6. Tapan Road

Tapan Road is the main road between Sungei Punuh and Mauro Sako. Its a busy road with high and low altitude birding accompanied by the stench of diesel fumes and two stroke from the numerous scooters and the inevitable honking of horns that seems to accompany you everywhere in Asia. Its also probably the best place to see Marbled Wren Babbler and Graceful Pitta. The wren babbler site was inaccessible gully hidden from the road along a small stream but the pitta site was literally on the side of the busy road! 

Marbled Wren Babblers can be really hard to see as they generally skulk around in thick undergrowth. Fortunately for us our guides had a site staked out where a bird was responding to playback and coming to feed on mealworms. So we found ourselves sitting on camping chairs behind a hastily erected mesh screen  in stream concentrating on the fallen log and small waterfall in front of us whilst traffic continued to whizz passed by on the busy road a few metres behind us.

We could hear a bird in the distant and waited quietly as it moved closer and eventually appeared in front of us. A beautiful looking bird and living up to its 'marbled' name.

Buoyed by our success we were keen to try for our next target species and drove a few hundred metres up the road where we parked on a verge and the guys erected another blind in a spot for Graceful Pitta. Yet another species threatened by habitat loss but quite incongruously to be found along the busy Tapan Rd. It was quite a bizarre experience sitting with our backs to the traffic, that continually honked their horns at us, whilst the guys set up a stove and brewed tea for us and we waited for an elusive pitta! 

Once again the ground team produced the goods and before long we heard a pitta calling as it made its way slowly towards where we were sat.

Me and Fred - happy birders after seeing the Marbled Wren Babbler and Graceful Pitta

Finally satiated with our views we had a late breakfast of sweet tea and biscuits before exploring the other areas of Tapan Rd looking for specialities such as Rhinoceros Hornbill, Sumatran Leafbird and Sumatran Green Pigeon and anything else we could pick up! 

Tapan Rd birding