Site Report: Manupeu Tanah Daru National Park

Visits

• 2024-08-29: The next morning, we were up early and on our way toward the west side of the island. We stopped at the "National Park". Not sure I can say it felt much like a national park as our hikes along the road were punctuated by a lot of traffic passing through. We continued on to Lewa where we found the one homestay/hotel. It was pretty basic, and I was a little nervous when I saw a red insect in the wood frame. On closer inspection, it wasn't a bedbug, it was a termite, so all good. Later in the day, we came back to this same place to meet a nature guide. He knew where we could see some of the rarer birds. It involved hiking through a recently burned down forest to a viewpoint on the remaining forest. After all this was finished, they sprung on us that there is a national park fee as well. Ha ha, I don't think they were intentionally scamming us, but it would be nice to know costs ahead of time. The office to pay the fee, however, was closed, so now we were going to have to go and pay on the next day. There was a spot that was supposed to be good for the Little Boobook on the way back to Lewa. We stood next to the road listening for it, but we never could quite hear anything, and there was a lot of loud traffic still at night. These two random guys showed up on a motorcycle who knew about the owl. I followed them up into the forest to a quieter spot, but we still never heard a sign of the owl. I guess that owl will have to wait for when I have more time...

Species Seen

Lifelists

• Asia
• World

Trips

• Indonesia