Bali August 2014, Ubud

To extend our tourist visas we had to stay quite a while in Ubud. This gave us the chance to search for some rare Munias in rice fields around this bustling town. Getting to this town should pose no problem using public transport. To find the large groups of Munias we used the method suggested by Burung Nusantara: just walk into rice fields and search for ripe rice. These can be found easily as people put up flags to scare away birds. This method worked brilliantly!

On our first try we walked to the East on Jalan Raya Ubud and went further East on the Jalan Gunung Sari. Here we entered the rice fields South from this street. At first they seemed rather empty as all paddies were still young. A lone Sacred Kingfisher and some Zitting Cisticolas were the only birds observed. However we noticed that just to the West of our paddies some ripe ones were attracting a considerable amount of Munias. So we headed back to the Jalan Gunung Sari and walked a bit to the West and entered the rice fields again. Soon we were at the site were we had spotted the ripe/recently cut rice. As soon as we were close to these paddies we were surrounded by an estimated 2.000 Munias! The mass of them were Scaly-breasted Munias (of which at least 50% were juveniles!), with quite a lot of Javan Munias and some White-headed Munias mixed in as well. After a while we managed to locate three White-capped Munias! What a delight as this rare species is nowadays only observed from Pondok Bali in Java! I tried hard to find a site for this seldom-seen species in Bali on the internet and failed. What luck that we found a site ourselves! Even though we found this critter, we were not finished yet, as we hoped to locate some Java Sparrows as well. We scanned the flocks over and over again and in the end three juveniles were flying around us! Success again! After a while the juveniles rejoined with their parents and we counted up to eight individuals. What a great sighting and what a successful first attempt!

One of the estimated 1.500 Scaly-breasted Munias (Lonchura punctulata) in some rice paddies close to Ubud

A short video that shows the setting of the Ubud rice fields including hundreds of Munias (made by Anna van der Kaaden)

After this success we still wanted to try another site. We chose to walk the Campuhan Ridge Walk. Directions to this walk can be easily found on the internet, as it is popular with tourists. The walk lead you along many rice fields, but unfortunately all these paddies were still young, so Munias were very low in numbers and we only saw Scaly-breasted and Javan Munias. We saw some good birds anyway like Javan Kingfisher, Wood Sandpiper, Bar-winged Prinia and Golden-headed Cisticola. This area might be a good spot for rare Munias if the rice is ripe.

A record shot of a Javan Kingfisher (Halcyon cyanoventris), taken with a 50 mm lens...

I can highly recommend trying to find White-capped Munia or Java Sparrow around Ubud, for our searches have proven to be successful and both species are obviously declining and views of them are becoming rarer and rarer. Furthermore, if you are travelling independently through Bali, chances are big you pass through Ubud anyway, so why not check some rice fields here!