The Quest for the Giant Ibis

March 2019: Birding the Wetlands and Forests around Siem Reap

Some trips take a while to settle down.  I had a free weekend based in Singapore and was trying to work out what to do with it.  Version one saw me trying to persuade Jakarta-based birding guide Khaleb Yordan to come with me to Kalamintan to look for Bornean Peacock-Pheasant but the local guide said it was the wrong season.  Version two was a brief weekend around Siem Reap in Cambodia with just enough time to get some waterbirds and the Bengal Florican (somehow Khaleb managed to invite himself along on this trip too, not sure how that happened).  Then after a few schedule changes, I found myself with more time and so expanded the Cambodia trip to include a 3 day trip in search of Giant Ibis in Northern Cambodia.  Now I had a plan and was excited to visit a new country and see some very high quality birds.

Saturday, March 23 - Siem Reap

I'd arrived at Le Meridien Hotel the day before and Khaleb had flown in later that night.  First thing Saturday morning we met our local guide Mardy Sean from the famous Sam Veasna Center who arrived in a very nice Toyota Landcruiser with a local driver ... seems I got the logistics all right for this trip.

Our plan for the day was to visit and bird around Ang Trapeang Thmor a reservoir built at the time of the ancient Angkor culture then rebuilt more recently by the Khmer Rouge using slave labor.  There was a lot of history in the place, good and bad, but it was the birds were were going to see and this site had a lot of birds.

We started before dawn and as the sun rose were were arriving at wet fields in time to see the arrival of huge numbers of Asia Openbill (Storks) and Painted Storks coming from their roosts and joining a massive assemblage of ducks, herons and other water birds.  It really was a very birdy spot and almost everywhere we went that day was just packed with birds.

Painted Storks

Our main target for the morning though was cranes, a group that I've always thought of as temperate but some make it to the tropics and the reservoir and the surrounding rice paddies were home to a large and important concentration of Sarus Cranes.  Mardy had good intel and soon enough we'd worked our way out onto the fields where there were 50+ Sarus Cranes feeding in the burned rice paddies, a very cool site.  Who doesn't love cranes?

Sarus Cranes (Photo: Khlaeb Yordan .. used with permission)

With the target in the bag, the pace for the rest of the day was relaxed.  Next stop produced an incredible collection of roosting owls of three species - Barn Owl, Spotted Wood-Owl, and Spotted Owlet - one can only imagine how many rats must live in these rice fields in order to support such a density of predators.  This site was also the location of a bit of a disaster.  I was walking along and heard a "thud", looking down to see the bottom half of my Canon 400mm lens had fallen off and dropped to the ground.  I picked it up but the fall had broken the circuit ribbons so no repair was possible.  Day 2 of a 2-week trip to Asia and I had no lens .... not a good thing.

Barn Owl (Photo: Khaleb Yordan) 

Spot-billed Pelican (Photo: Khaleb Yordan)

We kept birding hard, perhaps harder now that I wasn't distracted by the need to take photos, and added a lot of birds.  By the time we left that afternoon we had seen 90 species including such goodies as Black-Necked Stork and Greater Spotted Eagle along with a huge range of water birds.  A very nice start to the trip.

Sunday, March 24 - Siem Reap to Tmatboey

A long day today that started with a 'mega' target bird in the form of a visit to the BENGAL FLORICAN grasslands.  This striking bustard is in deep trouble with less than a thousand remaining individuals scattered across Cambodia and India and populations declining everywhere.  Here at least though they were easy to see and our guides' attempts to have us eat breakfast before looking for the bustards were ruined when the bustards kept popping up out in the grasslands around us.  Fruit was dropped, coffee was spilled, but we all saw the birds and were able to salvage breakfast after the fact. A very nice way to start the day with the sun coming up over the grasslands reminding me that birding really does take you to the most amazing places.

Bengal Florican (Khaleb lent me his lens for a minute)

The Florican reserve also had lots of other good birds, Manchurian Reed-Warbler was a lifer as was Blue-breasted Quail.  There were more Sarus Cranes, Small and Yellow-legged Buttonquails, Red Avadavats and Australian Bushlarks.   We had two local guides on motorbikes who rushed ahead, found or flushed birds then waited for us to come and see them.  This was really very well organized birding and quite easy, I was beginning to feel a bit guilty, but then our time was limited so I wanted to make the most of it.

