Indonesia – Gunung Gede – Three Days Up A Mountain

If I’m being honest, Ross is the brains behind most of our birding adventures. While I am definitely a lister myself, my life list isn’t as important to me as Ross’s is to him, nor do I follow all of the birding happenings around the world, and that’s simply because Ross cares about birding much more than I do. So that being said, Ross is the one who concocts where we should go next, usually based on a few things such as rare birds on the brink of extinction, or places where habitat is disappearing at an alarming rate. He chose Indonesia, specifically the island of Java for this trip to Indonesia because many of the species found there are in decline. I’m no stranger to roughing it so before coming on this trip we agreed that we would primarily be camping. First of all camping is a cheap and efficient way to sleep so long as you don’t mind forgoing a toilet and a shower. Secondly, one can stay directly at the birding location instead of having to travel in, saving a lot of time. And third, who doesn’t just love emmercing themselves in the great outdoors as much as possible?! At Gede, our next birding location, we were planning on spending up to four nights camping up the mountain. But before I go any further let me explain a little more about our next destination, Gede, aka Gunung Gede aka Mount Gede in English aka number 2 on the map below.

Gunung Gede is a stratovolcano in West Java and together with sister volcano Gunung Pangrango, forms the Mount Gede Pangrango Nature Reserve, a popular destination among Indonesian tourists due to the close proximity to Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital city. For most visitors, including ourselves, the main destination is to hike Gunung Gede and wander through protected habitat up to the top of its volcanic crater. What the hike lacks in length at only 8.5 km (~ 5 mi), it more than makes up for in an elevation gain of 1600m (or 5400 ft.)  The hike to the summit is steep and therefore quite challenging, especially when one is carrying in camping supplies along with food and water. Ross and I are quick hikers and made great time in our first day, with enough time to spare to make it to the first campsite and then wander back down sans any gear and actually get to birding. Because it is a protected area, it is a great bird watching site as the ever popular bird-trapping industry that Indonesians love so much is forbidden within the reserve. (To say it doesn’t happen at all in the national park would be naive, as trappers are known to be stealthy to make a few bucks.)

If you remember in the last post, we fortuitously met a man who was willing to drive 7 hours out of his way to take us to our destination, the town of Cibodas at the bottom of the mountain. On our first night we arrived in town and stayed in a nearby hotel offering WiFi and very decent, hot showers and the following morning we woke up pre-dawn and opted to stay low, near the entrance steps to see if we could catch the Sunda Thrush coming out to feed. We were very lucky when one, likely the same one everyone sees, came out to eat. S/he hopped along the trail and despite a few passersby was very cooperative. This skulky bird can be quite difficult to bump into otherwise. It was just starting to get light out when we continued up the path. Technically we could have avoided the entrance fee altogether if we had started up the trail a bit sooner, but instead the guard woke up at about the time we were crossing the path so we paid the 165,000IDR (aka $10) fee and continued on our merry way, certainly a worthwhile expense. 

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We were carrying out bags up the hill which makes it difficult to bird, but any time we came upon a particularly birdy flock, we would stop, drop, and check it out. Javan Fulvetta, Horsfield’s Babbler, Sunda Blue Robin, and Javan Tesia were all new for us. While we were still low enough in elevation we managed great looks at a pair of Brown-headed Barbets, which we were warned could be tricky to see at higher elevations — we had only heard them at Halimun. During one of our mini rest/bird stops Ross heard what sounded like laughingthrushes and sure enough we came across a whole flock of Rufous-fronted Laughingthrushes, a critically endangered species due to their popularity within the cage bird industry. This particular bird is scarce and therefore rather tricky so we were happy to get it out of the way early!

We continued up the trail passing more Indonesians than we had anticipated for it being a Tuesday. Being so close to Jakarta, Gunung Gede can become a madhouse on the weekend when thousands flock to hike the mountain. We knew to avoid the weekend but this particular Tuesday seemed a bit busy until we learned it was a three week school holiday and then the excessive amount of teenagers made a lot more sense.

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It took a total of six hours of hiking to get to the second camp ground where we would be spending the night. The forests that we had climbed were stunning and for the majority of the hike we could hear the sounds of the nearby river. At one point we even crossed a hotsprings, where the waterfall that we scampered across was spurting out nearly boiling water!

