Flora and Fauna

Birds

There’s been a dramatic drop in the local bird population over the last 20 years. Although many of the more obvious and colorful species, particularly birds of prey, have been all but eliminated, species still number about three hundred. These include beautiful wild fowl; an iridescent blue kingfisher; the dollar-bird of western Bali’s open woodlands; the acrobatic ash-colored ‘drongo’; the olive-beaked sunbird, which feeds on flowers; the black-napped oriole, with its completely black abdomen; the white-breasted wood swallow with triangular wings; and the streaked weaver, which builds delicate nests in colonies in the long grass of open country.

Specialized seabirds inhabit Bali’s south coast. The white-bellied sea eagle and white-tailed tropic bird nest and breed in the stunning vertical limestone cliffs and offshore islets of the Bukit Peninsula and Nusa Penida. At low tide, a prime viewing area for waterbirds is the long, sheltered coast of mudflats and mangrove swamp from Sanur to Benoa Bay. Here you’ll find large flocks of plovers, sandpipers, and other wading birds feeding on the mudflats at low tide. Along the shores of the Bay of Gilimanuk on Bali’s western tip are the large brown and white brown booby, the great crested tern, and the common tern.

Inland, around the canals and ponds, are congregations of stately Java pond herons and white egrets. North of Ubud in Petulu, between 1600 to 1800 in the afternoon, you can see thousands of short-billed egrets, cattle egrets, and snow-white little egrets arriving to roost for the night in the palms. In the main rice-growing country of central Bali keep a lookout for grain-feeding ‘munias’, sparrows, and white-bellied swiftlets.

During the breeding season these tireless little birds build intricately woven nests in the tall grass and bushes. Farther north, around the volcanic lakes of Bratan, Buyan, and Tamblingan, are trails leading into dense sub-mountain rainforests where you can view forest birds like cuckoos, barbets, and babblers. Australian brown honeyeaters are also found in this terrain, flitting about in low bushes and feeding on flowers. Only one species of honeyeaters crossed the Wallace Line, the sole exception to the rule.

The extremely rare Bali starling, or Rothschild’s or Bali mynah (Leocopsar rothchildi), is the only vertebrate animal indigenous to Bali. The bird is snow-white, with black on its tail and the tips of its wings and a bright blue patch around its eyes. Don’t confuse it with the black-winged starling, which has a yellow skin patch around its eyes. When the bird’s population plummeted due to loss of habitat, a group of U.S. zoos saved the starling by shipping individuals to the Surabaya Zoo; they were then reintroduced into the island’s northwest corner.

The ‘jalak’ Bali has been recorded along 85 kilometers of coastline from Singaraja to Gilimanuk. The best watching post is at Teluk Kelor on the north coast of the Prapat Agung Peninsula where a handful of starlings come down from the hills to roost near the beach. There’s a Bali Starling Project Research Station two kilometers north of the guardpost at Sumber Klampok.

Reptiles, Amphibians, Insects

The island is home to the rarely spotted lethal, luminous green viper (lelipis gedong) identified by the red in its tail. Bali’s other snake, the ‘ular sawah’, is brown and nonpoisonous.

There are also crooning frogs, lucinea spiders which build their webs along paths (if they bite you, your head aches for three days), fireflies, butterflies, crickets, poisonous scorpions (rare), and huge black, harmless beetles that thud off your hotel walls trying to find a way out. Children catch dragonflies on long, glue-tipped bamboo poles, then thread them like sate on strings to take home and deep-fry in oil for a crispy, protein-rich delicacy. Cicadas are the multitudinous unseen chorus to all Balinese nights. Bats can be seen at Goa Lawah cave east of Klungkung; they also emerge all over Bali at dusk to feed.

What do you call an Indonesian lizard with a loud voice? A gecko blaster. The lovable gecko-’cicak’ in Indonesian-is about 15 cm long, has a scaleless alabaster body and beady eyes, screeches “tsk-tsk,” and scampers upside down on any surface with the use of vibrations from its pudgy toes. The bottoms of their feet resemble the gills of fish. It’s believed that if a gecko chirps while someone is talking it means that person is telling the truth. Geckos make cheap pets because you don’t have to feed them-they eat each other.

A nontoxic lizard called ‘alu-alu’, reaching one meter in length, waits on riverbanks to snatch passing ducks. To “witness man’s bravery with live crocodiles and snakes” pay a visit to the Ayung Reptile Park near Sanur. Performances given twice daily (0900 and 1700), plus there’s a collection of reptiles from all over the Indonesian archipelago.

The ‘tokay’ lizard, often heard but rarely seen, emits a wonderfully ear-curling, indescribable ratchet windup sound followed by a series of “BO” croaks never forgotten once heard. Each time the ‘tokay’ croaks, the sound gets a little softer, deeper, and slower, as his wind runs out. The Balinese believe that anyone who hears a lizard moan nine times will receive good luck. They can croak up to 30 times-at the drop of a hat gamblers will bet on how many. Up to 45 cm long, with deep orange spots, they can eat mice and baby birds. ‘Tokays’ defecate black cigar-shaped droppings from the same spot on the ceiling everyday and can only be discouraged by attaching or hoisting mothballs up to the spot.

