Garuda Indonesia Colours Magazine October 2015 | Page 144

142

Travel | Birding in Paradise

Garuda Indonesia operates 13 routes with 245
weekly flights to and from Kalimantan

Cinnamon-rumped
trogon, male.
Red-crowned barbet
at nest.
River boating in Tanjung
Puting National Park can
produce some interesting
bird sightings.

When in Kalimantan, you’ll
want to visit the steaming
lowland rainforest of the
Sunda subregion. The Sunda
subregion is the area of Western
Indonesia and includes the
Malay Peninsula north to the
extreme south of Thailand and
Myanmar. You’ll find some of
the richest rainforest in the
world here; the climate is hot
and humid all year with not
much of a dry season.
Kalimantan is part of the island of Borneo,
and as such many of the birds there can also
be found in neighbouring East Malaysia and
Brunei. That means that there are not many
country-endemic species here, but there are
plenty of island endemics that you cannot
find anywhere else in Indonesia. Just walking
deep in the Sunda rainforest is such a special
experience, you should allow yourself this
pleasure at least once in your lifetime.
Tanjung Puting in central Kalimantan is a
famous national park and has a population of
orangutans as well as many lowland forest
birds. Further west Gunung Palung National
Park is also well worth a visit, as is its
forest research station. Further north
you can sample the very different bird fauna
of the interior hill forest at the Kayan
Mentarang National Park near the border
to Sarawak, Malaysia.
However, should you find yourself near
Balikpapan, which many visitors to
Kalimantan do, check out the Sungai Wain
protected forest, easily accessible from the
city yet lesser known. The area is some
20km north of the city; there is a sun bear
rehabilitation centre nearby and a long trail
where you can find many forest birds
including Borneo endemics such as
the blue-headed pitta.

© Chien Lee; © Morten Strange; © MSE Stock / Alamy Stock Photo

Birding
Kalimantan