Bali Bird Watching, The Bali Bird Walk Tour Ubud

A question that Victor Mason, one of the organizers of the bird walk tour, might ask you is: 'Are you a keen bird watcher?' If the answer is Yes then you will have a grand time, if it is No then a whole new world called 'Bali bird watching' will open to you... Together with his fellow bird watchers, Wayan Sumadi (known as Su) and Pink, Victor Mason organizes bali bird watching tours around Ubud on Tuesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays morning. However if you want it any other day or you want to do bali bird watching in other parts of Bali then that can all be arranged as well. The people of the Bali Bird Walk know the island in and out and have been doing bird watching for more than 15 years. So trust me, these are the guys you want to go along if you want to see birds you wouldn't otherwise have seen or heard about. I myself have hardly any experience with bird watching. I even had a hard time adjusting the binoculars I borrowed from Pink ;-) But within minutes I felt the same excitement as my fellow bird watchers when we spotted our first birds. Victor Mason, Pink and their companion Umron the dog, took us along the main street of Ubud and into the rice fields. And almost after every couple of meters there was another bird that we could check-off on our list. All kinds of bird names were mentioned which I could not even remember afterwards. Luckily at the beginning of the walk everybody was handed out a list of all the birds we might see and with everybody's help we could proudly say that we saw more than 30 types of Bali birds.... Of course we saw all the different birds with much help of Pink and Victor. It was amazing how they were able to spot the tiniest bird or to hear them coming from far away. Every now and then you will see Victor cupping his ear with one hand and listening for a sound. Then within seconds the bird he heard coming from a distance would be flying passed us. Pink on the other hand is amazingly good with spotting the birds sitting in trees more than 10m away! Besides their wonderful Bali bird watching skills, they are also great fun. Victor Mason has lived in Bali for many years but he has definitely not lost his English wit. He makes you chuckle throughout the tour :-) As for Pink, he is originally from Ubud but his English is excellent. He knows everything you want to know about Bali, Ubud and of course the Bali Birds. On top of that he is a painter and has created many beautiful paintings on birds, butterflies and insects. Unfortunately I was not able to meet Su, but hopefully I will have another opportunity soon to meet her. But from the stories I've heard, she is just as great as the other two. The Bali bird watching tour starts at 9.00 o'clock in the morning and takes about 3 hours. However when walking around searching for birds and also checking out the many butterflies and various plants (Victor and Pink seem to know all of them as well) we kind of lost notion of time. So at the end we were having lunch at 15.00 instead of 12.00 as planned. O well, we are in Bali were everything is much more relaxed than at home... Lunch is included in the price. It's in a beautiful restaurant above the Campuhan river. And like the whole tour, it is all very informal and we were able to order whatever we wanted from the menu. It was a great ending of a wonderful day... I really had fun and I highly recommend this tour to anybody who wants to stroll around the rice fields while seeing the colorful Bali Birds. And if you are an enthusiastic bird watcher already, then this will be the best  opportunity to share your passion with others. As mentioned above the Bali bird watching tour takes about 3 to 5 hours and costs US $33 incl big lunch. You should take a hat with you as it can get really hot when walking in the rice fields. And some extra water which always comes in handy...