This trip report covers a few weeks spent in Indonesia. As usual for my holidays this was in no way a full-on birding vacation and was more a "Lonely Planet" type bucket list trip with incidental birding wherever we happened to be. We kicked off on Bali where we stayed at a few locations before moving on to Raja Ampat where we stayed at two different diving lodge resorts. The birding priority for me was the Birds of Paradise, just about everything else was incidental.

In short Bali was way too busy, overdelveloped and crowded; Raja Ampat was paradise. One of the highlights of Bali, apart from the birds, was the food - especially at the coast where the seafood was incredible.

This page covers the time spent on Bali. Birding Raja Ampat is covered on this page.




We used the Lonely Planet guides extensively for planning and during the trip:


Also as usual I played a very small role indeed in planning this trip; my girlfriend put the trip together as a combination of birding, a Lonely Planet bucket list and hiking. My contribution was minimal.

As someone who doesn't like too much heat Indonesia was a bit of a killer with high temperatures and high humidity. During our time there even the locals said that it was unusually hot and that the rains should have started.


I took the Lynx Birds of the Indonesian Archipelago: Greater Sundas and Wallacea with me - the fact that it did not in fact cover the whole of Indonesia and was clearly lacking in the coverage of Raja Ampat was something that did not become apparrent until too late - altough this is clearly stated in the book itself. I really need to improve my preparations! This field guide worked very well on Bali and Nusa Lembongan and pretty well on Raja Ampat despite missing a number of species at the latter location.




With hindsight I would have done Bali differently. As for Raja Ampat, which is paradise, I would definitely like to get back to do some more serious birding....


We saw a total of at least XX  species during our stay. 

For an annotated species list see this link.

Itinery in Indonesia:
06-09 November 2019: Jimbaran, Bali
09-10 November 2019: Bingin, Bali
10-13 November 2019: Nusa Lembongan
13-17 November 2019: Ubud
18-22 November 2019: Urai Island, Raja Ampat
22-27 November 2019: Gam Island, Raja Ampat
28 November 2019: Jakarta


Jimbaran 06-09 November
We used Jimbaran to settle in, doing little else than walking on the beach and stuffing ourselves with the most amazing seafood - this latter activity also on the beach. Incredible sunsets here too - a subject that came up later in the holiday -

.

The fish market at the airport end of the beach was amazing - the sheer variety of fish and other seafood was as fascinating as the colours.

Another very pleasant surprise about the beach here was that it was not crowded at all and there was little in the way of pushy guides or people trying to sell souvenirs.

Birding here was limited to the hotel garden and the beach. Ornate Sunbird, Spotted Dove and Sunda Yellow-vented bulbul were the commonest species around. Other species in the garden were Pied Fantail and Collared Kingfisher. Overhead Linchi Swiflets were everyhwere along with smaller numbers of Pacific Swallows and White-breasted Woodswallows.


Along the beach a few species of terns were regular with the commonest being Greater Crested Tern, followed by the longipennis race of Common Tern (Eastern Common Tern) and one Little Tern. A freshly dead White-tailed Tropicbird lay on the tideline one morning. Another feature of the beach were the numbers of dead fish on the tideline - probably unwanted by-catch discarded by fishermen.

We also took a trip to Uluwatu via Padang padang beach. The cliffs and the monastary at Uluwatu were spectacular but almost birdless - I later read that this can be a good place to seawatch but I saw no seabirds of any kind here. The only bird sighting of note at Uluwatu was the first of only a few Pacific Swifts seen during the trip.


The beach at Padang padang was also virtually birdless although the first White-bellied Sea Eagle of the trip flew in off the sea with a fish.





A nice start to the trip, although nothing to write home about bird-wise with less than 20 species seen.

Bingin 09-10 November
An amazing room on the cliffs above the beach was the highlight here - although we were glad we took the advice about not leaving things outside as monkeys raided the terrace repeatedly.
Being in a rather less developed area it was obvious that there were more birds about here and the cliffs seemed popular for birds to soar along. The ever present swiftlets fed constantly and were joined by hirundines, at least one Pacific Swift and the first Lesser Frigatebird of the trip.


White and dark phase Pacific Reef Herons fed on the shore here, Javan Myna put in an appearance and a small party of Javan Tailorbirds fed in the foliage around the terrace. A confusing sighting which is either a misidentification or an indication of the immense scale of the Indonesian wild bird trade was a Triller that showed itsellf as we moved into the room.

Yellow-vented Bulbul and Collared Kingfisher were common again here.

Pods of Dolphins and schools of tuna attacking smaller fish were seen from the terrace early in the mornings - before the crowds of surfers turned up.
 







Lembongan / Ceningan 11-13 November
We took the ferry over to Lembongan and installed ourselves in a beach resort - for the first time ever. The use of bicycles was included here so we cycled around a fair bit, taking in the neighbouring island of Ceningan which involved crossing the famous "Yellow Bridge". We also cycled around most of Lembongan looking at the mangroves and other sights.  Each morning I took a short walk before breakfast.


Bird highlights here for me were a Red-necked Phalarope at the very touristy Devil's Tear where massive waves pounded the cliffs and best of all - Cerulean Kingfisher - a cracking little bird seen very well as it perched on small boats to fish in the channels on the exposed mudflats near the Yellow Bridge.

These two islands added a lot more species to the trip list including Long-tailed Shrike, Sooty-headed Bulbul, Blue-tailed Bee-eater, Zebra Dove, White-breasted Waterhen, Pink-necked Green Pigeon, Black-naped Oriole, Purple Heron, Grey-tailed Tattler, Black-faced Munia, Pied Cormorant and more.

An Olive-headed Lorikeet was a presumed escape. This may also have been the identity of a small but noisy flock of parrots/lorikeets that I saw briefly around the village a few times but never managed to clinch.


In many ways a depressing stay considering the total development of the area, the amount of rubbish and destruction of mangrove areas. Even my favourite area - the mudflats separating the islands of Nusa Lembongan and Nusa Ceningag are hugely disturbed, with people collecting shells, cultivatig seaweed and so on.  However, the same kind of thing goes on everywhere and is by no means just an Indonesian issue.