than ever!
After sunrise, it didn’t seem as birdy as the day before but sometimes that happens if the flocks are feeding in inaccessible parts of the forest. Still we managed Javan and Orange-breasted Trogons, but not many other new species. By 8am I headed back to the stream to dedicate more time to getting on that darn kingfisher because that really was top priority. Since Ross had seen it the day before, I was confident that if I waited long enough, it would reappear. I sat for hours scanning the stream, even walked a bit up the stream, only to come back and scan some more but no kingfisher! When I would get frustrated with waiting hours and hours for this bird, I would often pause and look around. Here I was in Indonesia sitting by the edge of a rather lovely stream decorated with large, moss-covered stones, sitting under large trees, listening to the sounds of birds singing and the stream gurgling. It was tranquil and picturesque, but that being said, I’m not sure the scenery completely makes up for dipping this bird…
Ross didn’t have many new birds for the morning but did find some Asian Small-clawed Otters! When we got back to the lodge we planned to cook up some ramen noodles for lunch as we had for the previous two meals, but as we got back we spotted two cars parked on the side of the road just across from the lodge. We had nearly cleaned up our bird targets so I agreed to leave the Blue-banded Kingfisher as a dip and Ross went out to talk to them to see if we could hitch a ride back to town.
Originally the family piled into the two vehicles were only going to a small village but it was in the right direction so they waited for us to pack up our bags and let us climb aboard an already overcrowded vehicle. The drive out to the main road was an interesting one, and at one point we found ourselves in a small village on the front porch of someone’s house drinking tea and eating local treats. A Crested Serpent Eagle flew over as we waited but other than that not many birds. After the Muslim prayer time was over, we continued on our way to the next town, this time with only 7 people in the one car. The driver, Iwan, who could speak a bit of English, wanted to know where we were headed to. When we told him we were off to climb Gunung Gede he said, I’ll just drive you there. Hey, why not drive 7 hours in the opposite direction to help out a stranger. This is why we love Indonesia. The people continue to blow me away with their generosity. I’m sure he thought we would pay him, but I don’t think he expected it. We were never expecting to get a direct ride from Halimun to Gede but it worked out and saved us the hassle of coordinating another leg. When we finally arrived, Iwan only said “give me what you think is fair.” For 800,000 IDR, and a private vehicle, I don’t think we could have gotten the 7.5 hour car ride any cheaper
Halimun was good to us but we were excited for what was to come. Gunung Gede is a birdwatchers paradise! Stay tuned for more!
Wow! It is amazing hearing about your trips, very unusual way to see the world and is still amazing. The Indonesian people do seem very nice and the owl pictures are excellent! They are fascinating to look at! It is something to wake up at 3-3:30 am to look for them in the dark in a forest (state park) and with the road does make it easier to get through but it is still dark. Love the new thermal equipment! Melissa you write well and was a good read even out loud!