What is the smallest commercial plane you’ve ever been on? I have been on quite a few small planes in my day, but when it comes to commercial travel, I’ve never been on one as small as the plane we took to get to Aceh, Indonesia. The puddle-jumper we boarded held a maximum of twelve people. And yes, this was a commercial flight. As we were standing in the Lion Air check in line at the very small “airport” we first had to step on a scale so they could monitor our weight and seat us accordingly. (Personally I think all airlines should require people to step on a scale and then charge their airfare accordingly but I digress…) Luckily, Ross and I could still sit together on the plane! Indonesian avian safety standards are notoriously low so boarding such a plane was a bit of a thrill. Perhaps you might think a tiny plane is more terrifying than thrilling, but I firmly believe that there’s no point in worrying about planes crashing when odds are far higher for one to die in a car crash. We boarded the plane and set off to Aceh, Indonesia.
Getting weighed at the airport 
Our Commercial Flight 
Tiny plane, Big smiles
When we arrived in Aceh we were on a mission unlike any we had been on so far on this trip. The birds endemic to Northern Sumatra are critically endangered and on the brink of extinction. As I’ve said about a hundred times before, if you are a pretty bird, or worse, a bird with a pretty song, your days in the wild may be numbered. For those birds such as, say, Sumatran Mesia who are both beautiful AND have a pretty song, you barely stand a chance. And that’s exactly what we were hoping to find when we came to Aceh. As we were flying in it was miles and miles of palm plantation. All of the native forest had been eradicated and a single species of tree stood in its place. It was both maddening, depressing and humbling. These are the effects of dependence on palm oil. It’s real people!
Michael, whom we had split ways with on Simeulue, had been to Aceh before and dipped most of the important birds. Because of this, he was set on having a guide this time around to improve his chances of seeing the main targets (plus there seems to be conflicting reports, but technically you’re supposed to have a guide just to be along the road, even though the area isn’t technically protected.) Ross agreed because having a local can be extremely beneficial and since we were splitting the price, would be cost-effective as well. Prior to coming to Indonesia, Ross and Michael coordinated with local guide Tedi Wahyudi, to be our birding guide. For the past few years, a single bird guide, Agus, has essentially had a monopoly on guiding in Aceh and as is typical with a monopoly, charged the outrageous price of over $1,500 PER PERSON for a few days of birding! Tedi, used to be Agus’s driver, but had a falling out with Agus a few years back and is just now starting to get into the bird guide business himself. Although Tedi isn’t at the skill level of say, someone like Ross, he’s extremely motivated, doesn’t complain, has spots for all of the main targets, and is still a very decent birder! Tedi has keen eyesight and was able to identify most of the sounds he heard. Also most importantly, he charges an extremely reasonable price and will pick you up at the airport. If you’re thinking about visiting Aceh, I highly recommend reaching out to Tedi at https://letsbirding.net/
Tedi met Irene, Ross, and myself at the airport and we quickly headed off up the mountain to find Michael, who had been left along the road to search for mesias and bulbuls. Our birding location for the next few days was a steep, winding road that cut through part of the Gunung Leuser Ecosystem. Michael had been out a day prior to us but had only managed 2 out of the 5 big targets we needed to see. He was somewhere on the mountain but since it was a winding road with good habitat, we stopped a few times along the way just to get some birding in. We quickly had our first target, Sumatran Woodpecker at two locations. Unfortunately in the two days he was up the mountain with Tedi, Michael hadn’t had either the Aceh Bulbul or Sumatran Mesia, arguably the two rarest birds and therefore biggest targets. But seeing either of these endemics is no guarantee, even if you go out with the very best bird guide! The birds are simply so rare! Ross and I got to talking and I genuinely wonder if these two rare birds will even be targets in a few years…
Grabbing food to take up the mountain 
Mountain Views 
Sumatran Woodpecker
We spent a total of three and a half days with Tedi and most of the days were spent driving along the road, parking, walking for a while, and then moving to another section and doing the same. You couldn’t stray far from the road except in a few areas due to the steep terrain. We spent our time walking up and down, back and forth, and anywhere we could that might produce some good birds. The road was steep in some parts, but we didn’t mind as the views were beautiful. Unfortunately the road is quite busy and the birding can be quite slow due to everything being trapped out! I can only imagine what Indonesian birding would have been like 200 years ago! We were stopped frequently during the day by the locals asking if we would be willing to take a selfie with them, but at one point we were stopped by the police (they said they were police but weren’t wearing uniforms) asking for our papers, which we luckily had because Tedi had prepared them. Perhaps for this reason alone it might be worthwhile having a guide. We didn’t manage much else the rest of the first afternoon, but luckily, we ended the evening with great views of Sumatran Laughingthrush, another one of our main targets. Two down, three to go. After dark we had great views of Sumatran Frogmouth, but the bird refused to turn around for a photo. Ross recently purchased a thermal optic and had really been enjoying using it to detect roosting birds. Thanks to the help of this nocturnal imagery, we stumbled upon a group of 8 Silver-breasted Broadbills cuddling on a branch!!!! We heard a Mountain Scops Owl calling but soon it began to pour so we retreated to the car.
