Located on the southwest peninsula of Borneo Island, precisely in the province of Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, Tanjung Puting National Park has very high biodiversity. Supported by 7 types of natural ecosystems, Tanjung Puting provides a home for wildlife. The types of ecosystems including: lowland tropical forests, dry land forests (sand forests), freshwater swamp forests, peat swamp forests, mangrove forests, coastal forests and secondary forests.

As a World Heritage site due to its Orangutan population, Tanjung Puting National Park is one of the leading destinations for great ape tourism. However, this time, on my trip with Mr Kalub, on his third visit we focused more on bird watching. We would like to see the other beautiful creature in the forest. Tanjug Puting is one of 7 Ramsar sites in Indonesia, which covers 40% of the National Park’s area is a wetland.

Birds can be described as vertebrates that have feathers, forelimbs or arms modified for flying, hind limbs adapted for walking, swimming and perching, beaks without teeth, a four-chambered heart, a light skeleton, have air sacs, are warm-blooded, have no bladder, urination, and laying eggs (Welty, 1982). Wildlife have an important role in human life, both in terms of economics, research, education and culture, as well as for recreation and tourism purposes (Alikodra in Saleh 1998).  Birds have high aesthetic and recreational value. Birds have beautiful and varied shapes and colors, interesting behavior and melodious voices which are aesthetic values ​​that can be enjoyed by humans (Saleh, 1998). Bird watching activities can make an important contribution to the development of science and education. Through bird life observation activities, various sciences can be studied, including etiology, ecology, evolution, island biogeography, demography, as well as monitoring environmental conditions and changes (MacKinnon, 1993).

On our 5 days 4 nights trip using the Kelotok on the Sekonyer River – Tanjung Putting National Park, we encountered 74 species of birds. Some of the are Endangered species according IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), many of them are a lifer for me. It was a very pleasant experience for me after not doing bird watching for a long time. Understandably, observing Bukam birds is the main goal for tourists who visit during this time. The birds we encountered were the following:

Birds have an important role in ecology. Birds are very sensitive to pollution. Birds are at the end of the food chain, so they are quite sensitive to a decline in their food conditions. Therefore, birds can be used as indicators of changes in environmental quality (Buckley & Buckley, in Anonymous, 2006.b) Birds need to be preserved because they have enormous benefits. Birds also play a role in controlling insect pests, help the flower pollination process, have high economic value, have a distinctive sound so they can create a pleasant atmosphere, can be used for recreation, as a source of plasma germs, and as objects for education and research.