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But after the 6 hours of hiking Ross was itching to get the real party started. We quickly set up our tent and then started back down the trail because when you are birding you never truly “arrive” — it’s always all about the process, but we were excited to drop the big packs because birding with them can be cumbersome and difficult. We backtracked down to the first campground and started birding. We had run into Adun, a local guide who gave us some spots to try for some of the key species. He informed us he had seen Mountain Serin on the walk up and we were severely disappointed as this particular species is one of the hardest targets! But he seemed to know his bird calls really well and gave us specific locations which we greatly appreciated. Not all bird guides are selfish with their information! If you are in the area and are looking for help birding, might I suggest you give him a call! (Adunbahrum on FB or WhatsApp +62 877-7867-6186)

We had a few big targets in mind and eventually connected with two of them, a family of Javan Trogons and then a very responsive pair of Javan Cochoas. The male Javan Cochoa is a stunning shade of blue and the pair was content making their high single note call back and forth allowing Ross to get some of the best recordings of the species. The male and female perched practically next to each other allowing for top notch photos as well. Really, we had walkaway views of this Javan endemic. Ross was hell-bent on finding Javan Woodcock so we waited until after dark. If you’re a birder reading this blog you know that woodcocks are nocturnal shorebirds that primarily feed on earthworms. If you are a nonbirder reading this, now you know too. Unfortunately we didn’t have any luck with the species.

The following morning we woke up early and continued on our hike up to the summit, one of only 6 locations that Volcano Swiflet is known from. Hindsight is 20/20 as usual because if we had known that the swiftlets wouldn’t be circling the crater until 9am, we wouldn’t have climbed to the top at dawn. A better use of that time would have been trying again for the nearly mythical Javan Woodcock, our most important target. Unfortunately not much is known about this particular bird and even the call is still a point of confusion for many. For years, several recordings of a bat in flight were thought to be the woodcock. This calling bat was even on Xeno-Canto and has since been removed to prevent further confusion. From what we can tell, this bird doesn’t call in flight AT ALL, instead it perches from a tree to rode (aka display) making it a very unique woodcock, as most others do a display in flight. So if you are reading this and happened to tick “flight views” of a Javan Woodcock, you may want to reconsider because odds are you actually saw a bat.

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We climbed some of the steepest sections of trail before arriving at the summit at sunrise. The views over the crater and out into the distance at neighbor volcano Pangrango at sunrise was a stunning thing to behold and the hike to get there was an accomplishment for sure. Not many birders go to the summit but Ross and I are convinced that in order to actually tick Volcano Swiflet, one must be at the volcano. Even being in the location is no guarantee as we scanned for 3 hours before finally having one fly over. It was sunny and clear while we were looking over the mountain and despite the good visibility, no birds were flying until 9am. Island Thrush, Sunda Bush Warbler, and Orange-spotted Bulbul were the only other birds we had at the top. Certain species are only found within certain elevations so we headed back down into the forest where we could find a few more targets. We opted to move our tent to the lower campsite so we packed up and walked down a bit and re-set up and set off birding. 

For the afternoon we decided to head down to the general area that Adun had mentioned he had seen serins the day prior. We arrived at the area, but only were able to stake it out for about 30 minutes before the rain started. Luckily during that time we were able to call in a pair of Pink-headed Fruit-Doves, a species that was a heard only during our last visit to east Java and one of Ross’s most wanted birds of the trip! When the rain stopped, we hiked back up and found our tent was surrounded by puddles, so we opted to move it about 15 feet over. Unfortunately the rain came down again, only harder than before and our tent started to flood. I know this because I happened to be in it. When dusk hit, I had stayed behind figuring the woodcock was not going to happen but with the rain and puddles forming again around our tent, I raced up after Ross who had set off for the woodcock. At least at this time we thought maybe we had a chance, having found what a local guide had told us was the woodcock roding tree. We wished we knew about this tree for the morning because we certainly would have started there. Again no woodcock. We crawled back to our water logged tent and hoped we could stay dry until morning. When it is more enjoyable to wake up at 3am to walk in the cold, up a steep incline, on a rocky path, requiring equal parts effort and willpower, than stay in your tent, you know the sleeping conditions are bad.