Domestic Animals

A cousin to the wild boar, Bali’s famous pigs are weighted to collapse with their loads of pork, their backbones sagging as if broken and their enormously heavy pink bellies dragging through the dust. Pigs are the property of the woman of the house and any money she earns from them belongs to her. A great Balinese delicacy not to be missed is suckling pig (’be guling’ in Balinese, ‘babi guling’ in Indonesian) roasted on a spit.

The ducks of Bali, kept as family pets, rank among the island’s most prominent citizens. Squads of them are taken from the family ‘kampung’ by the herders each day to feed in the rice fields, marching in formation under flags on long poles from which they never stray. In the irrigation channels between the rows of plants these comics act like up-tailed, web-footed vacuum cleaners, loosening old roots, nosing through the mud grubbing for worms, snails, frogs, insect pests, and leftover grains of rice.

At day’s end, the chattering flock gathers around the duck herder’s pole to be taken home again. Ducks are much better behaved and more complacent than bothersome chickens, well-suited for the communal living of the Balinese domestic compounds. Duck meat, as in the strongly spiced dish ‘bebek betutu’, makes for some of the finest eating on the island.

The Balinese goose-swan, the nearest thing on the island to a true swan, is the sacred mount of Dewi Saraswati, the goddess of learning and the arts. They make excellent watch geese. Fighting cocks can be seen preening in bamboo cages on the sides of Bali’s roads. Compared to their Western cousins, these birds are wild and supernatural, able to fly up to and perch on rooftops.

The flesh of pugilist rooster tastes and has the texture of lizard hide. Loops of sound seem to follow flocks of pigeons circling the sky; each is hung with small bells on its feet and bamboo whistles on its tail feathers. Turtle doves and other pet birds are hoisted in their cages high on bamboo poles to enjoy the view and provide fluting and cooing music for the villagers below.

Cattle, hung with sweet melodic wooden bells, leap from banks with the lithe grace of an antelope. These amiable, beautiful creatures with long eyelashes, delicate features, dew eyes, manicured velvet coats, slender necks, trim bodies, slim legs, and short tails look more like fawns than cattle. Like most cows in the tropics, they give no milk. Unlike the Hindus of India the Balinese don’t consider cattle as sacred; they are bred for their meat and exported to other islands. Nevertheless, cows live a privileged life on Bali, lovingly bathed in village streams, billeted in cozy hay-strewn mangers, let loose on village lawns to feed.

The largest cattle markets in Bali are in Beringkit, 20 kilometers south of Mengwi, and in Bebandem (Karangasem), and a scene out of medieval Bali.

Domesticated water buffalo (kerbau) with thick curving horns are used for plowing the rice fields. A special event in Jembrana Regency is the Makepung buffalo races in which two ‘kerbau’ pull a jockey in a wheeled carriage. The animals are specially bred and trained, a process that has produced a healthier strain of cattle more resistant to the diseases prevalent in other Balinese cattle.

The same district has developed Magembeng, in which cows carry big wooden musical bells (gembeng) around their necks. As they walk, their slow and graceful swaying causes the instruments to sound and form haunting music. The cows take part in competitions in which posture, beauty in the head and tail, and the precision and softness of their music is fastidiously evaluated.

Balinese cats are scrawny, unbelievably loud and raucous creatures with truncated tails and unpleasant dispositions. Scavengers like dogs, they are omnivorous and eat among other things ants and mangoes. Bali’s miserable ‘anjing’ (dogs) abound-mangy, flea-bitten bags of skin, bones, and open sores.

There are an estimated 600,000 on the island. The mongrelized Balinese dog has a short pointed muzzle, a piggy tail, weighs about 30 pounds, births one litter per year, and is an expert at survival. Colin McPhee, in his A House in Bali, wrote of Bali’s infamous dogs, “gray, starved and tottering, on walls, in doorways, the dogs infested the villages. They were so anemic they could hardly drag themselves off the road. We drove along, knocking them to one side with a thud.”

Little has changed since those words were written in 1945. In the West dogs bark too, but somehow their barking isn’t as stubborn or as irritating as that of the dogs of Bali. Most dogs are ill-kept pets; the tens of thousands of strays who roam the island are not destroyed because of the Hindu/Buddhist taboo against killing living things.

The traditional island belief is that dogs contain the souls of reincarnated thieves. They do serve a useful purpose by scaring away both corporeal intruders and the evil spirits which haunt the Balinese. They provide a free morning wakeup call. They clean up the trash, and seldom actually bite anyone. Though few are rabid, none are wo/man’s best friend. Look upon them as rats, or pigeons with teeth, and you’ll have no problem with them.

The Palms

Twelve varieties of the coconut palm (nyuh) exist on Bali. The palm provides tools, food, drink, and habitation; every part of the tree is used by the Balinese. So essential is the coconut tree in everyday life that the Balinese make special offerings to it once a year. The farmer knocks the tree three times to waken it, prayers for a plentiful harvest are said, then the tree and offerings are sprinkled with holy water. Coconut palms are individually owned, often by a different person than the owner of the land. The coconuts on the tree are the property of the tree’s owner, but a coconut that falls belongs to the person who picks it up. A good tree produces about 50-100 mature nuts per year for 50 years.

