The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

We left Manado city shortly after arriving on September 23, unfortunately finding Wallace’s claim that the town was ‘one of the prettiest in the East’ no longer holds true. Yes, the surrounding volcanic peaks still strike a picturesque backdrop, but the gridlocked traffic and featureless streetscapes have now assumed the same characterless uniformity as in most other major Indonesian cities.

We went straight to the Toka Tindung mine site on the east coast of Sulawesi’s northern peninsula (a medium-size gold reserve was discovered here in the mid-1990s, and Meares Soputan Mining is set to commence production in the coming months). The company’s Contract of Work area appears to lies across the path that Wallace would have walked from Batu Putih to Likupang after collecting and observing the remarkable Maleo birds on a remote and uninhabited black-sand beach. Mine management was generous enough to allow us to stay at the camp during our visit and provided logistical support to allow us to undertake our main objective: attempt to view for ourselves the remaining Maleo birds still nesting on the beaches of Tangkoko Dua Saudara Nature Reserve (TDSNR).

Maleo Nests at TDSNR

Most birding guidebooks now dismiss TDSNR as a key nesting site for Maleos: numbers are low with their eggs having been long considered a delicacy amongst local communities. Indeed, Wallace also attests “they are richer than hens’ eggs and of a finer flavour, and each one completely fills an ordinary tea-cup, and forms with bread or rice a very good meal”. His subsequent week-long collecting trip produced 26 well-preserved specimens of the unique bird. Wallace, however, has not been the only Maleo egg collector in the last 150 years, and the bird is now considered to be the most endangered bird species on Sulawesi . The Maleo is a member of the mainly Australo-Papuan Megapode family, and practices the unusual habit of communal nesting and does not actually incubate its eggs with its own body heat. Rather, a number of Maleo birds will each lay one large single egg in a communal nest excavated on one of Sulawesi ’s black-sand beaches and then retreat to the forest, allowing the sun to heat the sands and incubate the eggs. Three months later, the eggs hatch and the chicks claw their way to the surface to start their life in the absence of parental support.

'Captain Chaos' and the team in search of Maleos

With three representatives from the mine joining us, along with two local guides, we became a group of eight and decided (perilously it would later seem) to hire a small motorised outrigger canoe at dawn to inspect the more remote beaches of TDSNR in the vain hope that some Maleos might still be glimpsed nesting. Wallace did his collecting in the month of September, so we figured we were, at least, looking there in the right season. Still, it was somewhat of a surprise when, less than half an hour later, we viewed a pair of Maleos on a small beach backing onto thick forest. The moment, however, didn’t last long. For two reasons: firstly, the Maleos are nervous nesters and disappeared into the forest before we were within 100m of the beach; secondly, at precisely the same moment as we saw the Maleos, one of the outriggers on our heavily over-loaded canoe snapped and the canoe quickly heaved to one-side and passengers and equipment were thrown into the water. Fortunately, the cameras were somehow held above water and appeared to be OK at the time as we swam into the tiny nesting beach (we later discovered that battery chargers were seriously affected such that we couldn’t do any further filming during the trip). We then spent much of the morning trying to dry out our belongings, examining the Maleo nests and walking through the nearby forest while waiting for a more substantial boat to collect us. Considering Wallace’s own uncanny misfortune with boats, both in the Atlantic and in the eastern archipelago, we decided that our capsizing, while walking in the footsteps of Wallace, was somehow a positive omen for the rest of the expedition.

