Surrounding Bali: landscape, religion and civilization

The southern slopes of Bali’s central volcanoes are heavely cultivated and rice terraces extend high up the mountain sides. This area is the cradle of Bali’s rich and ancient civilization. It is virtually the only region of Indonesia that remains Hindu today, left to go its own way during the wave of Islamization that swept through the archipelago in the 15th century, they were so fascinated by what they found that they made a concerted effort to conserve and foster Bali’s traditional culture.

As traditional Balinese art commonly features birds, a painting would features birds, a painting would seem to make the ideal souvenir. It is quite a challenge, however to find a piece depicting only native species American Cardinals. Australian Rossellas and south American toucans regularly pop up among the lotus pools and nymphs-just one example of the ease with which Balinese culture accepts new and foreign elements. Perhaps the growing popularity of bird-watching will help the Balinese to appreciate the beuty and variety of their own native birds.

Nowhere matches Bali for such a fusion of birds, landscapes and cultures-for birders with eclectic interests it is an island not to be missed.

Birding Bali: Introduction

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.