Leaving the grasslands reluctantly behind us we had a long drive ahead to the North but made a couple of stops when we entered more woodland habitat, adding different birds along the way.  White-rumped Falcon was my key target here and we managed to find a female at the Being Mealea temple (we saw a male two days later on the way back).

White-rumped Falcon (Photo: Khaleb Yordan)

By late afternoon we arrived at our home for the next two nights, a basic but comfortable lodge at Tmatboey.  Conservation orgs have worked with the local villagers here to preserve the population of GIANT and WHITE-SHOULDERED IBIS.  They have worked to reduce hunting and the use of chemicals in farming while promoting eco-tourism and enhanced farming incomes through the sale of certified organic (Ibis-friendly) rice.  While it's certainly no pristine wilderness the project has managed to help to preserve the ibis populations in an area where a lot of people make a living from farming and would otherwise have no incentive to keep the forest or the birds around.  So a success story, and we were playing our part by paying to visit.  Now the ibis had to play their part by letting us see them.

We spent most of the afternoon searching for Giant Ibis and drew a blank at the usual sites.  We did bump into some Brown Fish-Owls, a lifer for me and a surprise for Mardy who hadn't seem them at this site before, but the ibis remained elusive.  Then, with perhaps only 45 minutes before sunset, we got word from another guide that they'd found an ibis but it was at least 30 minutes drive then hike away from us.  So off we went, racing against the light, but ultimately arriving in time to see one of the world's great bucket-list birds, GIANT IBIS, sitting quietly in a tree.

The amazing Giant Ibis (Photo: Khalen Yordan)

Monday, March 25 - Tmatboey

With the Giant Ibis in the bag, Mardy and the local guides visibly relaxed.  Only now did they tell us that the early rains had made them quite worried as the rains give the ibis the opportunity to wander away from their dry-season haunts and spread out in the forest hunting frogs.  In short, they get much harder to see when the rains come, so we'd gotten a bit lucky and now everyone was very relieved.

White-shouldered Ibis (Photo: Khaleb Yordan)

The other star ibis, WHITE-SHOULDERED IBIS, turned out to be a lot easier.  At first light we drove to some trees where the ibis had been seen roosting the last few nights and got scope views before they dropped down into the forest and vanished.  This was the last of my five key target birds so I was able to relax too now and from here on in just enjoy the birding.  So the rest of the day was a very nice and very easy set of short walks through the woodland adding local species at each stop.

Black-headed Woodpecker (Photo; Khaleb Yordan)

Rufous-bellied Woodpecker (Photo: Khaleb Yordan)

After a good day of birding and a tasty local meal cooked by the village ladies at the lodge, I at least was looking forward to a good night of sleep and so crashed early.  In the middle of the night I found that I was having trouble sleeping though, it felt like there were some insects inside my mosquito net and while I kept flipping them off my face, half-asleep in the pitch dark, they kept coming back and, well bugging me.  When I turned my flashlight on the scale of the problem became more apparent, there were literally thousands of winged termites in the room, swarming all over the mosquito nets, the walls and the floor.  Khaleb ran to the bathroom and turned on the bathroom light and the whole mass of little insect bodies migrated towards the light eventually leaving us to get some sleep.  It wasn't a pretty site in the morning though, the toilet, the sink and the water bucket all had a layer of dead termites several inches thick on them and more little corpses carpeted the floor.  At least here was food for the birds in this forest I suppose and I'm sure the geckos in the lodge had a very good day.

Tuesday, March 26 - Tmatboey to Siem Reap

After an abortive try to get to the river - a road too muddy for a Toyota Landcruiser is pretty much too muddy for anything - we started the long drive back to Siem Reap.  Several birding stops along the way added more birds, some views of temples, and more of a sense of the habitats of Central Cambodia.  Too soon though it was time to say goodbye, and after a tasty (and termite-free) last meal at Le Meridien we all parted ways with me heading back to Singapore and on to other adventures.  I'll definitely try to come back to Cambodia though and try to see some of the other special wildlife that they have there (the Vulture Restaurant, the Mekong Wagtail etc.), it's a beautiful country with wonderful people and great birds.

