Pulau Burung: A home of the heron and cormorant

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.