Garuda Indonesia Colours Magazine October 2015 | Page 146

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Travel | Birding in Paradise

Lilac kingfisher, endemic to Sulawesi.
Grey-sided flowerpecker, endemic to Sulawesi.
Rusty-backed thrush, endemic to Sulawesi.

© Chien Lee; © Stijn De Win; © Ong Kiem Sian

Birding
Sulawesi
Garuda Indonesia operates 13 routes
with 154 weekly flights to and from Sulawesi

In Sulawesi you are in
the heart of the astonishing
biodiversity of Indonesia.
It was Sir Alfred Wallace who observed
that the difference in birdlife between
Borneo and Sulawesi, which are less than
100km apart, is much greater than between
Great Britain and Japan!

In central Sulawesi you have the huge
Lore Lindu National Park, which
includes montane areas reaching 2,600m
in elevation, and on the northern ‘arm’
of the island the even larger Bogani Nani
Wartabone National Park. Both are
great for Sulawesi birds.

to visit fruiting trees. Find a big fruiting fig
tree and, if you’re lucky, it will be a magnet
for hornbills, pigeons, starlings and many
other groups of birds. Tangkoko also has a
population of Celebes crested macaque, and
spectral tarsiers come out at night for those
keen on spotting rare wild primates as well.

However, maybe most popular among
the Sulawesi nature parks is the smaller
Tangkoko Batuangus Nature Reserve.
Roughly a two-hour drive from the city
of Manado, the reserve is less than 100km²
in total area but it’s an undeniably great
introduction to the birds of Sulawesi;
on a short morning walk you can pick up a
handful of endemics such as purple-bearded
bee-eaters, yellow-billed malkohas, Sulawesi
babblers and Stephan’s doves. With a bit
more luck you might find the only two
hornbills on the island: the knobbed hornbill
and the smaller Sulawesi hornbill, who like

Perhaps the most colourful and handsome
group of birds at Tangkoko are the kingfishers
of the Alcedinidae family. The hues are
astonishing, and these birds often sit
quietly out in the open, so they are fairly
easy to spot. From their perch they look for
small animal prey in the grass or in a stream
below. With a bit of luck you can find three
different kinds of kingfisher in the reserve:
the green-backed kingfisher, lilac kingfisher
and Sulawesi kingfisher. Amazingly they
are all endemic to the island of Sulawesi –
you will find them nowhere else on earth
other than in Sulawesi’s verdant foliage.