Cambodia with Asian Openbills

Whiskered Pitta and Bicol Ground Warbler

October 2018: Another Quick Trip to the Philippines and More Endemics on Luzon

Friday, October 19 - Jariel's Peak

I'd managed to escape from a business trip in Hong Kong on Thursday night, hopped a quick flight, and once again found myself staying near Manila airport, exhausted but ready for more Philippines birding adventures.  This was going to be another super quick trip as I had to be back in Hong Kong on Sunday afternoon to catch a flight to New York, but hopefully I was going to get a chance to see a few more of Luzon's endemic birds before then.  This time I was with famous Robert Hutchinson, one of the owners of Birdtour Asia and a long time Philippines resident.  We set off very early on Friday morning missing most of Manila's legendary traffic and arriving at our destination well before first light.  Jariel's Peak is a apparently local beauty spot and we planned to spend a day and a half birding there but as we'd arrived in the pitch darkness the views were going to have to wait.  Besides, I was more interested in owls.

We had a specific target in mind so started stopping and listening for owls, hoping for a Luzon Scops-Owl.  We heard Philippine Scops-Owl and several Philippine Nightjars but for a time our target eluded us until Rob heard one calling and was able to use his fancy night-scope to see where the bird was.  Even though we knew which tree it was in, and it's location stood out in the green glow if the night scope, the bird was hidden from me and it took a while before I caught some movement, fired off a volley of shots into the darkness and got a photo .... it may be out of focus, but it was a life bird nevertheless!

Luzon Scops-Owl

With the owl in the bag, we could relax and as the sun came up we settled in for a very pleasant morning of birding.  The targets here were many and there were some very special birds that I very much wanted to see.  While the day was young we focussed on tracking down two colorful fruit-doves, the gaudy Flame-breasted Fruit-Dove and the subtly beautiful Cream-breasted Fruit-Dove, both Philippine endemics and both of course life birds for me.  We also started to rack up a decent species count and more of more of the local birds slowly revealed themselves and I hit a milestone of sorts when a Blue-headed Fantail became my 4,500th species.

Cream-breasted Fruit-Dove

With the more common birds joining the list, we broke away from the roadside birding to work on some of the harder to see endemics.  The WHISKERED PITTA is a jewel of a bird and like all pittas can be very difficult to see as they hop around on the forest floor, seemingly always finding a way to stay out of sight.  We heard a bird calling and scrambled into the forest along the course of a small stream working our way up through the rocky ravine to a place closer to the bird and away from the road.  Once there we found a place to sit quietly and watch while Rob played the tape hoping to make the pitta a little curious and entice it to come in closer.  After thirty minutes of waiting silently in the forest, the pitta simply popped up on a rock very close to us and stayed in view, seemingly indifferent to our presence, for the next ten minutes while it searched among the boulders along the stream for the intruder it had heard.  A very special audience with a very special bird.

It's hard to imagine that birds this colorful can be hard to see but they are
very good at hiding.  Whiskered Pitta.

The other 'hard to see' target bird was the local, endemic, BICOL GROUND-WARBLER and this bird did require some serious effort to see.  This species is a mouse of a bird, tiny, dark brown, and very fond of getting down amongst tangled weedy vegetation so dense that you might be feet from one and still never see it.  We heard a number of the ground-warblers calling in the morning but seeing one required a little more staging.  In order to get a glimpse of the bird, some gardening was involved, with Rob cutting a small break in the roadside weeds so that, if we were able to entice the bird close, we might get at least a glimpse of it as it crossed our artificial micro-clearing.  Even with the preparation it still required the bird to cooperate and we had several non-cooperative birds before one made a fatal mistake and allowed itself to be briefly seen.  There are no good photographs of this bird and I was hoping to get a few but, even though I managed to get the bird in the view finder briefly, there were always some pieces of vegetation in the way that ruined the focus.  Still, a very good bird to add to the life list.

Green-backed Tailorbird, a lifer but not a Ground-Warbler.

As the day wore on and we moved further up the road, the bird activity quietened down a little which gave us a chance to have some lunch and to watch for raptors.    We then birded our way back down the road, adding more species, getting better views of others and generally enjoying a great day of birding.

Rufous-bellied Eagle and Philippine Serpent-Eagle 

Finally, as the light started to fade, we had one more target which was a bird I had dreamed about and not expected to see.  After a long dusk vigil that stretched well past darkness though I had to accept that the Bukidnon Woodcock was going to have to stay in my dreams and not join my list (my luck with Asian Woodcock is not great and I added this miss to my missing Javan Woodcock the year before).