Roosting Broadbills
Due to the distance back to the town of Meulaboh along the coast, we opted to camp near the top so that we could bird late and wake up before light to bird some more. Naturally there’s no hotels to stay at along a random mountain road in Indonesia, but the little pull off concrete shelter did just fine as a campsite (especially because it rained every night!) At 3:30am we had two men on motorbikes stop next to our campsite for a cigarette break. Why they were awake at this hour I’ll never know, but we happened to be awake at this hour because we were starting the morning with some owling. We headed back down the road and had excellent views of Rajah Scops-Owl.
Our “campsite” 
It was Michael’s last morning with us before having to fly back to Australia so we started at Tedi’s Aceh Bulbul “spot” for him, but again, no such luck. He left by 8am and Ross, Irene, and myself spent the rest of the day sorting through flocks, going up and down the road. Irene was mostly concerned with better photos of Sumatran Laughingthrush so she stayed behind to look for some and Ross and I split off and were walking the road when we had excellent views of another Sumatran Woodpecker up close along with excellent recordings of the species now on xeno-canto.com. And while Irene and Tedi were away, Ross and I managed to sit down and call in two Red-billed Partridges which we then had running around at our feet! We also managed to sneak down after a calling Graceful Pitta, but we had to work hard and maintain our patience for 45 minutes before we finally managed views! Not picture-worthy views, but gosh, it sat and sang enough times in front of us that I could practically get a half-decent recording with nothing but my cell phone! Ross hated to waste that much time on a species that he could see elsewhere when we had rarities to find, but any time you can actually see a secretive pitta it is a good day!
That afternoon we took the road down to a nearby village and across the valley to a degraded patch of forest that is known for Sumatran Leafbird. Michael had seen one here two days before we had arrived and despite us arriving late in the afternoon, we hoped we’d be able to find one too. Unfortunately, it was a very slow afternoon and we barely managed any new birds. It was deja vu that night as it started pouring down rain, postponing any hopes of dusk owling. Just as we had the night prior, we set up camp at the only real shelter up the mountain.
The next morning it was Irene’s turn to leave as she had a flight back to the Philippines later in the day. We started the morning searching through flocks and happened upon a Laughingthrush flock containing Black, Spectacled, and Sumatran Laughingthrushes! By 8:30am Tedi and Irene hit the road to go to the airport. The plan was for Ross and I to walk the road for the next 4 hours until Tedi got back to us. As you might have guessed, Ross was very happy to have some time on his own. Tedi was a very nice person and really a great guide, but being that he was fairly new to the guiding business, several of his spots were outdated and Ross was keen to find some new ones. Perhaps finding his own birds is the thrill that Ross truly enjoys when he goes birding. Simply being shown a bird is not his kind of fun. We hopped to set Tedi up with some new gen that he could use to get his guide business up and running. Having someone like Tedi who is a fair price is essential for independent birders who want to bring along a local guide and someone like Tedi certainly deserves it!
