Holiday snaps: North Sulawesi
It was extremely low light. I tried to remember some low light technique.
Some of it worked!
Green-backed Kingfisher-5161 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
Green-backed Kingfisher-5363 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
Lilac-cheeked Kingfisher-5148 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
Not a bird but one of the western-most Marsupials: the Bear Cuscus. I was extremely excited to see this!
Bear Cuscus-5166 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
Ochre-bellied Boobook.
Ochre-bellied Boobook Owl-5294 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
Sulawesi Dwarf Kingfisher-5489 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
We even visited a hornbill nest that had a female sealed in. The male )here) was feeding her.
Red-knobbed Hornbill-5180 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
That concludes my brief illustrated trip report.
It wasn't an out and out birding trip, but i still managed to take a few photos and see a few birds. You can always go back if you miss a few things. I recommend North Sulawesi to just about anyone looking for a slightly different travel destination. Everyone is friendly and it's pretty easy to get around. Also (very important) the food is great!
If you want to check out more of the photos, there in my Flickr photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/54876436@N08/
in this set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/5487643...7627635572462/
Cheers!
Henry
Ahoi all,
After a particularly intense bout of field work I took all the weekends I was owed and went on holiday for 10 days. Not wanting to hang around in Perth, with my passport and "A guide to the birds of Wallacea" I took up a friend on an offer of adventure and flew to Jakarta, en-route to Manado, North Sulawesi.
We stayed for 3 nights on Bunaken Island, a short boat ride from Manado. It's surrounded by a marine reserve. I spent 2 days snorkelling and lazing around drinking Bintang. The corals were amazing and the fish diversity was breathtaking. All reef is very nice, but this was pretty good. Nice and accessible too, no boat rides to see reef, just right out in front of the resort. Some nice birds about in the gardens (Pink-necked Green Pigeons) but the real attraction is under the water.
We went flash for the first few nights: Living Colours Resort: 50euro a night, all meals included.
Not too many pics from here, I don't have an underwater camera.
Here's Manado
North Sulawesi-4426 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
and the big crazy church on Bunaken Island
North Sulawesi-4472 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
Next stop was Tomahon! We took a taxi from Manado to Tomahon (about an hour). Cost: about $10AUS. Up in the hills above Manado it sittings in the shadow of an active volcano. Normally you can climb up and have a bit of a look at the crater, but 2 nights before we arrived it erupted. We could see fire from where we were staying on Bunaken Island.
A few months previous to our trip the town was evacuated!
Instead we went and visited the local market (always fun). Described in the Lonely Planet as "macabre" it lived up to it's description.
I saw the last bits of a butchered Babirusa (one of the creatures I'll be making a return trip to see), dog, fruit bat, reticulated python and rats as well as the obligatory pig heads and chickens feet.
North Sulawesi-4561 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
North Sulawesi-4614 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
If you want to see the grisly market photos, check out my Flickr stream here:
No banana crisis here!
North Sulawesi-4711 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
I did see some birds behind the place we stayed.
Grey-sided Flowerpecker
Grey-sided Flowerpecker-4523 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
And Yellow-sided Flowerpecker
Yellow-sided Flowerpecker-4603 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
And the magnificent Yellow-billed Malkoha
Yellow-billed Malkoha-4574 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
We stay at Onong's Palace. About $15Aus a night, there's a restaurant on site. Quite good!
Very lush garden, the malkoha comes and preens in front of the windows there, there's sulawesi babblers near by. Hanging Parrots also wizz past overhead. Barred Rail, Sulawesi Black Imperial Pigeon and a mob of other stuff are out along the road that runs up the mountain behind the lodge.
We stayed only one night there as we couldn't climb the volcano. We had trouble getting a car so Onong kindly drove us all the way down to Tangkoko Reserve. Here we stayed at Tangkoko Lodge. Not listed in the Lonely Planet; the owner, Bobby, is one of the gun bird guides in the area. We had scops owl coming in above our bungalow, could hear Minahasa Masked Owl at night, Sulawesi Babblers first thing in the morning... It was very quiet and pleasant.
We were there to hang about and see some of the forest. Access to the park is fairly cheap and comes with a guide (usually fairly knowledgable). We had Kiki, a young chap who is in some way related to Bobby. He knows how to spot tiny Kingfishers stationary in dark jungle and spoke good english. What more do you want?
He also found us these:
Spectral Tarsier-4782 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
Spectral Tarsier-4814 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
Spectral Tarsier-4911 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
Spectral Tarsier are very cool animals. Tiny Primates! They are pretty easy to find and show people it seems. Once you know where a den tree is the adults will come out before dark to check for danger and to wake up a bit before leaping off through the branches at night.
We saw some birds and some rats that evening in the forest.
Sulawesi Scops Owl-4943 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
Sulawesi Scops Owl (this one was at Bobby's place).
No Vipers though. Oh well, next trip next trip.
We also did a bit of a birding morning through the jungle on two of our mornings there. Saw plenty and photoed a few species.
Black Macaques were about. There are three troupes in the area, each about 60 individuals.
