Text by Jill Gocher & Ferry Tan, Photo by Jill Gocher

Bali's British birdman, Victor Mason takes us on an amusing and educational walk through Ubud's rice fields to see a truly surprising number of endemic and other birds

Not only do we get to see lots of birds, but during the walk we are entertained by a barefooted Victor who keeps us amused with his frightfully British, banter. Behind Ubud's main roads and colonies of villas are open vistas filled with colors - bright green padi, big blue open skies, yellow coconut trees and dark brown fertile volcanic earth. Stretches of primeval forest cover deep vallies, which once, according to Victor, covered most of the island, in days long ago, before it was cleared for rice cultivation.

Armed with binoculars, cameras and our bird lists we set off for the rice fields around nine o'clock. We leave from the Beggar's Bush and head out into another side of Bali. Victor promises to show guests a slice of the real Bali, as well as a lot of birds.

It is an easy walk along narrow pathways winding through the sawah. Villas cover what was once nothing but rice fields and then suddenly we come into open fields and big sky. A great release for the body, mind and spirit!

We see flittering dragonflies and Victor immediately explains that he knows only a little about them. The real expert he explains, was painter Walter Spies in the '30's, who knew everything. Unfortunately, all his detailed notes and pictures were lost when the ship he left Bali on, was torpedoed during the Second World War. In Ubud you still get a great feeling of continuity with the past!

The walk is interspersed with Victor's words of wisdom who keeps up a dialogue of bird talk and other snippets. "Look! Oh, what a lovely flower. Where are our botanists?" He exclaims.

While in the midst of explaining some intricate detail of the subak rice irrigation system, which has been in operation in Bali for over, 1000 years his ever vigilant and very sharp eyed assistant Susie suddenly exclaims – "oh look! A flock of greater spotted starlings" or some such thing and everyone jumps up, binoculars in hand, to see the birds.

We are all given a list with the names of possible birds to spot so that any dedicated birders, pencils in hand can tick them off. There are more than fifty birds on the list and this doesn't include the rare ones! During the three-hour walk many birds are spotted – Yellow-vented Bulbuls, Scaley-breasted Munia, Java Kingfishers, White-bellied Swiftlets, Blue-tailed bee-eaters and dozens of small birds only recognizable with binoculars.
About half the walkers were keen on birds and the others, keen on conversation. There was plenty of time for both, with guests from an interesting cross section of society.

Victor has been conducting these walks for years but still, it is more like walking with a good friend than going on a formal organized tour – and much more fun! He wrote a book several years ago called "Bali Bird Walks" and even though it is now out of print, he still runs across people with the book in hand as they follow one of his described trails. The trails have changed quite a bit as the villa culture takes over the rice fields but there is still plenty of abundant Bali nature left.

An occasional warung can be found along the path, as well as a somewhat out of place art shop – perhaps some walkers get filled with an overwhelming desire to buy a painting while on the walk - who knows! A few disparate groups pass us by going in either direction and now and then a farmer scales a tree to cut down a coconut.

As we sat by the side of the padi field, enjoying our fresh coconut water, many people from nearby villages passed by, greeting us with their warm smiles. On the other side some children are peddling their bicycles to school, and couple of farmers were working on their padi fields. It is all very idyllic.

We turn off the rice field path and follow down into a new forest habitat past a ravine, part of an old river system that has eroded deeply into the land, causing a straight drop of maybe fifty feet. The valley fills with butterflies, orange, bright red and brown, common garden yellows, lacewings, flutter by with the appropriate exclamations from Victor. He is quite an expert on butterflies and his recent book on butterflies is richly illustrated with gorgeous renderings of some of Bali's most exotic varieties. He even named his second daughter after a butterfly.

The forest ends and we enter another side of the padi fields, walking a couple of kilometres more toward the recently built temple for the dead, where according to Victor, the villagers hold ceremonies for the dead. The beautiful temple is decorated with astonishing gold leaf details and very well maintained. Victor explained that this is one of the most important temples for the Balinese in the Ubud area. As we walk out of the temple, we end up in the road, surprisingly, only twenty metres from where we started. Back in the Ubud traffic, it seemed that we had been away for days.

The three and a half easy hours of exercise had left us all pretty hungry and we repair to Murni's Warung where, overlooking the river, we indulge in a well-earned repast, except for Victor who prefers his lunch liquid! Plates of hambugers, and tasty looking rice dishes appear and every one attacks their food with relish. Then like a good schoolmaster, he whips out the bird list and presides over the table while we all check off the birds we have spotted. What a nice day!

Contact: (0361) 975 009 or 081 239 13801 (hp) email: su_birdwalk@yahoo.com