I was not going there to bird. I was spending a week in Bali for my stepson, Josh’s 50th birthday celebration. His actual B-day is 10 December, but he wanted to have it in Bali and Bali is better in Aussie winter. I will write about all that in the second part maybe. So we flew out of Melbourne on 24 June at dawn (I got up a 2am).
Garuda Airlines was great (I am a Virgin flyer. I did not book this, but I paid for it)
After having gazed at photos of the magnificent Javan Banded Pitta over the years, I realised that actually beholding it was a real possibility. Amongst my wonderful birding friends, there are several with a lot of Bali knowledge. Marc Gardner really knows Bali and Ed Williams does as well. Just a month or so before the trip I decided to look into a day of birding. Marc was away birding himself at the time, but I caught up with my dear friend (who I never see but is a dear friend) Ed. He really had only one name for me, Made Surya, (yes, his first name is Made). He is the number one birder in Bali and in my opinion the number one guide. If I was going to do only onr day of birding in a new country, I wanted to do it right. I did.
Made Surya and me having seen the Javan Pitta only moments ago (Made's photo)
If you have never been to Bali, you might not believe how truly horrible (crazy, scary, congested) the traffic is there. It can easily take over an hour to travel 20 km. So, Made sent a driver to collect me at our villa at 4am. As I do, I had been up since 2am coffeeing hard. We did not arrive at Made’s house until about 7:15am, over 3 hours to travel 118 km. The drive home during heavier traffic time, took well over 4 hours and I did not arrive back at the villa until almost 9pm
The first two hours of the drive were in the dark. The LED lights on the trucks were amazing. I had never before seen that sort of thing. The multicoloured lights made patterns and pictures and were really quite beautiful and even Christmasy in a way. They do help other drivers see the vehicles coming on the winding, often narrow and always crowded roads.
After a bizarrely enjoyable 3+ hours we rocked up at Made’s (I will include a map). My driver, whose name I never truly did understand, but a very nice guy, left me with Made and we walked into the bush. We were heading straight for my main target. It is also the main target of all visiting birders. After a short hike we stopped at a small sort-of clearing and Made hung up a black webbing/screen material between two trees. It was a portable hide and we only used it there.
He directed me to sit on a stump and to look through one of two holes in the material. In only a few minutes, from our left a Javan Banded Pitta came cautiously hoping into the ‘clearing’. It hopped up onto a log and I stared at it though my bins. Then I made its photo a few dozen times.
Joy.
I had beheld one of the most beautiful birds in the world and the bird that had ‘led’ me to the other side of the country. It was right there. It stayed on the log for a minute or two I reckon. Time just stopped whilst I stared at, and photographed, that bird. Then it hopped away back into the bush. Made said that it would probably come back. But I thanked him, then I said a phrase I have often said after getting good views of a target bird, “That bird owed me nothing more.” It really was as good as it could be. We could move along to other birds.
The wondrous Javan Banded-Pitta.
I will rely on my photo time stamps and Made’s eBird list to sort the day into some sort of order. In the next half an hour I added, White-nest Swiftlet (formerly Edible-nest), Malaysian Pied-fantail, Asian Glossy Starling and the Collared Kingfisher to my World List.
We got into Made’s comfortable Landcruiser and drove to the Bali Barat National Park for more birding, including my second most wanted target and the rarest bird in Bali, the Bali Myna (sometimes called the Bali Starling). Not long ago, the population of these birds in the wild as down to only about fifty. It is now estimated to be around 600 and they are only in the national park. We saw them in two spots there and I managed to get a few photos. They are stunning and so wonderfully Gonzo.
Yes, I even saw one on a cow in the shade (it was very warm)
This was wonderful Gonzo Birding. Although my Australian Bird list is what I most focus on, it is of course nice to add some birds to my world list. I keep my official Aussie list using IOC. In order to have a guess at what my world ‘number’ is I have to check on eBird (they use the Clements list). According to eBird I have seen 1,370 species worldwide.
I do not want to just write out a list the birds I saw in Bali. I will choose some photos to accompany the words. I know I did not get a picture of every bird I saw there, but I am certainly okay with that.
Some of the stunning birds of which I only got mediocre photos of were the Chestnut-headed Bee-eater, another was the Lineated Barbet and Coppersmith Barbet. I also got a very lame recording shot of the Orange-breasted Green-Pigeon. There were so many birds that I really knew nothing about. I know I had cracking looks at a very cool Racket-tailed Treepie. I thought I got a photo of it too, but it seems I did not, so I have grabbed one off the internet just to show y’all. I may also be making a mistake or two in identification on here.
Sooty-headed Bulbul
Racket-tailed Treepie taken from the internet. Awesome bird and I really thought I got a shot of it. But I do not care about whether or not I get a photo of a bird. I bird and write.
All up, I ended up with 33 new world Lifers. I will not be having Lifer Pie for those. I save official Lifer Pie for Australian birds and besides, while I was on holiday in Bali I was indulgent with food daily.
I am definitely only writing about some of my favourites here. Speaking of which, I now have a new favourite Gerygone, the Golden-bellied. My last Lifer of the day was one of the best, and certainly one of my favourites. Although they were quite distant, I was able to stare at a pair of Javan Kingfishers through the scope and take a couple of recording shots of them in a tree. They are magnificent birds (a word I do often use, but it often fits). Here are some Bali birding memory photos (might not get them all captioned today 16 Sept).
Lineated Barbet
Orange-breasted Green Pigeon
Javan Red-faced Barbet
Last 'lifers' of the day, Javan Kingfishers way off in a tree (watched them through the scope)
Freckle-breasted Woodpecker
Crab-eating Macague Monkey and child
Javan Plover
Golden-breasted Gerygone
Small Blue Kingfisher (its name. This is why we use upper case)
White-headed Munia
Black Drongo (sounds like a movie title)
Chestnut-headed Bee-eater
It is definitely Gonzo Birding up there. I will continue to share (and to Gonzo, yes it is a verb too. I am Gonzoing pretty hard today).
Sending hope 💙
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