Saturday, October 20 - Jariel's Peak

Up well before dawn again and more time with the nightjars and scops-owls before it got light.  We had the morning to bird the same road again for birds that we hadn't seen the day before.  There weren't that many birds we hadn't seen though so we were able to relax and just enjoy the birds that came to us.

Rufous Hornbill

The highlight for me was Philippine Trogon, a bird I had hoped we'd see and were able to track one down and see it well in the understory.  We also tracked down the Philippine form of White-browed Shortwing, a species due to be split in the near future and one where I have been lucky enough now to see several of the island forms giving me several "banked" lifers when the split happens.

Philippine Trogon

All too soon it was time to leave and start making our way back to Manila.  There were two more birding stops to make though, and hopefully a few special birds to add.

Stop number one was the famous Angono Petroglyphs Museum which protected some truly ancient art but also protected some large trees and was a nesting site for the peculiar Philippine Eagle-Owl.  This is a big owl, but somehow looks odd for an eagle-owl, it also apparently eats mostly frogs, so perhaps is more closely related to the fish-owls?  Either way it's an impressive bird and for a huge owl was surprisingly hard to find even though we knew roughly which group of trees the bird was likely to be roosting in.  In the end it was a friendly local security guard who moved us to exactly the right angle to get a view of the bird, I doubt I would have found it otherwise, so very happy for friendly locals.

The huge, and well hidden Philippine Eagle-Owl.

Then finally, one last stop at La Mesa Eco Park in Quezon City, the stakeout for the endemic Ashy Thrush.  We got to the park late in the day and it was of course crowded with people leaving me wondering how a rare, endemic bird gets along in such crowded quarters.  We didn't need to worry about the people though as soon enough the heavens opened unleashing torrential tropical rain on us and leaving us trying to find shelter under trees but getting soaked through nevertheless.  The rain did chase away the crowds though and with the people gone the birding looked up we soon found an Ashy Thrush hopping around near the trails.

So a great trip, something like 35 life birds for me, and a nice addition to my weekend in Subic Bay earlier this year.  The Philippines is truly daunting with so many islands and so many endemics but at least I've started chipping away at it.  So special thanks for Rob for the expert bird guiding and good company.  I can't wait to get back to the Philippines again.

Finding Vagrants in Hong Kong

October 2018: An Epic Day if Birding at Mai Po and other Hong Kong Wetlands

Sunday, October 14

October 2018 got a little confused - I had had an October trip planned to Asia for months and was looking forward to trying for Mountain Peacock-Pheasants in Malaysia and for Whiskered Pitta in the Philippines.  Then, just weeks before I was due to leave, the trip got cancelled and I had to try to un-book the travel arrangements.  No sooner had I said my apologies though, and cancelled all the ground arrangements for the trip, than I got word that schedules had changed again and that I was indeed free to go to Asia if I wanted!  It was too late to save the Malaysia part of the itinerary, but I was able to resurrect the Philippines trip (more later) and had a single spare day in Hong Kong so reached out to birding friend and local bird guru John Allcock to make plans for a day of birding, including a visit to the fabled Mai Po reserve.

So super early, up and out of the hotel and off to the New Territories to meet John.  First stop was a woodland trail at Shek Kong which, given the date, we hoped would be crawling with interesting migrants.  It wasn't.  In fact it was pretty dead bird-wise, but oh well, never mind, and on to the next spot.

Kam Tin is not the most scenic birding area on earth.  A muddy storm drain full of discarded tires and shopping carts surrounded by concrete banks and overpasses.  It is a wetland though and so draws lots of wetland birds with a good selection of shorebirds and egrets spread up and down the muddy channel.  Our target here was the scarce and declining Gray-headed Lapwing, a lifer for me and a bird I'd looked for unsuccessfully at this site the previous year.  We got out of the car, I scanned the channel, picking up a good selection of birds but no lapwings, but thankfully John was more thorough and picked out a pair in the distance.  So, a life bird, and the day was starting to look up.

Gray-headed Lapwings in scenic surroundings.

