Birds, butterflies & dragonflies in Bali

We planed to join a famous local bird walk today after breakfast and were surprised to find we've been running an hour behind local time and had to rush to get there. Our navigation is getting better and we made it with time to spare.

Our local guide, Su, was trained by Victor Mason and grew up locally here. We joined one other couple and spent a great morning walking a small public footpath that twists through community rice fields and an effort to preserve a way of life and nature.

The weather was better for insects and we made many close sightings with lots of photo opportunities. Su seems to know nearly every plant and animal we saw and is a great advocate for nature study. She aspires to publish books on dragonflies and more and hopefully will be able to do so as things are changing face.
We saw homes being constructed in the rice fields to take advantage of the great views but alter them at the same time. She makes the walks free for people from Bali but never gets anyone. All the youths we saw were on scooters instead of walking along the fields. She has a very good attitude about this changes but is concerned. There is so much to learn from this long practiced way of life if it can be maintained.
We did see some good signs of organic farming and Resturant activities that might establish sustainable activities before it is too late. The couple on the walk with us live in Malasia and provided much good information about the region and photography.

The amazing amount of nature we saw will bring us back to this walk again. The outing ended with a lunch at a warung overlooking a rich forest canopy and we continued to enjoy wildlife viewing as we exchanged stories and learned more of Su's work including an amazing book of Bali butterflies she and her brother helped with. It was quite obvious that much help is needed here and more so that where we live. I expect we will try to contribute to this and similar efforts here in the future and come back to enjoy this walk soon on this trip. We'll add some sample photographs later.

Sitting back on our porch now relaxing after a good outing we are energized about the natural world around us and the need to help conserve it for future generations.

I'm also reminded that nature work and study is a also a thirsty business and am presently enjoying my first Indonesian beer, a very cold and very refreshing Bintang, while I reflect on the day and the rest of the trip ahead. I also tip my glass to Su and others like her working hard to preserve local knowledge and conserve nature for us all. See Bali Bird Walk for more information.