Indonesia (1 Viewer)

[opisska]

After the recent trip to Saudi Arabia, we became absolutely in love with snorkeling. This was literally the first time I have put my head under water in my entire life and it was immediately a life-changing experience. Our friends experienced in this hobby tell us that a good place to expand our horizons in snorkeling is Indonesia, in particular Bali and the neighboring islands.

While snorkeling is fun, I really can't imagine doing nothing else for two weeks or so and it would be natural to join such a trip with some birding. But Indonesia is immense, I don't even know where to start. What are places where people go to for birding? Is there good birding on Bali and Lombok or East Java, or would it be worth it to for example spend some time on Bali just snorkeling and then get to Sulawesi for a week for example? It looks pretty close, but I heard bad things about the ferries in these waters?

Any ideas would be appreciated, but please note that we are particularly interested in sites that we can reach independently (and by that I mean alone, not with some local guides). Thanks!

 

[Andy Adcock]

Bali Mynah, one of the rarest birds in the World is 'gettable' at Bali Barat NP though I'm not sure if they've been translocated to a safer area now?

Bedugal is also good.

Birding around Bedugul – Burung-Nusantara / Birds-Indonesia

 

[dantheman]

After the recent trip to Saudi Arabia, we became absolutely in love with snorkeling. This was literally the first time I have put my head under water in my entire life and it was immediately a life-changing experience. Our friends experienced in this hobby tell us that a good place to expand our horizons in snorkeling is Indonesia, in particular Bali and the neighboring islands.

While snorkeling is fun, I really can't imagine doing nothing else for two weeks or so and it would be natural to join such a trip with some birding. But Indonesia is immense, I don't even know where to start. What are places where people go to for birding? Is there good birding on Bali and Lombok or East Java, or would it be worth it to for example spend some time on Bali just snorkeling and then get to Sulawesi for a week for example? It looks pretty close, but I heard bad things about the ferries in these waters?

Any ideas would be appreciated, but please note that we are particularly interested in sites that we can reach independently (and by that I mean alone, not with some local guides). Thanks!

Sorry, can't help with any advice or specifics. Just wondering whether you took your hat off ...

;-)

(Snorkelling is awesome, agreed)

 

[Welsh Peregrine]

The Raja Ampat islands are internationally known for their marine life, and there are diving centres with access to Wilson’s Bird of Paradise leks; similarly sites on Halmahera lead to Standardwing leks (although I think the best of these is no longer operational). I did Sulawesi and Halmahera last summer on a tour; although we had a couple of local guides on a day or two, I do not think they were required for access.

 

[Andy Adcock]

You can easily fly from Bali to Manado While snorkeling is fun, I really can't imagine doing nothing else for two weeks or so and it would be natural to join such a trip with some birding. But Indonesia is immense, I don't even know where to start. What are places where people go to for birding? Is there good birding on Bali and Lombok or East Java, or would it be worth it to for example spend some time on Bali just snorkeling and then get to Sulawesi for a week for example? It looks pretty close, but I heard bad things about the ferries in these waters?

Any ideas would be appreciated, but please note that we are particularly interested in sites that we can reach independently (and by that I mean alone, not with some local guides). Thanks!

You can easily fly to Manado in Northern Sulawesi to get some great species at Tangkoko, Spectral Tarsiar and Crested Macaque are both eeasily seen too.

 

[Andy Adcock]

The Raja Ampat islands are internationally known for their marine life, and there are diving centres with access to Wilson’s Bird of Paradise leks; similarly sites on Halmahera lead to Standardwing leks (although I think the best of these is no longer operational). I did Sulawesi and Halmahera last summer on a tour; although we had a couple of local guides on a day or two, I do not think they were required for access.

You are required to use a local guide at Tangkoko.

 

[opisska]

This is an interesting rabbit hole - Raja Ampat, Halmahera .... fascinating places, probably too advanced for us at this stage, as there one has to somewhat commit to a resort as there don't seem to be any road and moving around is basically just private boats? This looks like a good idea for later when we will be better at the sea stuff. The birding site on Bali looks cool though - maybe it would really be best to do Bali for beginner's snorkel and then a flight maybe to Sulawesi for more birding. We'll think about it. We almost never take a mid-trip flight, I don't even know why, it looks so practical.

 

[Jim M.]

Best places for birding AND snorkeling

 

[James Lowther]

It’s not in the same league in terms of diversity as the Caribbean or Indo-Pacific but snorkelling in Cyprus last autumn was surprisingly good. Easy access, Very clear water, lots of fish, sites for both green and loggerhead turtles etc
We went pretty much every day at different spots and didn’t get bored
Cheers
James

 

[Welsh Peregrine]

You are required to use a local guide at Tangkoko.

Thinking about this, yes we did have locals there but it would not be difficult to enter without them, and I feel sure we saw people without guides in Tangkoko. Mind you, there is a lot to be gained by knowing which trees have nesting hornbills or roosting tarsiers!

 

[Andy Adcock]

Thinking about this, yes we did have locals there but it would not be difficult to enter without them, and I feel sure we saw people without guides in Tangkoko. Mind you, there is a lot to be gained by knowing which trees have nesting hornbills or roosting tarsiers!