Our biggest target for the morning was to make sure to tick Roll’s Partridge, a northern Sumatran endemic groundbird that is notorious for being shy. We figured that hearing the birds would be easy but seeing them would be a different story. We were a bit surprised then to be walking through the habitat and not hearing a single partridge call. In fact, they really hadn’t been calling much the last few days we had been up the mountain! Finally one called from quite a distance away but we weren’t going to be able to mess with any birds unless they were close to the road. The trails off the road were simply too steep. We did bump into a few new species such as Chestnut-backed Scimitar-Babbler and Cream-striped Bulbul, but the partridge was nowhere to be found. The radio silence from the partridges was shocking until out of the blue we heard a group of Roll’s Partridges call not too far away. We rushed to the spot and quickly sat down making ourselves as inconspicuous as possible. Ross hit the tape and we had another response. These birds were close for sure! He started recording the vocalizations they were making, as they were making a different call than what Tedi had said. Ross is always skeptical of local guides and doesn’t believe everything he hears. Instead of playing the recording Tedi gave us, he started played his new recordings back. It worked like a charm and the birds came within inches of where we were sitting, at one point being TOO CLOSE for a photoshoot. As Ross picked up his camera the bird saw and flushed into a tree, but at least this time he could snag a passable photo of this tricky-to-document species. In fact, we may have flushed a bird (on accident) three times with a speaker malfunction and they still hung around! And just so you know we didn’t string them, I’ll include this slightly out of focus photo. I only even mention the “stringing” thing because I like to joke with Ross that people probably don’t believe that he gets as lucky as he does with all of these secretive species. Truth be told, luck is only part of it and there definitely is a skill involved in knowing how to interact with these shy birds. With this species in the bag, the plan was to hitch-hike to the top of the mountain as the higher elevations were best for our two hardest birds and biggest targets, Sumatran Mesia and Aceh Bulbul.
Mountain Views 
Roll’s Partridge
Hitch-hiking in Indonesia is not new territory for us, just two years ago we spent four months backpacking using nothing but public transportation and hitch-hiking our way around the country. The whole process in the country is super easy given the friendly nature of Indonesians. Muslims continue to be some of the nicest people I’ve ever met! Tedi was worried leaving us on our own that we might not be okay, and perhaps some people wouldn’t really like to be on a mountain with no cell phone service or way to get around, but this is our jam! It was a Sunday so the road had significantly less traffic, which made walking it super enjoyable but did leave us concerned that we might be stuck at a lower elevation for longer than we would have liked. Fortunately a car came by right on time and we got up to the top with no trouble at all. We hopped off near the summit and started walking back down. It was extremely birdy near the top and we had a friendly flock of Chestnut-capped Laughingthrushes as well as a number of other species we had already encountered a few times including Long-tailed Sibia, Fire-tufted Barbet, and Sumatran Treepie. The area was just really really birdy, better than any of the other times we had stopped along this section of road. We walked, we trolled, we enjoyed the views, we listened and soon we heard some chirping that sounded interesting. Following the sound led us to two birds in a bush. I was the first to see that these weren’t just any old life birds, these were Sumatran Mesias, critically endangered, super popular cage birds! One of our most-wanted targets! I was shaking when I told Ross he wanted to get on these. Thankfully the birds obliged to our wishes and showed nicely at point blank range. Given the variety of sounds and colorful plumage it’s not surprising that they are on the brink of extinction! I think the photos Ross managed are pretty darn good by common bird standards so the fact that this bird is on the brink of extinction makes the series ten times better. But as soon as the pair of mesias disappeared over the ridge, all Ross kept saying was “poor Michael” and “I wish Michael would have seen these.” I admitted to Ross that I didn’t think we would see them at all and Ross agreed, adding “it’s not often that even I think we don’t have a chance.” We laughed though because if there’s one person who thought we would get at least one of the two proverbial “needles in the haystack” surely it was Michael. The look on his face as he said goodbye said it all.
Ross and I continued walking for about another hour and even though it was 11am in the heat of the day, we heard some birds calling and sure enough when we looked it was another flock of Sumatran Mesia! Who would have thought?! This time we had 6 birds! In between our two mesia sightings, we hardly had any other species so when we found this energetic and charismatic flock of mesias, we hung around and they didn’t seem to mind, they simply fed for a full hour along a 400m stretch of road. Mesias are very vocal and seem to have a large repertoire of sounds, we even spotted them singing while flying! Unfortunately for Ross his recorder battery had died and Tedi wasn’t back from dropping Irene off at the airport, so he only could turn it on for only one last recording! We had heard so many different vocalizations but one is better than none I suppose! Soon the Mesias met up with a large mixed flock, and followed the flock over the ridge out of sight. There’s plenty of habitat along the road, but if the birds aren’t on the road you aren’t going to see them as the steep drop offs and hillsides make following after any birds very challenging, if not impossible. Not 5 minutes after the flock disappeared, Tedi arrived! Poor Tedi!