Black Macaque-5014 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
Black Macaque-5029 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
After a particularly intense bout of field work I took all the weekends I was owed and went on holiday for 10 days. Not wanting to hang around in Perth, with my passport and "A guide to the birds of Wallacea" I took up a friend on an offer of adventure and flew to Jakarta, en-route to Manado, North Sulawesi.
We stayed for 3 nights on Bunaken Island, a short boat ride from Manado. It's surrounded by a marine reserve. I spent 2 days snorkelling and lazing around drinking Bintang. The corals were amazing and the fish diversity was breathtaking. All reef is very nice, but this was pretty good. Nice and accessible too, no boat rides to see reef, just right out in front of the resort. Some nice birds about in the gardens (Pink-necked Green Pigeons) but the real attraction is under the water.
We went flash for the first few nights: Living Colours Resort: 50euro a night, all meals included.
Not too many pics from here, I don't have an underwater camera.
Here's Manado
North Sulawesi-4426 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
and the big crazy church on Bunaken Island
North Sulawesi-4472 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
Next stop was Tomahon! We took a taxi from Manado to Tomahon (about an hour). Cost: about $10AUS. Up in the hills above Manado it sittings in the shadow of an active volcano. Normally you can climb up and have a bit of a look at the crater, but 2 nights before we arrived it erupted. We could see fire from where we were staying on Bunaken Island.
A few months previous to our trip the town was evacuated!
Instead we went and visited the local market (always fun). Described in the Lonely Planet as "macabre" it lived up to it's description.
I saw the last bits of a butchered Babirusa (one of the creatures I'll be making a return trip to see), dog, fruit bat, reticulated python and rats as well as the obligatory pig heads and chickens feet.
North Sulawesi-4561 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
North Sulawesi-4614 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
If you want to see the grisly market photos, check out my Flickr stream here:
No banana crisis here!
North Sulawesi-4711 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
I did see some birds behind the place we stayed.
Grey-sided Flowerpecker
Grey-sided Flowerpecker-4523 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
And Yellow-sided Flowerpecker
Yellow-sided Flowerpecker-4603 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
And the magnificent Yellow-billed Malkoha
Yellow-billed Malkoha-4574 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
We stay at Onong's Palace. About $15Aus a night, there's a restaurant on site. Quite good!
Very lush garden, the malkoha comes and preens in front of the windows there, there's sulawesi babblers near by. Hanging Parrots also wizz past overhead. Barred Rail, Sulawesi Black Imperial Pigeon and a mob of other stuff are out along the road that runs up the mountain behind the lodge.
We stayed only one night there as we couldn't climb the volcano. We had trouble getting a car so Onong kindly drove us all the way down to Tangkoko Reserve. Here we stayed at Tangkoko Lodge. Not listed in the Lonely Planet; the owner, Bobby, is one of the gun bird guides in the area. We had scops owl coming in above our bungalow, could hear Minahasa Masked Owl at night, Sulawesi Babblers first thing in the morning... It was very quiet and pleasant.
We were there to hang about and see some of the forest. Access to the park is fairly cheap and comes with a guide (usually fairly knowledgable). We had Kiki, a young chap who is in some way related to Bobby. He knows how to spot tiny Kingfishers stationary in dark jungle and spoke good english. What more do you want?
He also found us these:
Spectral Tarsier-4782 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
Spectral Tarsier-4814 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
Spectral Tarsier-4911 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
Spectral Tarsier are very cool animals. Tiny Primates! They are pretty easy to find and show people it seems. Once you know where a den tree is the adults will come out before dark to check for danger and to wake up a bit before leaping off through the branches at night.
We saw some birds and some rats that evening in the forest.
Sulawesi Scops Owl-4943 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
Sulawesi Scops Owl (this one was at Bobby's place).
No Vipers though. Oh well, next trip next trip.
We also did a bit of a birding morning through the jungle on two of our mornings there. Saw plenty and photoed a few species.
Black Macaques were about. There are three troupes in the area, each about 60 individuals.
Black Macaque-5014 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
Black Macaque-5029 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
It was extremely low light. I tried to remember some low light technique.
Some of it worked!
Green-backed Kingfisher-5161 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
Green-backed Kingfisher-5363 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
Lilac-cheeked Kingfisher-5148 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
Not a bird but one of the western-most Marsupials: the Bear Cuscus. I was extremely excited to see this!
Bear Cuscus-5166 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
Ochre-bellied Boobook.
Ochre-bellied Boobook Owl-5294 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
Sulawesi Dwarf Kingfisher-5489 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
We even visited a hornbill nest that had a female sealed in. The male )here) was feeding her.
Red-knobbed Hornbill-5180 by Henry.Cook, on Flickr
That concludes my brief illustrated trip report.
It wasn't an out and out birding trip, but i still managed to take a few photos and see a few birds. You can always go back if you miss a few things. I recommend North Sulawesi to just about anyone looking for a slightly different travel destination. Everyone is friendly and it's pretty easy to get around. Also (very important) the food is great!
If you want to check out more of the photos, there in my Flickr photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/54876436@N08/
in this set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/5487643...7627635572462/
Cheers!
Henry
