birding...

Banggai

Satellite View,
A nice selection of Sula endemics after a short boat ride from Luwuk, including the newly rediscovered Banggai Crow.

Bogani Nani Wartabone National Park (Formerly Dumoga Bone NP)

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A massive national park which has only partially been explored. Known sites include Tambun for Maleo and some nice lowland birding...

Gunung Ambang

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Montane birding in north Sulawesi. Not as many species as Lore Lindu, but a few things are easier to see here.

Gunung Mahawu

Satellite View
Just outside Manado and a great spot for Scaly Kingfisher.

Lake Tondano

Satellite View;
Near Manado and good for waterbirds and migrant raptors.

Lore Lindu National Park

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Lore Lindu NP is home to most of Sulawesi’s endemic species, including the magnificent Red-Knobbed Hornbill (Rhyticeros cassidix) which is common and the largest bird in the park with a wing span of over one meter. Speckled Boobook, Yellow-breasted and Golden-mantle Racquet-tail, Green Imperial Pigeon, Grey-headed Imperial Pigeon, Sulawesi Hanging parrot, Pygmy and Ashy Woodpeckers, Purple-bearded Bee-eater (Jul – Sep); White-neck Myna, Red-bellied pitta, etc. And the Maleo bird, a megapode that buries its single large egg in the warm sand to be incubated by the heat of underground hot springs. Two other endemic birds are the Sulawesi woodcock (Scolopax celebensis) and Heinrich’s Nightjar. Sulawesi woodcock is rarely seen; many birdwatchers visit this park but miss it.

Last August (2000) three birdwatchers from England (Dave Rosair, Tony Prater and Don Taylor) who accompanied by me (Royke Mananta); found this bird at Lore Lindu NP after four days of exploring. They visited the park especially looking for this bird. In the Field Guide the call hasn’t been described, but we heard it when it was startled and took to the air making a short flight. If you are lucky you can find Heinrich’s Nightjar in the park during the day when they sleep on the ground or at night when they fly. This bird is also rarely seen.

Makassar Environs

Satellite View;
An endemic white-eye and some good migrant shorebirds can be found by those with a few hours to kill between flights.

Sangihe, Talaud & Siau

Satellite View
The string of islands off north Sulawesi including Sangihe, Siau and Talaud are not so easy to get to, but loads of great endemics await those who try it.

Tangkoko Nature Reserve

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Easy access and a great introduction to Sulawesi's birds.

2002 [June] - David & John F. Cooper - Sulawesi & Halmahera

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Wallacea is a transitional zone between the Oriental and Australasian faunal realms. At 379, Sulawesi, formerly known as Celebes, has the smallest numbers of bird species of any of the seven biogeographic regions in Indonesia, though hosts 96 species not shared with other regions...

2009 [October] - Dave Farrow

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Another splendid Birdquest tour to Sulawesi and Halmahera, and one that was rather different to usual, in that we did not see rain until our penultimate day! Everywhere was very hot and dry, some areas not having had any rain for three months, perhaps the effect of an ‘El Nino’ weather event. This however didn’t seem to have any negative effect on the birding, and we recorded a very handsome total of 283 species...

2009 [October] - Nicolaas & Robert van Zalinge

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In total we saw 210 bird species. As we had been to Sulawesi before, we mostly limited ourselves to areas not visited previously: Dumoga-Bone and Gunung Ambang, but revisited Tangkoko. The island of Halmahera was new to us and therefore we spent nearly half the time there. For us the top ten birds were: Spotted Harrier, Maleo, Moluccan Owlet-Nightjar, Great-billed -, Scaly – and Paradise Kingfishers, Purple Roller, Ivory-breasted and Red-bellied Pittas and Wallace’s Standard-wing Bird of Paradise...

2009 [October] - Peter Ericsson

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...We arrived in the evening after having changed flight in Kuala Lumpur. First night we lodged in Manado. The hotel was located on a hill surrounded with greenery and overlooking the bay and city...