Tedi is a great guide to have in that he is very easy going. You can tell him whatever it is you want to do and he would be down to do it. He may tell you he’s never done it, such as see leafbirds in the afternoon, but if you say that’s what you want to do next he will oblige. And that’s exactly what we did when we met back up with him. We ate a quick lunch at what we referred to as “the bulbul spot” and then hightailed it down into the valley to try for Sumatran Leafbird, a bright green bird with a yellow forehead endemic to the island of Sumatra that is becoming increasingly hard to see due to, you guessed it, trapping. On the way down we happened to bump into the only other Aceh bird guide in the area, Agus. Apparently Tedi and Agus used to be a team but had a falling out of sorts and this brief encounter was, according to Tedi, the first time they spoke or saw each other in over two years. Agus then bragged to Ross that he had a bulbul spot but refused to divulge the information with a “I’m better than you” smirk across his face and laughed as he said “I can’t tell you that.” This policy of keeping birds secret often adopted by asian guides is not something we subscribe to. Our whole mantra focuses around the belief that “birds are for everyone” and anyone who wants to see a bird should have a fighting chance to do so, hence why Ross is so diligent about making trip reports with logistic information and documenting GPS points of territories for anyone who wants to see a bird. A guide might argue “if I give away my spot then no one will use me as a guide” and again this thinking is completely not true. Yes, a handful of birders (usually people like us) will go and do it on their own with that information, but they were going to do it on their own anyway. Secondly, most birders are not willing to go through the often messy, uncomfortable process of birding independently. These people will use guides to provide the familiar western luxuries and help ID birds whether they have the information or not. We attempted to explain that some guides, using Ciro Albano from Brazil as an example, understand this and recognize that by helping out independent birders they actually generate MORE business because people see the independent information and then contact Ciro who is referenced for providing it. (BTW if you are ever in Brazil, specifically NE Brazil, Ciro/Brazilian Birding Experts is the go to guy and I highly recommend his services.) Anyway, we believe in sharing information and I apologize for my ranting, but Agus sparked a frustration in Ross that hadn’t been there during the prior part of the drive. Now Ross wanted more than ever to find more birds so that Tedi could truly be competitive with Agus in this birding game. Tedi had mentioned to us that he was thinking about not being a guide anymore since it was Agus’s thing but we had to tell him that you can’t just have one person in the business!
We continued on to the same location as yesterday to continue looking for leafbirds. The day prior we figured we had arrived too late. Even though Tedi says he’s only ever seen the leafbirds in the morning, we didn’t want to dedicate a morning, aka the best time of day, outside of the area that is best for bulbuls! The sun was still shining when we arrived and it was quite hot, but don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t find birds in the middle of the day! We happened upon a patch of trees across from a small watering hole and had a flock of Sangkar White-eyes along with Scaly-breasted Bulbuls, a stunning bird sporting the colors of all of my favorite Pittsburgh sports teams, coming in to drink! The area was full of fruit and we had two Black-browed Barbets at eye level coming to eat some berries. It was quite birdy in this patch but we still decided to head lower to stake out some flowering trees that Michael had seen the leafbird in two days prior. We ran into a stunning Black-and-Yellow Broadbill, again sporting my hometown teams’ colors and had excellent views. An interesting song stopped us for a moment, but then Ross saw a drongo and figured it had fooled us by his imitation of what sounded like a leafbird song! Or at least we thought it was a drongo. Ross also photographed a backlit bird on a snag but his over exposure feature on his camera wasn’t working so we couldn’t get much detail and it was quite far away. In case you aren’t a photographer, I’ll let you in on a little secret, over-exposing a shot can help you to see a little bit more detail in terms of color. And reviewing the photo in the field can be immensely helpful. Since this wasn’t an option, we moved on.