Up next was another site I'd birded before, the farm fields and paddies of Long Valley.  Our goal here was to look for scarcer buntings amongst Yellow-breasted Buntings in the dry rice fields and see if we could turn up a rarity or two.  We ended up not finding anything very different but I did get another life bird when we flushed a Lanceolated Warbler a couple of times; a tiny, mouse-like, skulker but very welcome on the list.  And now onwards and time for the main event.

Azure-winged Magpies at the Mai Po HQ Building

Mai Po is world famous.  The marshes, fish ponds and mud flats of the reserve have been intensely birded and studied for years (a function of there being British birders in Hong Kong) and are legendary in birding circles.  I had actually been there once before but, lacking the correct permit, had not been able to access the best parts of the reserve at the right time and had seen very little.  This time I was properly permitted and birding with a local expert so my expectations were high and I'm happy to say they weren't disappointed.

Over the next six hours we saw more than 80 species at Mai Po, including 4 life birds for me.  On the way to the mud flats we worked our way through the fish ponds and found Black-browed Reed Warbler, Pied Harrier and Collared Crow, all of which were life birds for me.  We also flushed a bird that we were pretty sure was a White-browed Crake, a mega-rarity in Hong Kong, but were unable to re-find it so had to let the record go.  Then we spent several hours enjoying some of the best shore birding there is on offer anywhere in the world.

The mud flats at Mai Po are viewed from floating hides at the end of long boardwalks that lead out through the mangroves to the shores of the Pearl River.  The mud was quite literally covered in birds, and with a rising tide we took our places in the hides and started to study them as they got closer and closer.

The mud at Mai Po is literally carpeted with shore-birds and wading birds (plus a Collared Crow).

Wading birds were initially most obvious with three species of egret, several herons and the globally endangered BLACK-FACED SPOONBILL all feeding out on the mud.  Beneath them though was a carpet of shorebirds ranging in size from the larger  Eurasian Curlews, Whimbrels, and Black-tailed Godwits down to the smaller plovers and sandpipers running between their legs.  The reserve was famous for a trinity of very rare Asian shorebirds that would all have been potential life birds to me - Nordmann's Greenshank, Asiatic Dowitcher and Great Knot - and while diligent scanning didn't pull out either of the first two, we did find a couple of GREAT KNOT, a bird I was very happy to finally add to my list.

Eurasian Curlew and Whimbrel

We also managed another bird that was interested for me when we found a Long-billed Dowitcher, a bird I think of as North American but apparently they breed in small numbers in Asia too.

The greatest excitement of the day though was when John, scanned through the hundreds of Pacific Golden-Plovers handed me the scope and said, "what do you think about this one?".  He knew the answer already of course, the eye-pattern was different and a sort of breast-band effect strongly suggested EUROPEAN GOLDEN-PLOVER, only the 3rd one ever recorded in Hong Kong!

European Golden-Plover

So a great day, and with a few hours to kill we headed over to the San Tin fish ponds to see if we could add a few extra species.  We weren't expecting to top the excitement of the plover but not 10 minutes after arriving we stumbled into another rarity, Hong Kong's 4th record of BOOTED WARBLER which we flushed from some grass and managed to get a few record shots of.  Truly a great day of birding and all in one of the most densely populated places on earth.

Booted Warbler

A Weekend in Borneo

Making the most of a Free Weekend in Singapore to get a few Life Birds.


Birding trips to Borneo usually last two to three weeks.  They include time in the highlands of Kinabalu National Park and then usually some additional rainforest sites in lowland Sabah with the more intrepid birders going on to Sarawak for some range-restricted rarities.  I have never had the opportunity to take a trip like this but have always wanted to go to Borneo and see some of the amazing birds they have there.

As a child I heard stories of the Bornean rainforest from my father, who had fought there as a British Army Paratrooper in the '60s in a conflict between Indonesia and newly independent Malaysia.  He never spoke about the fighting, but he did have endless tales of flying lizards and flying snakes, orangutans and giant biting insects of various sorts.  For 25 years I've looked at trip descriptions in Birding Tour Company catalogues but somehow never got to Borneo.  So, this year, determined to make more out of free weekends on business trips, I took a chance, jumped on a flight from Singapore to Kota Kinabalu after work on Friday night, met up with Wilbur Goh of Bird Tours Asia, and set off for a day and a half of birding on island I had so long anticipated seeing.

