Alfred Russel Wallace, the naturalist, visited Gam in 1860 in his quest to find the Bird of Paradise. This morning we set off in the dark to try to see one ourselves, or if not, one of the critically endangered Hornbills that we have seen flying around the jungle near our anchorages on Gam.

A short ride in the dinghy brought us to a lagoon, here a jetty leads to a climb up to the hilltop where elevated bird watching platforms have been built on three of the trees. Following our friends, who have been earlier and surveyed the path in daylight, we were on the platforms at the first crack of light. We had to be extremely careful, as these platforms are a few years old, and typical of Indonesia, have seen no maintenance and are in poor condition.

While we didn’t see any BIrd of Paradise, and the Hornbills were only seen from the boats after we had climbed off the hill again, we spent an hour or so on the early morning listening to the chorus of waking birds in the jungle, before continuing on the lookout at the top of the hill.

Hornbills are citically endangered because humans have learned to carve shapes from the boney horn on their heads. In the National Geographic video I have linked below, a local birdwatcher on Kalamantan claims that more than 6000 had been hunted in just one year. These long lived birds can not resist this predation, often which leaves the female trapped inside their nest waiting for the male to return with food and to one day set her free.