One of the world’s biggest seeds, the coconut provides copra, and its milk and grated meat are important ingredients in many Balinese dishes. Young coconuts, always available on request, make a sweet and refreshing drink, and their soft jelly-like meat is a real treat. White coconut oil is the only oil used for cooking on Bali. Frothy palm beer, ‘tuak’, is also derived from this tree.

The strong, hard, pest-resistant wood of the tree makes outstanding building timber. The woody husk is excellent fuel for cooking fires, the black husk fiber (duk) is utilized as an abrasive dish cleaner, and for brushes, rope, brooms, and as a roofing material. The Balinese use the small leaves of the central branch to fashion containers.

Whole coconut leaves (don nyuh) are the primary materials in woven mats (tikar) used for sitting or as temporary walls or roofing. Any Balinese can fashion a coconut leaf into a small ‘tikar’ in 15 minutes. Many of the intricate and beautiful offerings made by Balinese women are fashioned from the young leaves of this useful palm. The yellow coconuts of the dwarf coconut tree provide a receptacle for holy water.

Other indispensable palms are the sugar, sago and ‘lontar’. The Balinese use the toffee-like leaves of the sugar palm to make offerings, particularly the magnificent ‘lamak’ banners that adorn gateways during the twice-yearly Galungan celebration. From the sago, with its huge dark green fronds, is extracted ‘ijuk’, the black thatching fiber. The palm also provides the Balinese with a handsome dark-grained wood, ‘jakuh’, utilized for making tool handles. As elsewhere in eastern Indonesia, the pith of the tree is processed into sago flour.

The ‘lontar’ provides the raw materials for making many everyday articles. ‘Lontar’ leaves, after being dried and pressed, are bound into book pages and inscribed with elegant Sanskrit-like Balinese characters (tulisan Bali). Bali’s most important historical chronicles have been written on ‘lontar’ leaves.

Trees

Offerings are frequently made to trees, especially in southern Bali. Selected, representative trees are adorned with ceremonial parasols and dressed in traditional black-and-white checkered cloth (kain poleng), scarf (saput), and headband (udeng) - the same dress Balinese men wear to temple.

The Balinese believe that in large trees dwell a host of spirits and demons; one often sees offerings placed on the ground before them, shrines constructed in their branches high above the ground. Legend has it that temples have even been founded next to important, spiritually charged trees. There are small, sacred reserves of trees all over the island, such as the Monkey Forest of Ubud and the majestic grove of dipterocarps at Sangeh.

Myriad uses are found for trees. Tree-trunk hollows are used as signal logs to call people to prayer, much like church bells in the West. The sacred milkwood (pule), sought after by woodworkers, is used to make the fearsome Rangda masks. In October, acacia trees, with huge clusters of bright yellow flowers, beautify the main road between Sanur and Tanjung Bungkak. Venerable tamarind trees line kilometer after kilometer of roads in northern Bali east of Singaraja; you can also see these huge shade trees on Jl. Suropati alongside Puputan Square in Denpasar.

Plantations of clove (cengkeh) trees grace the highland road from Penulisan, winding down the mountains to the northern coast. Acacia trees and other members of the mimosa family line long stretches of the Bypass Highway; planters are also reforesting the ocean side of this highway with five species of mangrove. In southern Bali, thick tangles of mangrove turn shallow tidal flats into valuable solid ground.

The stately, solitary ‘kepuh’ tree, a member of the kapok family, populates Balinese cemeteries. It’s believed that on moonlit nights its eerie-looking branches are infested with evil birds and demons, its branches festooned with the entrails of the dead, its roots winding in and out of skulls and bones. The ‘kepuh’ is sacred to Durga, Goddess of Death.

Leaves from the ‘dadap’ tree are used for ‘ngotonin’, the birthday celebration for children, and in the ‘beakawonan’ wedding ceremony. Tiger’s claws (tjangin), a species of Erythrina, has scarlet flowers which grow in clusters, protected by “claws” or spines which cover the tree’s entire surface. These trees are planted by farmers along irrigation canals or used as fences to keep animals and humans out of ’sawah’. To be pricked by its thorns is excruciatingly painful; the thorns are capable of penetrating rubber thongs.

Bali’s most famous trees are the massive banyans (beringin) which hang over roads and temple gates, spreading their feathery branches and hundreds of vine-like trailers. Left unchecked, these creepers will take root and spread a canopy over an entire hectare. When the aerial roots of this sacred tree are cut to make room for a road, the workers need to be protected by prayers invoked by a priest.

Considered holy and immortal, this member of the fig family is most often found inside temples or near the main ‘puri’ of a village. There’s a special atmosphere under the shady pillars of a gnarled old banyan, where often a small shrine is placed in the gloom. The largest blooming banyan in the world-virtually a forest-is found in Bongkasa, a few kilometers west of Ubud.