Day 13 - Menjangan Resort, Bali Barat NP Forest, and coastal marshes (Part 1, to lunch)
Wednesday 19 April 2017
A 6.30am start with Hery almost felt like a lie in, and it was nice to not spend too much time in the car as we spent the next 3 1/2 hours birding within the extensive grounds of the Menjangan Resort. As we left our room in the 'Monsoon Lodge' I saw a couple of Small Minivets before we met with Hery and Wagini, and soon after this we picked up the first of several Green Junglefowl regularly seen around the resort thereafter.
As we drove a short distance to where we would start walking Wagini noticed a few birds perched up in a bare tree, two were Ashy Drongos, but the third was one of our key targets here a Black-winged Starling, this was seen well if briefly, before our attention was distracted by calling Bali Mynas. Unfortunately we didn't see the Bali Mynas, and the Black-winged Starling had flown by the time we returned. Although we saw two more of these birds later in the morning in flight, it was a shame we didn't have a longer look at this first perched bird.
Whilst trying to and eventually succeeding in getting decent views of very active Scarlet-headed Flowerpeckers we added Chestnut-headed Bee-eater, Black-naped Monarch, White-shouldered Triller, Coppersmith Barbet, Grey-rumped Treeswift and what turned out to be the only Pink-necked Green Pigeon of the trip (I mentioned birding in Bali is odd) to our trip list. We eventually finished up near the variously named Mangrove/Beach/Pantai restaurant where Hery managed to conjure up sightings of two Mangrove Whistlers before we broke for breakfast at the restaurant.
By now my wife knows I never really stop birding, and fortunately the bird that distracted me during breakfast, our first Small Blue Kingfisher was stunning enough to interest my wife, and close enough for her to enjoy too. I had thoroughly enjoyed my first taste of birding in Bali Barat (and breakfast), but was beginning to appreciate that I was lucky to have seen Black-winged Starling, and the horrible realisation was beginning to dawn that it might actually be possible to come here and not see the legendary Bali Myna...
There are less than 100 of the Balinese sub-species of the starling left, and numbers of the (effectively re-introduced) Bali Myna have grown, but only to 86 as of December 2016. Before you come to Bali Barat and the Menjangan resort it is hard to realise how large these areas are, and how thinly spread these desperately rare birds are too. One thing I hadn't considered in coming at the very start of the dry season is that as the dry season runs on many of the trees lose their leaves - and it becomes easier to see the parks birds (so I am told).
Anyway, more attempts to see the Bali Myna would be made, but in a break from their preferred dry coastal forest habitat, and leaving my wife behind to avoid the likely mosquitos, we moved on to a nearby area of rainforest - outside of the Menjangan grounds, but still within the Bali Barat National Park. En-route we added our only Crested Serpent Eagle of the trip (though I did hear them elsewhere).
The main reason for visiting a particular patch of rainforest was to visit a blind set up by a contact of Hery who has habituated a pair of Javan Banded Pittas to come to meal-worms on a strategically placed log. We all have our own views on how ethical / tick-able this approach is, I personally am happy with it, I count the birds that come to my garden feeders, and if it reduces disturbance to breeding birds elsewhere, all the better. Anyway I'm getting ahead of myself.
The blind was a short walk through an expanse of marshy grassland and into adjacent damp rainforest, and set up as a 2m high 'fence' of vertically stacked reeds, with a few slightly too small holes in it. Pretty soon after baiting the log with meal worms the male then female Javan Banded Pittas arrived, stunning birds really. Seeing them this way does feel like a bit of a cheat when you have previously spent many mostly fruitless hours slogging through leach infested rainforests to earn the right to glimpse a pitta (or indeed any bird), but it is nice when birding sometimes isn't so hard. The meal-worms also attracted a Fulvous-breasted Jungle Flycatcher, and only Horsfield's Babbler of the trip.
Once the pittas moved off so did we, returning to the marshy grassland and checking through the birds there, taking the chance to check through the many swifts and swallows hawking the area to add House Swift, White-nest Swiftlet, and Pacific Swallow to the list - birds that were probably present elsewhere more often than I noticed. Also enjoying this habitat were the first Javan Mynas of the trip, a pair of Javan Cuckooshrikes provided brief views, and a pair of Changeable Hawk Eagles showed well perched and soaring over the clearing.
From the rainforest and clearing we moved on to a nearby area of tidal marsh, mangroves and pools. This soon revealed the hoped for Sunda Teal and trip firsts in the form of Malaysian Pied-Fantail, Purple Heron, and Wood Sandpipers. More exciting to me at least were two initially distant female Great Frigatebirds picked out by Hery over the sea as we were about to leave. Thankfully these eventually soared much closer and we could see their characteristic features well.
By now it was time to return to collect my wife and then go for lunch, the local speciality Chicken Betutu, in a roadside restaurant in Gilimanuk. If you get to try this, and if you like spicy food I recommend it, don't feel like you have to add the extra spicy sambal it comes with. After 'enjoying' this I noticed that neither Hery nor Wagini had added any of it to their plates...