Forest and Mountain at Kinabalu National Park

Saturday, April 7th - Kinabalu National Park

A very early start, and a drive through winding mountain roads in the pre-dawn light, took us to the fabled Kinabalu National Park.  Any illusions of heading into the wilderness were quickly disabused as the sun came up and revealed good roads, pretty scenery, and not a lot of forest remaining in what seemed like a terribly small park, especially given how famous it is.  Still, the birds were supposed to be there so, after a quick roadside breakfast where several other birding groups passed by us on the road, we got down to business.

First identifiable bird of the day was an Eyebrowed Jungle-Flycatcher feeding in the road as it got light enough to see.  A life bird and soon joined by others with Chestnut-hooded Laughingthrush, Bornean Whistler and the engaging little Bornean Stubtail all joining the list.  Then we realized that a star bird was calling just down the road and spent twenty minutes stalking, and finally getting good views of an EVERETT'S THRUSH singing in the understory downhill from us.  Not a bad start.

We spent the rest of the morning working our way up and down the Power Station Road (and some of it's short side-trails) uphill of the Park HQ.  For such a short, and well travelled (and birded) road it was truly very productive with many life birds for me, including Blyth's Hawk-Eagle, Blyth's Shrike-Babbler, Bornean Treepie, Bornean Swiftlet, Bornean Whitling-Thrush and the very spiffy Bornean Green-Magpie.  Undoubted highlight on the way up though was a FRUITHUNTER, a bird I had not expected to see with only one day in habitat.  We heard one calling up on the slope above the road and were able to get close enough for views along a steep side-trail.  Another one of the key target birds joining the list not long after breakfast.

Bornean Green-Magpie

On the way back down the road things got even better.  First we bumped into a super cooperative WHITEHEAD'S BROADBILL sitting close to an apparent nest site.  This was perhaps the bird I most wanted to see in highland Borneo, a giant among the green broadbills and an electric-emerald jewell in the forest.

Whitehead's Broadbill

With the broadbill in the bag, the idea of seeing Whitehead's Trio came to mind and we quickly added a couple of female WHITEHEAD'S TROGONS to the list in the mirk of the forest.

Whitehead's Trogon in the darkness of the forest

Too soon though it was lunch time so the third member of the trio, the Whitehead's Spiderhunter, would have to wait.  Even lunch was good though, traditional Malaysian food with a couple of lifers seen from the restaurant terrace while we were eating.

In the afternoon we tried some new trails, and covered a lot of ground in the forest away from the road.  While we didn't get everything (how could we in one day?) we added a lot more species, and more lifers for me, including the freaky Bare-headed Laughingthrush.

Orange-backed Woodpecker and Bare-headed
Laughingthrush 

Sunday, April 8th - Crocker Range

With most, but not all, of the Kinabalu specialties in the bag, we decided to change plans and bird the Crocker Range on Sunday morning before heading back to the airport for my flight back to Singapore.  Recognizing that we couldn't get all the highland specialties in one weekend, we decided to focus on the one I most wanted, Whitehead's Spiderhunter.  While the plan was good, the target unfortunately eluded us ... we had Spectacled and Bornean Spiderhunters but no Whitehead's Trio for me.  There were a few more life birds though, so certainly not wasted time.  In all I ended up with 35 lifers in a day and a half.  Certainly a good use of a weekend.

Ochraceous Bulbul and Ashy Drongo

Tarsiers and Endemic Birds in Sulawesi

(Hopefully) The Second of Many Trips to Wallacea


Alfred Russell Wallace  was basically a Welshman, or at least was born in Wales so we are claiming him as ours despite his dodgy English/Scottish ancestry.  He's not all that famous today, but he essentially discovered "Evolution" (for which Charles Darwin pretty much stole the credit) and has a Biogeographic Region (Wallacea) and a "Line" (The Wallace Line) named after him.  The Wallace Line, which he drew, separates an Asian type fauna found in the Oriental Region (Mainland South East Asia, Java, Sumatra, Borneo, and Bali) from a more Australasian type fauna found in Wallacea (the Lesser Sundas, Sulawesi, the Moluccas, etc.).  One the one side, Apes and Tigers, on the other Cockatoos, Tarsiers, and Cuscuses.  It's not quite that simple, but I grew up utterly fascinated by his writings, travels and the evolutionary and geographical processes that shaped this part of the world, and many others.  He really is the father of Biogeography, and the Patron Saint of Island Biogeography (Read This Book if you haven't, the best book of Island Biogeography ever written) and I've been intrigued by it, and him, since I was a kid.

