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Candidasa Bali's Eastern Hub
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Sunset Dinner at Jimbaran Beach
The Art of Tropical Living
The Ulundanu Temple of Bedugul
A weekend at Pita Maha

 

 

Bird Watching in a Balinese Village

If you'd like to explore the Balinese village through the off- beaten track, make your time to see their birds diversity of more than thirty species. It is not necessary to enter the deep forest. By taking soft adventure like crossing the rice field is a wise choice where you could see day-to-day life of Balinese farmers and their birds. You may encounter some activities in the village or in the rice field. It is an amazing experience where bird-lovers may indulge in their favorite activities. 

Make sure that you already bring binoculars or a camera to capture a nice shot. Ask your tour guide to lead you to the rice fields. When the farmers cultivate the land at post- harvest time, you will see some local birds around the farmers. Some birds like to chase food on the open area, like the white heron. They usually look for food in groups. Foods they like best are eel, frog and small fish. Sometimes this kind of bird run after their "target" over the white-leafed seedlings. This can destruct the growth of it. That's why farmers always cover the seedling with alang-alang grass and then uncover it until it is high enough or within four days. Anther bird is the spotted dove. It looks for grain in the rice field or cereal on the cash-crop spaces. This bird is widely looked after by the villager due to its nice sound and the united colors of its feather, gray, black and spotted black and white on the neck. While other birds that never disturb farmers are Java kingfisher. Characters of this bird are that it has a long red beak, contrast blue on the feather and bright blue on the wings. It looks for food as white herons do.

You still have another opportunity to see the rich bird's life of the rice field. When the paddy grows high and also the fruits, many kinds of small cereal birds will have a party on it. At the same time it will also be a disaster for the farmers. They will not kill the birds but dismiss them. To protect against the birds, farmers make papier-mâché figures in the middle of the rice field and animated it by pulling the rope from remote place. These small birds are from the Munia family and usually come in a large group, such as white headed Munia, scaly-breasted Munia and chestnut Munia. The most beautiful bird among the cereal-eater birds is gelatik or Java sparrow that has gray feather, white to pink beak, white feather under the ears and light gray wings.

The bird that likes to be alone or just group of two is called white-breasted water hen. They look for food under the paddy sheath. This kind of bird prefers to explore closed space like under paddy sheath or in the bush near creek. It has limited ability to fly. If it flies long distance it will be four or five hundred meters. When it reach the third fly, it is generally unable to fly any longer and hide himself or dive into the water for security purposes.


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