Fair enough but there is a kind of guard post near the entry and if they see you, you will be stopped. Not sure if you can slip in more discreetly from the beach?

 

[Welsh Peregrine]

We bypassed the guard post at least once, just using a side gate.

 

[Andy Adcock]

We bypassed the guard post at least once, just using a side gate.

And by the way, it's not in law either national or local that you need a guide, it's something that the 'Tangoko guides association' has put in place to scalp tourists and AFAIK, Tangoko doesn't or at least didn't, have National Park status?

 

[DMW]

I'm not sure you would enjoy Bali so much, it's very touristic and frankly has underwhelming birding compared to other parts of Indonesia. I would second the proposition of Waigeo, Halmahera or Sulawesi. They aren't at all difficult to visit independently on a relatively low budget (unless something has changed) and there are inexpensive basic lodges right by the coast.

Internal flights in Indonesia are usually cheap and it's not really much more difficult to get to these islands than it is to get to Bali. For example, from Jakarta, a direct flight to Sorong and a 2 hour fast ferry will get you to Waigeo. From the ferry port, a short taxi ride will get you to a coastal village with Wilson's and Red BoPs just a short walk away, and guide-free forest birding. What does Bali have that can match those?!

 

[Steve Babbs]

Thailand is another obvious place to combine the two and is very easy indeed to do independently. Or Malaysia.

 

[Arbu]

The Philippines would be good too, and also in fact the Azores, where you can snorkel with Devil Rays and Blue Sharks, and see some good birds, although admittedly a limited range.

Of course, if you want to take it further, you can learn to scuba dive. Some diving liveaboards go to places which have some birds which there is probably no other way to get, like Cocos Island, Narcondam, and certain islands in Mexico. But you need the budget for it. I'm sure they'll take snorkelers too, but still very expensive.

 

[opisska]

Thanks for all the info! We have ultimately decided to stick with Bali and Lombok as the primary destinations - we are really beginners in snorkelling and everything sea related and this area is simply really practical for this - we can easily take quite cheap hotels very near good beginner spots and try a lot of places easily. However your comments were very useful because now I understand more about where people go to bird and where to try to jump away if we don't like this ... it was quite eye-opening because I really had no idea how much the individual parts of Indonesia differ in ... everything.

 

[opisska]

In three days on Bali (plus a few hours around the airport in Jakarta), we have so far seen 20 species of birds, 4 lifers ... But the snorkelling is absolutely fantastic and right on our level - easy, with quick access to retreating to the beach, exactly as we like it - and with so much underwater life! We will be doing some more birding places later probably.

 

[opisska]

Overall we recorded only 75 bird species on Bali and Lombok with at least 33 lifers. Particularly Lombok is really birdless and birds are very shy, probably due to persecution? We actually found quite a few birds only at night, often using IR while looking for mammals - on Lombok this includes the wonderful White-rumped Kingfisher, Orange-footed Scrubfowl and the only endemic bird - Rinjani Scops-owl, but that was heard only. On Bali night walks brought Sunda Scops Owl, Oriental Bay Owl, Javan Whistling-Thrush and a yet to be IDed Cuckoo-dove. There were also nightjars near the botanical gardens on Bali, but we only ever saw them in flight and couldn’t ID them to species. During the two days driving around Lombok, we also got Sunda Zebra Finch, which I really liked (as I have never seen any Zebra Finch in the wild), Java Sparrow and Red-chested Flowerpecker.

On Bali we mainly birded in two areas: the Plantaran resort at the outskirts of West Bali NP and in the botanical gardens. Both places were wonderful pieces of nature and there were birds, but again often shy and with relatively low species variety. In Plantaran, we repeatedly saw Bali Myna, the only Bali endemic, which we really wanted to get (despite the fact that the population is repeatedly reintroduced). Other interesting birds include Green Junglefowl, Scarlet-headed Flowerpecker and Small Blue Kingfisher. In and around the botanical gardens, we heard Sunda Cuckoo and also another really frequent weird call, the origin of which we could never find, that surprisingly turned out to be Flame-fronted Barbets. The most common small bird was Javan Heleia; further include Fulvous-chested Jungle-flycatcher, Short-tailed Starling and Brush Cuckoo. Compared to the impressive list for the hotspot on eBird, our numbers fall quite short, despite having spent 1.5 days in the gardens - I think someone who is good with the sounds could have done much better, as birds were much easier to hear than to see.

While the trip was not too rich in birds, the birding parts were still nice and interesting - and the birding around the botanical gardens was also utterly pleasant thanks to the much cooler climate at this altitude coupled with the really beautiful layout of the gardens. On the other hand, we saw 226 species of fish, at least 18 species of mammals (pending IDs) and 19 species of herps, including 2 sea turtles and 3 snakes! We were originally thinking about also including other destinations, but during the two weeks on Bali and Lombok we were never bored and did not feel the need to fly somewhere else. Bali is quite heavily inhabited and getting around is sometimes a pain, but the sites were really nice; Lombok is significantly quieter and I was not afraid to just rent a car there and explore. The food is great and people are generally nice, barring a few annoying touts in tourist areas that are easily ignored.