Birding Report - Adventure Sulawesi - Indonesia Adventure Travel

Birding Report

Birding in North Sulawesi

05th September 2009 to 12 th September 2009 (http://www.jasnjohn.com/index.php?article=35)

Celebes Crested Macaque

In September, we took a trip to Sulawesi, taking full advantage of AirAsia's low-cost tickets to get us to Manado, at the northern tip of this bizarrely shaped island of Indonesia's.

Last year we sat through a talk given by our friend Rafi which whetted our appetite for this interesting place, so since then we've been planning the trip.

First of all, we needed a travel company specializing in bird tours, so we made contact with Adventurindo Tours & Travel who put together an itinerary for us, which looked something like this:

Indonesia

on the islands of Sulawesi, Bali, Halmahera, Ternate and Java

12th June to 10th July 2009, Barry Virtue and Steve Anyon-Smith
http://www.mammalwatching.com/Oriental/Otherreports/SAS Indonesia 2009.doc

The Plan
A Mr Wallace and a number of other naturalists cum line-drawers have famously sectioned off bits of Indonesia and a few other islands. This was an attempt to corral geographic areas that display a similar mix of flora and fauna grading from truly Continental Asian to the Wonderful World of Oz.

Our holiday was to spend time on Bali, west of Wallace’s Line, Sulawesi, to the east of it, and Halmahera, east of Wallace’s and another line as well. The wildlife in these areas is spectacular, has a high degree of endemism and searching for it promised be very rewarding.

Wildlife is not the only drawcard for Sulawesi, the island where we spent most of our time. Here there is stunning scenery and some world-class cultural attractions. These include Torajaland, where the local people have some confronting views on life and death, and the mysterious culture that left the amazing ~5000 year old megaliths in the central highlands.

The only other aspect of The Plan was to avoid getting caught between rival religious or ethnic groups. This turned out to be easy.

To move around on Sulawesi, Ternate and Halmahera we engaged the services of Adventurindo Tours (see entry below). Barry-Sean Virtue joined me for our ninth holiday together. We are still friends!