In search of the “real” BaliThere are so many fascinating aspects to Bali that birders might be tempted to hang up their binoculars for a few days and immerse themselves solely in culture, be this the island’s colourful Hindu ceremonies and exquisite temples or the vibrant modern beach life of kuta and Sanur. But birding and culture are wonderfully compatible.
Go birding on Bali and you will find yourself searching for forest birds around the Pura Luhur temple in the beautifull scenery of mt Batukan, scanning the cliffs below the Uluwatu temple for tropicbirds, joining the diving crowd on a trip to Serangan or Nusa Penida islands, exploring the back roads through Bali’s famous vivid green rice terraces and wandering around villages and gardens. Indeed, go birding and you may get close to discovering the “real Bali”, which half the tourists on the island seem to be searching for anyway.
Although small (5,315 sq km) Bali is geographically diverse and very rich in birds: 317 species have been recorded on the island. The central mountains, dominated by the sacred mt Agung (3,143 m), and its neighbours to the west, where 8 species unique to the mountains of Java and Bali can be seen, are cloaked with rain forest. In the far west a remnant of the dry, savannah-like forests that once covered the lowlands of west and north Bali survives in the Bali Barat National Park, the island’s only endemic bird species.
The south coast is glorious mixture of sandy beaches, steep limestone cliffs where Red-tailed Tropicbirds breed in May and June, and- normally shunned by tourists-muddy bays fringed with mangroves where hundreds of shorebirds stop over on migration.