Steve Happ Photography Ramblings and dissertations

Kebun Raya Bogor #2

This morning it was back to the Bogor Botanical Gardens after a nice breakfast of Nasi Soto. They let me in early around the side gate to the Biology building. I headed straight for the pond where the Black-crowned Night Herons roosted because I wanted to get some better shots of them today. Yesterday was very dark and I had the ISO cranked up way too high.

Black-crowned Night Heron

They were all taking off from their little island roost in the middle of the pond, so I was clicking away like mad hoping to get some decent in flight shots.

Immature Black-crowned Night Heron

This was an immature bird – they are very easy to spot, having lots of streaking on the underparts.

Black-crowned Night Heron

Some of them were coming back in to land on their island again, after heading off into the other trees around the lake.

Striated Swallow (Hirundo striolata)

Striated Swallow (Hirundo striolata) are often found in open hilly areas from India to Taiwan and Timor. They have a very forked tail with blue upperparts and reddish collar and chestnut rump. The underparts are white with heavy dark streaking.

Spotted Dove

I do not think I have any shots of Spotted Doves in flight so I thought I might process this one.

Island Collared Dove (Streptopelia bitorquata)

Island Collared Dove (Streptopelia bitorquata) has a discontinuous distribution, being found in the Philippines and Indonesia from Java to Timor but missing from Borneo and Suluwesi. Its favoured habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests.

Spotted Deer

There were a large herd of these deer in the grounds of the palace. I am not too sure about the correct name for these deer, but they are probably domestically bred.

It is raining this afternoon, so I guess I am not going out again unless it stops. It will not be much point unless the sun comes out because it will be too dark anyway.

Kebun Raya Bogor

I finally made it down the Puncak Pass after some horrendous traffic jams. The bus driver let me off at the bemo terminal so I went and had some lunch and a friendly guy gave me a lift to the hotel. I just chucked my stuff in my slightly sleazy room (Well, very sleazy) and took off for the Botanical Gardens. These young girls were doing an assignment and had to ask a foreigner some questions, so they followed me around for a while recording what I said.

Sooty-headed Bulbul (Pycnonotus aurigaster)

I finally got some photos of these Sooty-headed Bulbuls. I think I had seen them before but thought they were Yellow-vented Bulbuls. Luckily I saw a photo of one and went, hey wait a minute. I did some research on these about a week ago and found out that both species have yellow vents. The Yellow-vented Bulbuls have a mohawk while the sooties have a full head of black.

Some type of bee?

I saw this bee-like thing sucking on a flower. I have no idea what it is.

Black-crowned Night Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax)

Black-crowned Night Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax) have a black crown and back with the rest of the body white or grey. They also have red eyes and short yellow legs. They hunt at the water edges at night or early mornings and mainly eat small fish, crusaceans, frogs, etc. They have a large range, covering five continents.

Black-crowned Night Heron

Immature Black-crowned Night Herons have dull greyish-brown top parts and the underparts are streaked with brown. Young ones often disgorge their stomachs when disturbed.

Immature Black-crowned Night Heron

Towards the end of the day it poured raining and I was stuck under a shelter for nearly an hour. When it finally slowed down I headed for the exit and went and had a hot cup of coffee in some dark alley.

Holey dooley i just saw massive rat and it is no further than 2 meters away from me. He is huge. Gone now. No, back again and I think he wants to eat the electrical system that runs the computers. Holy crap, he is going towards my room. get out of there. ha ha ha this is so funny. I must get a photo of him.

Kebun Raya Cibodas

This morning I ventured into the Cibodas Botanical Gardens, which is just at the bottom of the Gunung Gede Pangrango National Park. I first went into the camping grounds and climbed up a bit of a hill and into the scrub.

Sangkar White-eye. (Zosterops melanurus. )

Edit: I made a whoopsie, This is in actuality a Sangkar White-eye. Thanks to James Eaton for the correction. (The Javan White-eye is found in Indonesia and Malaysia and are found in habitats such as sub-tropical or tropical moist lowland forests. It has a very restricted and fragmented range and is thought to be declining because of habitat loss. Its Indonesian name is Kacamata Jawa.)

Sangkar White-eye. (Zosterops melanurus. )

This spider was huge and had spun a web right across the path.

Spider

After that I went into the main section of the Botanical Gardens but did not find much. There were a few birds scattered here and there but it was not very good at all. I am not sure which type of palm these fruits or seeds are but they looked really cool.

Palm Fruit

I came back early and caught a bemo to Bogor. The traffic was horrendous going down the Puncak Pass. We actually stopped at one spot for about half an hour.

Pangandaran National Park.

Pangandaran National Park is at the end of a long peninsular at the far eastern end of West Java. Yesteday I got a long and bumpy bus ride from Yogyakarta that bounced around on some incredibly bad roads for eight hours. fun.

Rusa Deer (Cervus timorensis

This morning I got up early and went into the park as soon as it opened at 7am. There are heaps of deer around. They are almost tame. They forage on the grass and pay no attention to the humans.

Water Monitor (Varanus salvator)

The Indonesian name for the Water Monitor is Biawak. They are very common in the park as well. This one lived up to its name.

Collared Kingfisher Todiramphus chloris

Skink

I am assuming this is a skink. It looks very similar to our ones.

Small lizard

I have no idea what this small lizard could be. Check out the feet, they splay out all over the place. Sort of a bit creepy and Gollum-esque.

Butterfly

There were quite a few of these butterflies flying around in the forest.

dragonfly

This dragonfly looked like a biplane with its four wings. It was a lovely maroon colour.

Swallow scooping water

There were a heap of swallow swooping into the water and have a drink, I guess. This one is the closest I could get to anywhere near in focus. I just kept shooting madly hoping something might be in focus. Extremely difficult.

Black Monkey

Late in the afternoon there was a mob of Black Monkeys near the fence of the park. They were eating leaves of these trees. I like the darkness of this photo. It is all black.

Tomorrow I am heading west to Bandung and Cibodas to visit Gunung Gede Pangrango National Park. It is another six hour bus ride to Bandung and I have no idea how much further it is to Cibodas. But now I have to dump off the photos to a USB stick and head off to WarNet, a Warung Internet or Internet Cafe so I can upload this blog to the internet. And I have to eat.