2009 [October] - Stijn De Win

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I assume it will be easy for anyone to figure from my photos on this page that the birds were great! Let me start about the island first, -no not its shape-, who ever notices that when you’re on the ground enjoying the place...

2010 [April] - Phil Gregory

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Arrived Manado from Singapore and met up with Shita and Untu, with some inaugural birding along the road to Tangkoko...

2010 [August] - Stijn De Win

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Highlights in Lore Lindu National Park were numerous, Piping Crow, Sulawesi Thrush, Diabolical Nightjar, Savannah Nightjar, Red-eared Fruit Dove, Blue-faced Parrotfinch, Purple-bearded Bee-eater, Greater Sulawesi Honeyeater, the hard to find Maroon-backed Whistler gave away great views in the end and we found an obliging Great Shortwing for excellent photo opportunities even though the species wasn’t active singing during our stay...

2010 [July] - Neils Poul Dreyer

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Although diving most of the time, I had a chance to bird 4 days, 3 days in Tangkoko with Theo from Liwayne Adventures and one day with Semuel “Untu” Beware from Papua Bid Club on Gunong Mahawu to look for Scaly-breasted Kingfisher. On the first day 14 July Theo picked me up from Santika Hotel in the morning 7 am and we drove to Tangkoko...

2010 [May] - Bruce Wedderburn

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This report is based on an eight day birding trip to Bali and north-eastern Sulawesi. The birding in Bali consisted of a day trip to the Bali Barat National Park (West Bali) specifically to see the Bali Myna and was organised by Oswald Huma of Birdingpal. The trip to the Bogani Nani Wartabone and Tangkoko National Parks in Sulawesi was targeted at the Sulawesi endemics and was organised by Theo Henoch of Sulawesi-LW-Adventures. Peter Waanders of South Australia joined me for the Sulawesi part of the trip...

2010 [October] - Allan Drewitt & Sue Rees - Sulawesi & Halmahera

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A combined trip to Sulawesi and the nearby island of Halmahera in the North Moluccas provides an excellent introduction to species restricted to Wallacea, the region of Indonesian islands between Borneo and New Guinea...

2010 [October] - Robert Hutchinson - Sulawesi & Halmahera

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Sulawesi and Halmahera are undoubtedly the endemism hotspots of this fantastically diverse archipelago and our tours excel in finding almost all of the realistic endemics on this route. Highlights are difficult to pick from such an impressive bird-list but the magnificent pink-hued Maleo, Purple-bearded Bee-eater, Ivory-breasted Pitta and Wallace’s Standardwing are obvious candidates but the unassuming Olive-flanked ‘Whistler’ or Hylocitrea is attracting its own admirers now that it is elevated to family status...

2010 [September] - Dave Farrow

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Another great Birdquest tour to Sulawesi and Halmahera, and once again quite different climatically to previous visits, as we experienced rain on almost every day. It didn’t dampen our birding though, and we enjoyed great success with 278 species recorded, On Sulawesi we enjoyed many superb endemics such as Green-backed, Lilac-cheeked, Sulawesi Dwarf and Great-billed Kingfishers (some of the 12 species seen)...

2011 [August] - Peter Ericsson

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When Stijn De Win from B2A asked me if I could act as tour leader to Sulawesi/Halmahera I was more then thrilled. Having visited Sulawesi with Stijn back in 2009 I knew the exciting birds waiting in these exotic lands. The tour had 4 participants besides Royke and me. All experienced global birders in the 4-5000 ‘birds seen’ region. Thus it was no surprise that the tour ended up with 239 species recorded and a record 105 endemics...

2011 [August] - Tony Palliser

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To attempt to photograph Hylocitrea Hylocitrea bonensis (also known as Olive-flanked whistler), an endemic to Sulawesi, recently considered to belong to a family of its own that is suggested to be more closely related to Waxwing than pachycephala. So, the plan was to focus this trip entirely on this species, with anything else being treated as a bonus...