Only once (twice technically) before have I crossed the Wallace line - in 1996 I crossed from Bali to Lombok (and back) and went on to Sumbawa and Komodo on a Dragon-Quest.

So I've been itching to go back, and with a long weekend free, and already in Singapore, it sounded like the perfect opportunity to get back to Wallacea.  In this case, the magic island of Sulawesi (formerly Celebes) was the goal, and I had a scant four days there, so I was determined to make the most if it.


Thursday, April 27 - Manado to Batu Putih

Lots of flights from Singapore, via Jakarta to Manado, and when I emerged from the airport into a scrum of predatory taxi drivers .... there was no-one there to meet me ... O ... K...  I wonder sometimes if I'll drop into some remote place, with emailed plans to meet a local guide at some time and place, and not have them show up.  So far it hasn't happened, touch wood, and this time too turned out just fine when after a few minutes of fending-off money hungry-local cabbies, Esli Kakuahe, my local guide, popped up with a sign saying "Mr Anthony".  So off we went to Batu Putih, roughly a two hour drive through an island dominated by coconut palms and churches (this certainly isn't Muslim Java) to the Tangkoko Lodge and my destination, Tangkoko National Park.

Yellow-billed Malkoha and Silver-tipped Imperial Pigeon

We actually got to Batu Putih village with time to do some birding that afternoon and, after checking in at the lodge, we birded around town picking up some of my first Sulawesi endemics including Yellow-billed Malkoha, Isabelline Bush-hen, Yellow-sided and Gray-sided Flowerpeckers, and Purple-winged Roller.  We also went to the edge of the National Park, picking up Silver-tipped Imperial Pigeon, Sulawesi Hanging-Parrot and a couple of White-necked Mynas.  The highlight for me though was a Barred Buttonquail with three tiny black downy young that ran across the road in front of us then crouched in nice close view in the roadside vegetation.  Even though it's not a Sulawesi endemic, and not globally rare, I've always wanted to see a Buttonquail - I grew up with the mythical "Andalusian Hemipode" in my field guide, a mysterious bird, now extinct in Europe - so finally meeting one in the wild as an amazing experience.  I was still savoring it as I ate my fried fish and rice at the lodge, checked out the Sulawesi Scops-Owls that roosted outside the dining room, and tucked in for the night super-excited to bird the Tangkoko forest in the morning.

Sulawesi Scops-Owl

Friday, April 28 - Tangkoko National Park

Up early and off into the forest where we saw lots of very cool endemic birds and got savaged by many hundreds of tiny, ferocious, ankle-biting ants.  The forest itself was very open with not a lot of understory, which made getting around relatively easy (although stepping on the hundreds of two-inch-long fat, gray, millipedes that carpeted the forest floor was a little cringe-worthy, but there was simply no way to avoid squishing the odd one, not matter how carefully you walked), and the birds were relatively easy to find.  In no time at all, we'd racked up a bunch of target Sulawesi endemic birds like Bay Coucal, Black-billed Koel, Sulawesi Babbler, and Pale-blue Monarch.  Birds of prey were also lurking in the canopy, and we tracked down Spot-tailed Goshawk, Vinous-breasted Sparrowhawk and a very photogenic immature Sulawesi Hawk-Eagle who posed for us while  calling loudly through the forest, presumably hoping for a parent to drop by with food.

Sulawesi Hawk-Eagle

Sulawesi us also pretty much ground zero for Kingfishers and has a host of endemic species, five of which I hoped to see on this trip, and three of which we did in fact see that morning.  Lilac-cheeked Kingfisher is a beautiful, subtly colored creature that we saw along the entrance trail, while not far away a Green-backed Kingfisher lurked in deep shadows.  Finally, we also saw a Sulawesi Dwarf-Kingfisher after a long search of likely ravines and nesting areas.  All very nice birds, although the darkness of the forest meant that my photos of these gems were largely all terrible.

