Indonesia is an island nation most famous among international tourists for the beautiful paradise that is the island of Bali. But let me tell you, travelers, there is more to Indonesia than the island of Bali. Perhaps some surfers who have ventured out in search of waves have learned that the best beaches are hidden gems or perhaps curious birders have found little-known areas that only the locals really know about, but for the most part most international tourists miss out on these amazing locations. Ross and I certainly learned and discovered a few of these places when we backpacked off the beaten path through the country in 2017. This trip was to really emphasize the exploring and we were going to hopefully find a few more hidden gems ourselves.
Now after we had spent the first portion of this trip as far away from the water as one can possibly get when visiting a country surrounded by the ocean on every side, we were about to embrace what it is that makes Indonesia something unique — the islands. Indonesia is an island nation, a chain of 18,000 little islands strung together and claimed as one country. Specifically we were planning to visit a few islands off the western coast of the larger island of Sumatra known as Bangkaru and Babi. This portion of the trip was really uncharted territory for international birders as tour groups do not visit the Banyaks and rarely do day trips to Babi. In fact, we were hard pressed to find any solid information about visiting Bangkaru or Babi in search of birds at all. The reason for this trip was to find a bird that is almost extinct in the wild, the Nias Hill Myna, a recent split from Common Hill Myna. Ross and Michael had been planning this trip and it was quite a bit of detective work to learn that there might be a population of Nias Hill Myna left on the island of Bangkaru. Mynas are popular in the cage-bird industry and trappers have all but eradicated them from the wild. The reason that the myna still exists on Bangkaru is because the island is considered a haven for sea turtles which arrived almost nightly to lay their eggs on the beach. In order to protect the sea turtles, rangers live on the island and conduct 24/7 day and night patrols to keep poachers from taking the eggs. Many other species benefit from this umbrella of protection including the myna, which ironically is much more endangered than any of the sea turtles!
We had flown out of Jakarta and landed in Medan on the island of Sumatra. When we landed we had a driver standing by to drive through the night so we could catch a boat by morning. (You know, trying to maximize time on a time-limited trip. The blue line on the map above.) The overnight drive would have been just fine if it weren’t for the fact that our driver kept nearly falling asleep at the wheel. Ross couldn’t sleep in conditions where he might die at any given moment, so after waking up our half-asleep driver multiple times, Ross eventually demanded that the driver get out and let him drive instead. I don’t think the driver was too keen on the idea but after a phone call to his boss, did let him and he then proceeded to fall asleep in the passenger seat instead. Add Indonesia to the list of 18 countries that Ross has now driven a vehicle in.
It took a bit of researching and a whole lot of translating Czech (the country where the majority of the researchers studying the myna are from) and digging for contact information, half of which did not pan out to much. Finally they got a response from one czech man, Thomas. Thomas spent some time volunteering on the protected island of Bangkaru and informed Ross and Michael it was in fact possible to see Nias Hill Myna on the island. This of course prompted them to email, Facebook, and WhatsApp as many people as they could to coordinate a boat out to the island. Finally they had it all arranged with Dar Mawan. Dar helps with tourism in the Banyaks and was able to find a boat and captain to complete the tricky island crossings we were hoping to accomplish. The overnight car ride and boat were both coordinated before we arrived and the transition from air to land to water was surprisingly smooth. It was nothing like the “stand around and wait while we do all of the things that could have been done hours ago” mentality that one must learn to love about Indonesia. When we arrived the boat was ready and we were quickly ushered off.
Our boat ride itinerary was to leave from Singkil, travel 25 km to Pulau Balai where we would pick up food and fuel, and then continue onward another 58 km to Bangkaru where we would stay one night, then travel another 45 km to Babi Island where we would spend one night, and then get back in the boat for another 50 km to the island of Simeulue, our final destination. It was a grand total of over 170 km on a boat crossing open oceans and a grand total of 9,000,000 IDR aka $642 which we split 4 ways. If you are splitting with people, this is definitely the way to go. Naturally during each leg of our journey we scanned for seabirds and managed plenty of Black-naped Terns and Bridled Terns as well as a few distance storm-petrels that were probably Swinhoe’s.
