Lompobattang flycatcher

(info from Peter Collaerts, 2008)

(1) From Makassar to Malino.

(2) From the main road in Malino:

Start from the Celebes Garden Hotel and go in the direction of Makassar. Go left where you see the sign "Air Terjun +/- 4 km". Follow this road as follow. Pass 2 roads that go left and 1 road that goes right. Just after a river you have a fork. Take left (sign "Penan GSI Hindari), do not take right (here arch over the road with "Selamat Dalang". When you took left follow this road for +/- 2 km. First km is paved, last km is a dirt track. After +/- 2 km, you see a very small bridge on your right side, borded by a blue-painted stone on both sides. Go over the bridge and follow until you come to the next fork. Park your car here and walk to the right. The road will become a track. It is +/- 500 meter walking to the start of the trail. The trail is at your left side, just after the track goes over a small river. You will recognize the trail easily because the first part is really steep with loose stones. After the steep part, you will reach a small open gate and here, the good forest will start. We saw 2 Lompobattang Flycatchers, one just before and one just after where the trail goes between 2 large trees. This place is easy to find. At this place, you are at an altitude of +/- 1200 meter. Also Black-ringed White-eye is common here. Along the river in the valley before you walk up the trail, we saw our only Sulawesi Blue Flycatchers of the trip.

Nearly halfway between Makassar and Malino, there is a large, grassy area at the right side of the road. Here we saw 2 Pale-bellied Mynas flying over the road. Unfortunately a search here in the fields did not result in seeing these birds on the ground. It is the biggest open grassy area, not near the river, that you will find between the 2 cities.

For the Lompobattang. I think it is less than half an hour from the place we parked the car and the place with the 2 large trees at the trail. We saw the flycatcher around noon but we walked slowly on the trail for birdwatching. Also we left Malino when there was daylight already. This because we did not know where to search for a good forest patch. Doing this search in daylight was necessary. We where very lucky as the first trail we found, was immediately a good one. We searched at a few places along the trail before we found the flycatcher. First one was before the 2 trees, on the right side of the main trail. There was a kind of small trail going on a slope at the right. We went there for maybe 20 metres and found our first Lompo perched and hunting for insects.

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