We decide to visit some of the Lesser Sundas (known in Indonesian as Nusa Tenggara), the chain of islands that stretch East of Bali from Lombok to Timor. They include the mythical Komodo, home of the famous Komodo Dragon (Varanus komodoensis), the world's largest monitor lizard. This is a trip I had longed to take since I was a child. The pristine and incredibly rich waters of the islands attract big numbers of divers and snorkelers, and the resulting infrastructure has made the trip much easier in recent years.


We flew from Bali to Labuan Baho, Flores, where we rented a boat (a converted fishing boat, the Sunset Sensation) that in four days took us to the islands of Rinca and Komodo, with several stops in the way for snorkeling and watching spectacles such as the evening departure of tens of thousands large flying foxes from their roosting trees in a small islet to the mainland.

Komodo National Park was established in 1980 to protect the islands in which the dragons occur (Komodo, Rinca and Padar), although it has widened its scope in recent years to include a number of smaller islets and their surrounding waters.

We landed first and spent half a day in the little-known island of Rinca. This is where we saw the dragons best, with at least fifteen found in one morning, some of them truly enormous.

The biggest one we saw, a truly impressive male, was investigating the toilets at the visitor's reception and took a sudden interest in me when I shot my flash. I was urged by the rangers to back off, an advice I followed willingly.

Walks in the island are made accompanied with a ranger, armed with a forked stick that looked somewhat flimsy once we saw our first big lizard. Several options are available, depending on the distance one may want to walk. We opted for the mid-distance itinerary, since the temperatures after 10:30 am were so high that even reptiles retired into shade.
Our walk covered areas of deciduous dry forest and grassland with scattered palm trees. There are some 1,700 dragons in Rinca, sharing the island with Long-tailed Macaques, Wild Boar, Water Buffalos, and Timor Deer, on which they prey when they have the chance.  We saw two Orange-footed Scrubfowl that seemed to share an egg-laying site with a large female dragon, and a Variable Goshawk. Other nice sightings around the mangrove-covered coastline included Stork-billed Kingfisher and Great-billed Heron.

Komodo Island

Komodo is a beautiful island, at least what we had time to see of it. The walking trails that depart from the visitor's centre traverse deciduous forest with lots of undergrowth were very good for birding in the afternoon. The ranger that accompanied us was very helpful, and we had very nice views of a small group of Yellow-crested Cockatoo, and several Green Junglefowl were briefly glimpsed. Black-browed Oriole and Helmeted Friarbird seemed very common, the latter adding a surreal tone with their amazing, crazy call.


A small islet on the way to Komodo

Timor Deer were particularly abundant here, and we saw one with what seemed like a bite wound on its hindquarters. Dragons can rarely overpower an adult deer, but a single bite will often cause septicemia and kill the animal after a few days. We only saw three dragons on Komodo: a very young one on a tree, a skittish female on the beach and a large, lethargic male by the visitor's centre.

Timor Deer

Among the best sightings in Komodo was a group of four Beach Thick-knees.  I had seen a pair of these unusual shorebirds in Bali Barat, very wary and difficult to approach. In this case, a long slow approach from behind the mangroves allowed me to get close enough to photograph them.