Gunung Leuser Project
Kelly Kaczorowski
This school year Mr. Lane's grade 6,7 and 8 classes from ISOL took two trips to the rain forest near Besitang in the Sekundur area. This rainforest is called the Gunung Leuser Ecosystem. The region in which Besitang and Sekundur are located is on the eastern side of Northern Sumatra. The first trip was taken on November 4,5 and 6, 1996. The second trip was taken on April 14, 15 and 16, 1997. The first trip we took was to get a feel for the place and to choose a topic that we thought was more interesting than all of the other topics we might research. I chose the topic of birds. I was interested in birds because I've always wanted to be able to fly without the aid of advanced human technology and because I love the wind and birds always have wind flying in their face.
The data that was collected was taken from a secondary growth area that had recently been disrupted by logging. The people who were there were Chris, Hari, Ety, Susannah, Jonathan, Mr. Lane and Mr. Jacoby. Different students worked with different chaperones.
Going to the rain forest for a second time was not just for vacation and I had to study and watch birds. I found from doing research that tropical birds come in many sizes, from about 12cm to about 110cm. They also come in many colours. Birds usually depend on their colours for protection. For example, the reason birds have a dark top and a light-coloured underside is for protection. When a larger bird is flying overhead, a smaller bird can be camouflaged into the ground. It is the same if a poacher is on the ground and looks up at the sky; he can't find the bird because its light-coloured underside blends into the sky.
Before you go out you must be prepared for the situation. I would recommend bringing along water, binoculars, a guide book, a rain jacket, a pen and notebook paper. Bird watching takes a lot of patience, time and effort. To find birds you have to go bird watching. You choose a spot to go and watch from. I would pick a clearing that has some dead trees, but mostly green trees. To find a bird you have to watch for movement in the trees or for objects that look similar to the body of a bird.
Once you have spotted a bird and you know for sure that it is a bird and not just a bunch of leaves, you come to the stage where you have to identify the bird. To identify birds you need a good guide book. First you have to look for the shape of the bird that looks most like the bird you just saw. Then go to the page that has those birds on the page. Look for the colour and size. Look for the beak colour and structure. Try to also notice how many toes are in the front and on the back of the foot. After you have looked at those aspects you can identify which species the bird is.
After you have identified the bird write it down. You can start a checklist that way. Checklists can be done many ways. I like to do a checklist where you count how many birds are in that flock that I saw. You can also do a checklist like "MacKinnon's 20" list. This checklist is different because if you saw a flock of birds flying you identify it and only write down the species once. Then if they fly away and come back a little later you don't write it down again because you've already written down. Once you have 20 species listed you make a graph and start all over again. (Then you can write down a species from the previous list.) I think that MacKinnons 20 checklist isn't as good as the earlier method because you don't write down how many of those birds you saw and then you don't know if they are common or rare.
There are many values of bird watching and identifying birds. First of all, bird watching gives you a chance to be in the outdoors and to explore the nature of birds. At first I didn't know and really didn't even try to go bird watching. I did know how to bird watch, but I didn't know how to do a real checklist. Identifying birds is very important to a scientist. It is important because if you don't know what kinds of birds there are in an area, then you don't know whether birds are becoming extinct or are common or uncommon. It is also important that you are sure that the bird you have seen fits the description that the guide gives. This is important to know because if you say that you saw a Scarlet Macaw - but you weren't sure and it could have been a parrot - then people will try to bring in Scarlet Macaws from South America and try to introduce it into Indonesia where it hasn't ever been found. Checklists are only valued to humans if we are sure of the findings.
During the last trip I went bird watching with Ashley. We didn't go very often, but we did go three times. In those three times we saw Drongos (Family Dicruridea), Yellow Vented Bul Buls (Pycnonotus Goiavier), Woodpeckers (Family Picidae), Swallows (Family Hirundinidae), Barbets (Family Capitonidae) and a Whiskered Tree Swift (Hemiprocne comata). All of these birds were either found in a tree or flying around in the sky. We were sure that all of these birds were of the species that they were. There was one bird that we saw very well and we watched it for a while. We didn't write it down because we couldn't really identify it with the guide that we were using. Even though our checklist only includes these birds, I believe we were successful with our projects because we saw some birds and we identified them and we have enough information to complete a project.
Everything that has to do with the watching, identifying and listing of birds is very important. Knowledge is probably the most important because then other people can know how to help and to start as soon as possible. If we keep on poaching the birds and selling them for money or as pets, many species of bird will eventually become extinct or endangered Remember, once they're gone, they're gone.