Pulau Burung: A home of the heron and cormorant

By David Jardine

JAKARTA (JP): Pulau Untung Jawa, or "Lucky Java" island, is a felicitous name for an island. And for the couple of thousand people who call this home and make a living from fishing in the waters of the Thousand Islands, it may well be a happy place to live.

Set about six kilometers off the shore of Tanjung Pasir, a black sand beach beyond Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Pulau Untung Jawa has no cars, trucks or grunting three wheeler motorized pedicabs (bajaj).

Getting there from Central Jakarta was something of a public transportation adventure; a bajaj, a taxi, three minibuses, a pedicab and a boat. Our purpose in making the journey? To see the bird life on the neighboring conservation island, Pulau Burung. And no sooner had the narrow boat (Rp 2,000 per person one way) turned its head round and butted out into the chop and swell than we were rewarded with flights of passing cormorants, egrets and the aptly named oriental darters, all neck and alimentary canal.

Further out, herons, heavy winged and almost dolorous in their progress into the strong westerly wind, plodded homeward, inches above the wave tops. Looking round, we could see processions of birds at almost all points of the compass. And above us, gyring coolly and loftily on the wind, a frigate bird, steely eyed and sentinel, its sharp wings all aerodynamic perfection.

We arrived at the jetty on Pulau Untung Jawa about 5 p.m. as the stream of birds seemed to increase in the direction of Pulau Burung. Many were feeding on the relict wetlands along the north coast of Java -- much of these once-rich resources have disappeared in recent years to satisfy golfers and upper middle class housing projects -- while others were coming in from islands further east.

A party of frigate birds had found a pleasure spot in the wind above the mangroves at the west end of the island and were flying for the simple delight of it as the sun began to drop over the horizon. For a hobby birder this was an unexpected treat, as was the appearance of no less than 22 herons in a flypast in just over a minute.

We made arrangements for a room for the night, a very basic affair for Rp 30,000, washed and went to pay a social call and ensure a boat would be available for the run to Pulau Burung the next morning. All that being satisfactorily done, the next thing for us to think about was food. Down at the west end of the south-facing beach there was a very unpretentious warung (food stall) which offered kakap fish either charcoal-grilled or steamed. We ordered one fish and elected to have half grilled and the other half prepared in a spicy sauce. It was well worth the wait.

I felt very content. Good food to add to the birding which had already given me considerable satisfaction.

Night brought a cracker of a tropical storm, which was followed the next morning by a torrential downpour. From our warung redoubt we could watch as the birds plied up and down through the driving rain, cormorants, eely and sinuous, cotton- white egrets, their crops protruding like Zebu dewlaps, and herons of three different species, including the stately purple heron.

The rain finally stopped, and we went to find our boat, a small cutter with a primitive canopy. The journey across to Burung took 20 minutes or so into some tricky cross-currents. Once there, we went into the forestry office to sign the book. Much to my surprise, the most recent visit had been made last May and this was Feb. 21.

The official welcomed us, although a little gruffly, and then warned us to beware of the crocodiles and the two komodo lizards. Crocodiles?! Komodos?!!! This I had not counted on. Perhaps he was a bit of a wag. Unfazed, we set off along the path into the island's forest, and suddenly there was movement high in the trees. Pulau Burung's heronry is home to several hundred birds, and there are big colonies of egrets and cormorants.

Many were nesting in the magnificent kepuh trees (sterculia foetida) and their egg shells had fallen through on to the path. Returning birds could be seen feeding their eager unsated young, and everywhere there was activity.

Pumice stone washes up here that surely originates from Anak Krakatau down in the Sunda Straits. All along the beach there were little piles of this superlight volcanic ejecta that had been driven by the powerful current that runs down the Java Sea. When Krakatau itself famously erupted in 1883, the pumice formed rafts thick enough to support the weight of trees!

This was a trip that repaid a little bit of determination, and the multiple changes of transportation the previous day. Pulau Burung is uninhabited and offers the bird lover a narrow but fascinating spectrum of things to see in peaceful surroundings. There was no sign of the komodos!!! (They were probably monitor lizards). You could almost, but not quite forget, that late last May bodies reportedly washed up on these two islands and are buried in an unmarked communal grave.

As our boat headed back to the Java shore there was one last avian delight in store, a sea eagle turning on the wind in a solo flight that stays in the mind's eye along with the frigate birds, cormorants and herons.