My Ride and Bird Life: January 2016

2 years already since the last time I birded at Jakarta Bay. After a very long wait, my chance came when some friends from Bandung texted me and asked if it’s possible for me to go birding on the weekend. In total there were five of us. We chose to go to Jakarta Bay for the seabirds but our main targets are the two rare winter visitor, Great Frigatebird and Aleutian Tern. The weather was great, and the sea was totally calm which is good for us although one of our friend can’t hold the sea sick because she was too excited. Hehehe. The first bird we saw is the Lesser Crested Tern followed with a group of three Common Terns. They were perched on a pole.

Lesser Crested Tern.

Non-breeding Plumage Common Tern

Another Common Tern.

Common Tern in flight.

Ten minutes after that, we got more birds including a mixed flock of Lesser Crested and Common Tern that followed the trawling boat, Lesser, and Christmas Island Frigatebirds, Little Black Cormorant, and also Great Crested Tern. But, no sight of any Great Frigatebird.

A flock of Terns with the Trawling Boat.

Lesser Crested, and Common Terns Flock.

Common Tern in flight.

Lesser Crested Tern in flight.

Little Black Cormorant in flight.

2nd Year Christmas Island Frigatebird.

Female Christmas Island Frigatebird.

A single Great Crested Tern.

A couple of Lesser Crested Terns.

Male Christmas Island Frigatebird in flight.

Female Lesser Frigatebird.

It was like finding needle in a haystack to find our target. We finally found the Great Frigatebird after one hour wandered on the bay, and carefully checked every Frigatebirds we saw. It’s easily overlooked when they perched among their two more common cousins. At the end we only saw one adult male Frigatebird. Thanks to my brother’s eagle eye, if we go without him we might easily missed it.

Comparison between Male Christmas Island (Left), and Great Frigatebirds (Right)

A lonely Great Frigatebird.

Male Great Frigatebird (Center) with Christmas Island Frigatebirds.

In the afternoon, we went to Muara Angke Nature Reserve but before that we made a stop at Warung Leko (it served one of the best ox ribs in Jakarta) for lunch. Our main target is the rare and critically endangered Black-winged Starling, and the Javan Coucal. Muara Angke Nature Reserve is their last stronghold in Jakarta. We spent around two hours waiting for the Coucal waiting on open space from the road side, unfortunately they didn’t show up. Inside the reserve, we managed to see some more birds like Black-winged Starling, Black-backed Swamphen, Bar-winged Prinia, Sunda Woodpecker, Oriental Darter, and also the uncommon species like Racket-tailed Treepie. Before we ended our activity, we got few more species including White-browed Crake, Ruddy-breasted Crake, Chestnut-winged Cuckoo (Rare in Jakarta but regular winter visitor to the reserve) and also the Javan Coucal (in a very distance).