Birds and Butterflies

“It is not every day that a new species of bird is discovered. Especially one as large as an owl. And especially one that is living, literally, in our backyard – here in Lombok!”

Back in December 2012, I received an email from Alan Leishman, a guest at the Studio on the Hill near Senggigi. Alan had been staying in our villa for a couple of months and was recording his observations of birds and butterflies. Owls are most easily identified by their distinctive calls at night.

‘An owl can be heard every evening and early morning in the wooded area (100 m altitude), around the Studio, The Hill, Batu Layar, near Senggigi, Lombok, Indonesia, from our arrival on the 6th of November, 2012, until today, 5th December,’ Alan wrote.

‘The voice is a single note repeated at a few seconds (often 8 seconds) interval.’ But the owl’s call was unlike any of those mentioned in the scientific literature on birds in Lombok. Alan had found a bird which did not match the description of any known species. ‘This needs some more research to identify the bird in question,’ he wrote.

Two months later, headlines around the world announced the discovery of the Rinjani Scops Owl on Lombok. A group of scientists published their findings online (www.plosone.org). The owl, unique to Lombok, is common in Rinjani National Park and coastal foothills. The researchers recorded the bird’s territorial song in five locations, including Senggigi.

After an exchange of emails with George Sangster, one of the scientists from Stockholm University, we confirmed that the bird in our garden, identified by Alan, is indeed the newly-discovered Rinjani Scops Owl. Alan recorded the owl’s call and we sent it to a bird authority in Bogor for verification.

The challenge now is to get a photograph of the elusive bird. The front terrace of the Studio is ideal for bird-watching, located at tree-level in a wooded area of the Hill, near Senggigi. We played the bird’s call through a loud-speaker in the early evening. After a few minutes, the owl responded from nearby. In this way we hoped to attract it. If it flew into the trees in front of the Studio, we would be ready with a flashlight and a camera. After a series of lively conversations between the real owl and the recorded owl, we packed up for the evening. ‘Play the recording too often and the bird will become suspicious,’ we had been warned.

The next night a phone call sent Alan scurrying up the Hill to a neighbour’s house. A friend had spotted the owl perched in a rain-tree. But the bird flew away before a photograph could be taken. Alan did, however, get a photograph of a juvenile Rinjani Scops Owl, in the hands of a teenager at a warung on the Hill.

So, be prepared for an influx of birders and ‘twitchers’ in Lombok; and if you think you have the owl in your backyard, you can compare the call with that of the Rinjani Scops Owl. Download from: http://www.xeno-canto.org/species/Otus-jolandae