 The morning also produced two star mammals, the ultra-rare Sulawesi Crested-Macaque and the weirdly adorable SPECTRAL TARSIER.  I have always wanted to see a tarsier, and was shocked when Esli nonchalantly pointed to a gnarled fig tree and said "tarsier' before moving on to look for birds.  My response was a little more excited and I stopped to spend a little time with this crazy primitive little yoda-like primate.  Perhaps the coolest animal I've seen all year, and definitely the highlight of the Sulawesi trip for me.

Tangkoko is pretty much THE place to see the Sulawesi Crested-Macaque which occurs only here and on some nearby islands.  The population on mainland Sulawesi is tiny (3,000?) a result of persecution by farmers protecting their crops and locals hunting for bush-meat.  It is a very charismatic creature, most notably for it's odd black coloring (most macaques are a grayish brown color) and it's distinctive ape-like facial features.  They were also quite tame in the forest - perhaps unusual for a species that's still hunted - but at least here, close to the main trail, they allowed us to walk by them quite closely without paying us much mind.  A very cool primate, and I'm not usually all that fond of primates.....



After a siesta - simply too hot in the early afternoon - we returned to the forest and added yet more endemic birds.  Highlights in the afternoon included the majestic Knobbed Hornbill, Ashy Woodpecker, Sulawesi Mynah, and two 'hard to get' parrots, Azure-rumped Parrot, and Yellow-breasted Racquet-Tail.  Great day in the forest, and they even had beer at the dining room at the lodge!  Sulawesi is definitely not Java.

Knobbed Hornbill and Ashy Woodpecker

Saturday, April 29 - Tangkoko Overlook and Mangroves

Spent the day around the edges of the park picking up new things like the dapper White-faced Cuckoo-Dove, Sulawesi Cicadabird, Pygmy Hanging-Parrot, Golden-mantled Racquet-tail and the spiffy Black-naped Fruit-Dove.  A bit of time invested in the swiftlets overhead led me to conclude that there were three species - Sulawesi, Uniform and Glossy - present, well that was my best guess, I'm not very good at swiftlets.  Then as the day warmed up and thoughts turned to lunch, our target bird soared into view, another classy raptor the Sulawesi Serpent-Eagle.  A nice morning of birding along a road, and not a single ant-bite, although by now may ankles were itching like crazy and did so for the next five days.

White-faced Cuckoo-Dove and Sulawesi Serpent-Eagle

In the afternoon, we drove a little further to a mangroves area at a small river-mouth.  Out target here was another of the endemic kingfishers, the impressive Large-billed Kingfisher and it didn't take us long to find one.  We then basically just killed time, enjoying birds like Great-billed Heron and Rainbow Bee-eater until it got late enough to head back to the overlook to do some owling.

Large-billed Kingfisher

The weather in the evening unfortunately didn't cooperate for the owling, and light rain made it difficult to do very much, but we did manage to pull in a Minahassa Masked Owl.  We saw the owl several times in the lights, mostly flying over us, and we heard it call in response to the tape, but unfortunately the rain pretty much killed the chance of a photograph.  For me it as a bit deal though; after 40+ years of looking at birds, I finally saw a second member of the genus Tyto (yep, I'd only ever seen Barn Owl before that night so I was pretty excited to see a Masked Owl).

Monday, April 30 - Gunung Mahawu

The start of a very long trip home with flights from Manado > Jakarta > Singapore > Hong Kong > New York.  There was still time for a last stop though so we made our way over to Gunung Mahawu, hoping for another of the endemic kingfishers, Scaly-breasted Kingfisher.  We didn't have a lot of time at the reserve and unfortunately we never did find the kingfisher, but we did have a great selection of other endemic birds.  Sulawesi Woodpecker, the stunning Sulawesi Myzomela, Citrine Canary-Flycatcher, Island Flycatcher, and Sulawesi Blue-Flycatcher were all great additions to the list.  We did puzzle for a while over a strange, furtive bird in the leaf-litter which I later worked out was Chestnut-backed Bush-Warbler and we were gifted a visit from a Speckled Boobook that sat in the open and watched us right up until a split second before I got my camera focussed on it.

Island Flycatcher and Citrine Canary-Flycatcher

The stunning Sulawesi Myzomela

Too soon though time ran out and I had to head to the airport.  Sulawesi is a magical place and a short trip was no more than an amuse-bouche, priming me to come back for more.  I will absolutely be back there before too long.

Barred Rail at our pre-Airport lunch