It’s always fun to arrive somewhere where the inhabitants have no idea you are coming. Surprise, we are here and we plan to spend the night! I always wonder what the locals think. We had planned this boat ride but had no way to let any of the rangers on the islands know. It was a long hard ride on an uncovered speed boat, but all things considered it went very smooth since the weather was very cooperative. We arrived on Bangkaru, spoke with Usup (the lead ranger) and also 3 of the Czech volunteers who spoke both a little English and a little Indonesian, set up our tent and set out. For a small fee it didn’t matter that they didn’t know we were coming. There aren’t many trails on the island and one cannot go exploring without a ranger so after a brief discussion we set off with two rangers. What we thought was a short hike to a viewpoint where we’d be able to see the canopy of the trees, turned into a three-hour bushwhacking trek up and down steep ravines in the intense heat. We were not prepared for such an intense hike and in the end, despite hearing half a dozen mynas call, never got a glimpse. In fact, the whole island forest was quiet apart from the mynas calling and we didn’t see much at all. No owls either. We only had one morning left before we planned to leave so we were getting a little desperate.
Beach where we landed 
Island protected! 
Ranger camp 
Our campsite! 
Ranger camp building 
Venturing onto the “trails” 
Views into the Bangkaru forest 
We can hear the Mynas, we just can’t see them!
The following morning, we took a different approach and stood out on the beach and scanned the tops of trees hoping we might see something perched. Again, no dice. The ranger approached us and offered to take us down the path to the turtle beach. Again we heard the birds but only Michael had a quick glimpse of the Myna before it flew off. After heading back to the beach and scanning some more, finally Ross and I decided to head back into the forest where we were the day prior because we knew several birds were present in that area. We didn’t have to go far before we heard the loud, distinct call of the Nias Hill Myna. The lovely sounds this bird makes is why it is such a popular cage bird and also why trappers completely trapped it out of the other islands. Fortunately Bangkaru is protected and is the last stronghold for this species. Also fortunately for Ross and I, we finally managed decent views!! Irene had stayed behind not wanting to clamber over the “trail” but when I went back to tell her of our success, she and Michael headed back in and eventually had nice looks at the myna as well.
Our one-night-stand on the island of Bangkaru was short but effective. We hopped back into our boat and set off for Babi, a small island that once held the likes of Barusan Shama and Nias Hill Myna until trappers came and trapped them into extinction. We weren’t expecting Babi to have any residents with the exception of the cell tower maintenance folks, but a small community of tents was set up and we think this may be a stopover or overnight camp for fisherman. On the way over our boat drivers caught two tunas thanks to a group of Bridled Terns showing us where the fish were feeding. We arrived on Babi, again unannounced and were welcomed with open arms. Alex, a 22-year-old Indonesian man helps maintain the tower there (or at least lives in the house at the base of it) and was happy to show us through the small pig trails on the island after we asked. He hung with us for the next 4 hours as we meandered various trails. Despite arriving in the heat of the day, our main target Babi Monarch came very easily and we quickly had an adult and juvenile above our heads feeding. While viewing the monarch we caught sight of a “Babi” Red-breasted Parakeet. Soon we heard the coo of a dove and the flap of some wings and suddenly a pigeon landed in the tree above our heads. The bird did not stay long, maybe 2-3 seconds but from where I was standing I had a perfect view of a single Silvery Pigeon as it flew in, perched and immediately flew away. I was the only one to see it.
With so much bird activity we decided to keep with our current schedule and spend the night hoping we might turn up something else, particularly Barusan Shama, a bird valued by the cage bird industry for its lovely song. The tuna that our captain caught made for a lovely dinner and the makeshift campsite on the beach was a perfect location to sleep. As foreign travelers who have full time day jobs, it’s hard to get enough time off to do any real exploring, so when we do get vacation days we go to the known birding sites because the goal is to see the birds. We’d love to do more exploring and researching and finding new sites but limited time prevents that from happening. However in this case our sleepover on Babi was a bit of a scouting mission as not many foreigners have spent the night on the island (most birders just do a day trip to this island from Simeulue). Despite lots of searching, we never heard the shama, nor did we hear any owls after dark. We wished we could explore a bit further but we had to head out as Michael had a flight to Aceh (pronounced Ahh-chay) that afternoon. We packed up our campsite and hopped back in the boat, arriving on the island of Simeulue by 10am.
It was a bit of exploring going out to these islands and we know we barely even cracked the surface — we never got anywhere close to the middle on either island. But we found a very economical way to do it and learned that Nias Hill Myna is still tickable. Also, we didn’t miss a single “gettable” target. Not to mention, the landscape on these islands is stunning and the beaches are some of Indonesia’s finest. Stay tuned for more!
