This was a private trip arranged by Neil Bowman through Yovie Jehabut (rimbaranaka@gmail.com). Flights
from UK & back booked by Sacha Barbato (sacha.barbato@travelcounsellors.com).
Thursday September 19th
Only a slightly earlier start to the day than usual giving
me ample time to take the Tube & Elizabeth Line to Heathrow T4. After a
quick check-in I had time for a leisurely coffee and cake before boarding the
11AM Malaysian Airlines flight to Kuala Lumpur, a distance of 11,469 Kms.
Friday 20th
Eleven hours and 21 minutes later we landed at KL. I had a
bit of a wait before the next flight at 12.05 to Denpasar on Bali. Three hours
later and another 2100 Kms covered we landed in Indonesia. Arrival procedures
had changed a lot since my last visit and although I’d saved time by getting
the visa on arrival in advance there were two other forms to complete which had
to be done online. The first was a health declaration which they wanted to see
before they’d even allow you to enter the arrivals hall. The poor wifi made
filling this out extremely difficult. Next up was immigration with three
separate queues and no one to tell you which to join. I eventually found a sign
which enabled me to jump all the queues and use the eticket gates as I had the
evisa.
I collected my bag quickly enough, then it was the customs
declaration and there was no manual bypass. The wifi didn’t work at this end of
the hall so we queued to use a handful of laptops that were set up.
Abso-bloody-lute shambles!
I got a cab to the hotel which had been booked for us and
chilled for a while. Towards dusk, thousands of munias streamed over to roost
and a couple of Yellow-vented Bulbuls landed on a nearby balcony. After a rest
I went down to the restaurant for dinner and a much-needed Bintang.
Later on Neil arrived as his KLM flight landed about four
hours later than mine. We organised breakfast and transfer to the airport for
the next morning.
Saturday 21st
The alarm went off at 6.30 and we packed up and headed
downstairs for a buffet breakfast. This would be our only leisurely breakfast
eaten in a hotel for a while. We went to the airport and checked in for our
domestic flight to Tambolaka. The flight was delayed for an hour as the
military jets used the runways for taking off on their way to a military air
show. This flight and all our domestic flights were booked by Jovie as was the hotel in Bali.
We landed on Sumba island at 12.30 where it was about 35 degrees.
Once we’d collected our bags we met up with our guide, Yovie, and driver and loaded up
the SUV. We only went a short distance and had lunch in a local restaurant and
then went to our hotel. We had time to sort ourselves out for an afternoon’s
birding and went out at 3.30 to the forest.
As we’d discover over the next few days, it’s quite slow
birding on Sumba with very few birds seen and often they weren’t obliging. Our
first Lesser Sundas endemic was a spectacular Tengarra Paradise-Flycatcher –
all white apart from a black head and with a really long ribbon-like tail.
Rainbow Bee-eaters were more familiar to anyone who’s been to Australia and we
would frequently encounter small flocks of them during our trip. Tengarra
Swiftlet was a recent split from the Glossy complex and were the commonest bird
on the island.
It was time for more endemics and we encountered Ruddy
Cuckoo-dove, Apricot-breasted Sunbird (a fruit tick!), Wallacean Drongo and
then great views of a bird we kept hearing – Elegant Pitta. It was bouncing
around inside the forest and each view added another colour until we could make
out the whole bird. A distant Sumba Hornbill sat up in a large tree.
|
Sumba Hornbill |
We waited
around for it to get dark and just before sunset a Sumba Boobook flew in and
landed close by. We had superb views of this owl as it hung around, making
short flights across the track and back. It could be quite hard to find at
times with a thermal imager if it was back on as the added layer of its folded
wings meant no heat escaped. However it was very obvious when facing us as it
glowed in the dark.
|
Sumba Boobook |
On the walk back to the car we also found a Mees’s Nightjar
which showed well, albeit fairly briefly. It was a good introduction to the
birds of the Lesser Sundas and we’d successfully connected with many of the
Sumba endemics. We drove to a restaurant for dinner and celebrated with a large
beer. A powercut didn’t disrail us or the kitchen staff and we enjoyed a nice
meal.