It was much slower here than on the other side at the water, so we headed back up to the watering hole and a flock was still in the area. It was much birdier here and I questioned why we ever left, but you really don’t know what will be best! Not long after we started scanning through the trees Tedi spotted two leafbirds! There could be three different species in the area so we had to make sure these were the ones we were looking for. Sure enough the diagnostic vibrant yellow forehead confirmed we had in fact found two Sumatran Leafbirds (a female and a juvenile) at the last possible second! But remember when I mentioned the singing drongo that sounded like a leafbird? Well, when we got home and finally analyzed the photo Ross took of the backlit bird that he couldn’t over-expose at the time, we found that it was actually the male leafbird! Oops!
Sumatran Leafbird 
Recording the “drongo” aka Leafbird
With a bit of daylight left Ross insisted we head back up the hill because his brief encounter with Agus had him desperate to find a new location for Aceh Bulbul. He walked the hillside through what seemed like perfect habitat but to no avail. Ross, a dedicated owl photographer, wanted to go down to lower elevations because we had already seen all of the possible targets at our current location. We went to about 700m and started searching for territories of several species of owls that could be in the area. Most birders don’t bother owling here so this was completely uncharted territory for us. The good news is that even though we didn’t find Reddish Scops-Owl, we did have a very responsive Brown Wood Owl that provided stunning views!
Again we set up our tent, this time at a lower elevation and thus concluded our last full day in Aceh as the following morning we had to leave by 9am. Ross’s goal of seeing 1,000 species in Indonesia was not far away and he was currently sitting with a total of 986, an easy number to hit because he was missing tons of water birds for his Indo list. But what’s more important, quality or quantity? I think you know what Ross would say. Instead of heading to lower elevations where we could get plenty of new birds for Ross’s Indo list as well as life birds, we opted to dedicate our last few hours to, you guessed it, searching for our needle in a haystack, Aceh Bulbul.
As we wandered the road looking for Aceh Bulbul, Ross asks,”Tedi, where is this Bulul?” and Tedi responds with “I don’t know.” Ross continues “yeah, me either and neither does anyone else who’s ever seen it here because they’ve got their heads too far up their ass to know where they were along the road when they saw it or they’re just an asshole and refuse to tell. Either way, those are not redeeming qualities to have.”
Ross opted to go slick, leaving his parabolic microphone behind and hiked up a steep trail in an attempt to get a bit deeper into the forest. The trail he was on ended at a gigantic tree that was illegally being logged within a protected area and which also sported a bird trap. Oh, Indonesia. But it was in this area that he played the only recording of Aceh Bulbul that he had and it was deep in the forest that he heard what sounded like a higher pitched version of a response. Whether or not these were in fact Aceh Bulbuls calling he will never know, but a paper I later found on the species described that they do make a series of higher pitched vocalizations and it is certainly possible that these recordings are either not documented or not available to the public. If that was an Aceh Bulbul that responded, we will never know. It was on the drive out that we picked up our last few birds for the trip including Sumatran Babbler before we headed to the airport.
It was a bit of a lackluster ending, seeing as how we didn’t get Aceh bulbul, but it’s hard to be completely disappointed because we had seen all of our major targets, two of which were secretive ground birds running which we had around at our feet. We also had a total of eight mesias in two separate locations at point blank range and seeing Silver-eared Mesia is certainly not a guarantee for any birder visiting the area. Reports of people actually spending $3,000 USD to go with Agus have missed that bird so we really can’t complain!
Despite the complete disrespect for nature, the illegal trapping and caging of birds, the maddening way of thinking, the pollution, the trash, and the fact that the human population is out of control, Indonesia is a gem of a country and we seriously love it. Yes, it has it’s problems, but despite the flaws, I just love Indonesia and I can’t wait to come back! The people are amazing, the beaches are amazing, the birds (if you can find them) are amazing, and overall it’s just a wonderful place to visit. I’ve been to quite a few places in this world and few compare to Indonesia. Ross especially can’t wait to come back because after tallying all birds for his Indonesia list, he sits at a grand total of 989, just 11 shy of his 1,000 species goal for the country. We’ve done a lot of “subspecies” ticking through the islands knowing that someday they will be elevated to species status once Clements, and I’ll quote Ross for this, “gets it’s shit together.” The truth is, Ross will likely hone in on 1,000 species for Indonesia while somewhere else in the world before ever actually getting back to Indonesia. Who knows where his IOC list stands — he doesn’t check, for that could already be well over 1,000!
Now for a 39 hour journey to get home!