We crawled out of our wet tent, making sure to stay on our air pads because the bottom of the tent was completely soaked and anything not off the ground would be too. The skies were clear and we headed to lower elevation as most of our targets were found lower. We opted to leave the muddy tent for later and birded down hill. We only had a few targets remaining and were fortunate to bump into two other birders, Alec Hopping and Scott Baker. Ross mentioned we were looking for Javan Serin and Alec said they had just had a very vocal pair just down the trail. And just like that we took off down the trail with Alec as he took us to the spot. We staked the spot with Alec for about 30 minutes but the birds didn’t come in. Just as Alec left to continue birding up hill with Scott, one of the Javan Serins flew in providing quick but good views. This was very fortunate as this bird is arguably one of the more difficult Gede endemics to track down. The white flowers that they feed on happened to be in bloom along the trail which is why these birds were hanging out in the area. How we missed checking through these white flowers on the way up is beyond me, the flowers were everywhere! We staked out the area longer hoping the pair would return, but when they didn’t Ross headed further down trail and found another Javan Serin that this time he was able to watch for an extended time as close at 3 feet away! The rest of the morning we focused on our last remaining target, Javan Crocias, which we eventually tracked down and got excellent scope views of! By noon Ross decided to go back for our stuff while I staked out the serin location. No more serins came back in so ticking this bird early was very fortunate, but I did have great looks at Javan Trogans while I waited. When Ross came back we just kept going down the mountain. We had another group of Rufous-fronted Laughingthrushes come through and heard Javan Cochoas at two separate locations. Coming down off the mountain meant we could finally eat a decent meal! During this time we had been sustaining off of nothing but granola bars, a handful of cashew nuts and uncooked ramen noodles during our 3 day stint on Gede. 

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The plan for the afternoon was to bird the lower elevation, but after running into a few small flocks and hearing a Javan Owlet, it started to rain. We waited out the rain in a nearby shelter hoping it would soon stop but no such luck, it rained until dusk and even past into darkness. We bumped into Alec and Scott again as they were coming down and all walked back to town together. 

Ross woke up at the ungodly hour of 2am to get the night birds he missed on Gede the night before and had to work really hard to get them but did eventually connect with both Javan Owlet and Salvadori’s Nightjar along with more great looks at Javan Scops-Owls. 

Being that it was now a weekend during a school holiday, the trails Ross birded that night were full of people! Ross came back to say that hundreds were trudging by him. I stayed in bed and instead opted to head directly to the Cibodas Botanical gardens at dawn to look for our last two targets, Pygmy Tit and Javan Hanging-Parrot. Luckily the GPS coordinates Ross had gotten from his friend Rick (thanks Rick!) were spot on and by 0630 I was watching a flock of some of the most adorable little parrots in the world. I texted Ross who was quite a ways away, but started the long run to make it to me (he was still on the main trail of Gede). About 30 minutes later he and Alec both arrived at the spot and we enjoyed more views of Javan Hanging Parrots. From there the last order of business was finding Pygmy Tits and it took all of about 2 minutes to track some down.

Gede was a huge success for us as we cleaned up all but one possible target, Javan Woodcock, but truth be told connecting with one of those mythical Woodcocks is mostly luck anyway. (Or a bit of opportunistic stringing!) It was a bit upsetting to miss one, but we couldn’t complain because really we did just about as good as expected. Being a Saturday morning we had no desire to hang around Gede any longer so we decided we’d head towards Jakarta. Had we known the road would shut down completely from 9am-5pm we might have left as soon as we ticked our last two targets, but unfortunately we spent a little more time hanging around. Alec also opted to stay with us, figuring that going up the mountain on a weekend would be too crowded to get many species. Boy was he wrong. We were wrong. Everything was wrong. The plan was for the three of us to head to Jakarta and bird around but unfortunately we got caught in the road closure, which happens because so many people are leaving Jakarta to head to Gede that they actually close the outgoing road and make it all one-way. The traffic was so horrendous it’s almost laughable. We honestly got stuck in a total standstill for EIGHT HOURS. EIGHT HOURS and we never actually made it out of town. EIGHT HOURS in a little run down minivan sitting in the middle of the road. EIGHT HOURS with about three-thousand of our closest Indonesian friends. EIGHT HOURS wondering what we had gotten ourselves into. EIGHT HOURS breathing in the Indonesian driver’s smoke. In total it took THIRTEEN HOURS to get to Jakarta (about 50 miles) in what was the most disastrous ride of our birding lives (alright Tsingy Wood Rail was way worse). Truly we’d never been so screwed before in the logistics of anything we’d ever done. It was a good thing we didn’t have too many birds to get and we weren’t completely missing targets otherwise Ross would have been going insane. We felt bad for Alec who opted to bird Jakarta with us instead of go up the mountain. Fighting the thousands of Indonesian hiker tourists would have been a more productive day and that’s saying a lot.

Moral of the story, if you are ever in the position to bird West Java, be nowhere near Gunung Gede on a weekend! But if you have the chance to go on any other day — 100% GO!