Shipwrecked on the Maleo Beach

We later visited, what was claimed to be, another Maleo nesting site at Rumasung further to the east, but still within the reserve. However, despite a birding observation tower having been recently built by an international NGO, the site was heavily degraded, completely dominated by weeds and didn’t appear to offer much at all in terms of bird habitat. In fact, the eastern slopes of TDSNR, located nearer the major port town of Bitung , have been heavily cleared for timber and continue to be encroached by local coconut farmers. TDSNR only covers 8,718 hectares anyway and its habitat value is already seriously threatened. In 1859, when Wallace visited the area, it was celebrated not only for the Maleo birds, but for the other two great endemic icons of Sulawesi wildlife: the anoa and babirusa. The anoa are wild, dwarf buffaloes that Wallace claims to have “been the cause of much controversy, as to whether it should be classed as ox, buffalo, or antelope”. The babirusa, or ‘pig-deer’, is a warthog-like animal with tusks that grow up from both the lower and upper jaws, the latter of which then curiously curls back towards its forehead. Both species are hunted for their meat, such that the babirusa has long been extirpated in the reserve and only a few individual anoas may remain in the mountain peaks (many claim that these too have already disappeared). The Minahasan people, the dominant ethnic group in and around Manado, are renowned throughout Indonesia for their eagerness to eat anything and everything that moves, and a lively bush meat trade exists in the region that continues to threaten remaining populations of these and other endangered animals in Sulawesi.

Degraded Maleo habitat at Rumasung

Despite the problems facing the nature reserve, it also possesses the highest densities of red-knobbed hornbills, crested black macaques and spectral tarsiers in all of Sulawesi . We spent the next few days in the reserve, enjoying the fantastic wildlife viewing opportunities provided by these animals. In late afternoon, we came in close contact with a troupe of crested Black Macaques (about 3000 individuals are thought to remain in the reserve). Endemic to the northern peninsula, these primates have complex social structures led by matriarchs, huge sharp canines and a generally curious and playful nature. An ongoing internationally-funded monitoring project is underway in the reserve and, apparently well-accustomed to the presence of humans, these baboon-like monkeys allowed to get remarkably close, running about us and posing for photos.

North Sulawesi's endemic Crested Black Macaque

Then, just before nightfall, we were taken to a massive fig tree in the forest and sat around waiting…… waiting, looking at nothing in particular. Then, suddenly, emerging from within the tree itself, a number of tiny furry creatures began to appear, as if from nowhere. The Spectral Tarsier is said to be the worlds’ smallest primate, and would jump energetically from branch to branch and then freeze looking back at the torch lights. Then, almost as quickly as they emerged, these shy and nervous creatures with feather-like tails and massive eyes apparently too big for their body, disappeared into the forest, jumping from tree-to-tree at about waist height.

Spectral Tarsier

On our final morning in TDSNR, we walked again into the forest at dawn and sat below a tree hollow where a female red-knobbed hornbill was locked up inside with her chicks. For days, we had heard the unmistakeable sounds of flapping wings in the canopy, and caught the occasional glimpse of the Sulawesi hornbill. We waited a while longer below the hollow and, sure enough, a male hornbill perched on a nearby branch, its bill loaded with fruits (probably figs) to provide to its partner inside. The various hornbills of the Malay Archipelago provided an ongoing source of fascination for Wallace:

The extraordinary habit of the male, in plastering up the female with her eggs, and feeding her during the whole time of incubation, and till the young one is fledged, is common to several species of hornbills, and is one of those strange facts in natural history which are ‘stranger than fiction.’

Male Red-knobbed Hornbill feeding family in tree hollow

My last objective before leaving the area was to determine on which beach exactly Wallace had spent his time collecting Maleos. The map provided in the Malay Archipelago suggests that it was Batu Putih. However, the beach now known as Batu Putih does not accurately correlate with Wallace’s description.
 

The place is situated in the large bay between the islands of Lembeh and Bangka , and consists of a steep beach more than a mile in length, of deep loose and coarse black volcanic sand or rather gravel, very fatiguing to walk over. It is bounded at each extremity by a small river, with hilly ground beyond; while the forest behind the beach itself is tolerably level and its growth stunted. […] the beaches beyond the small rivers in both directions are of white sand.

Rinondoran Beach, where Wallace spent a week collecting Maleo birds

The map in the Malay Archipelago also depicts a small off-shore island directly out from the beach. These features correspond accurately with Rinondoran or ‘Rondor’ Beach, a steep beach now lined by fishing boats where the mine is constructing a small barge port. It appears an unlikely nesting site for Maleos today, although some village elders claim to remember a time when Maleos did use the beach for nesting.

All photos by Yogi Dwinanto and Richard Geddes