The Disappearing Gong-gong Bird

Since 1991, when I first began walking in the forests around the foothills of Gn Gede and Pangrango, I have become accustomed to the call of the gong-gong bird, the puyuh gonggong. The haunting double-hoot of this ground-bird can be heard over long distances. I have never seen this bird, and have recently begun to hear it less and less often. On Sunday 30 November, the reason for its gradual disappearance became clear, as I was walking with Robert Baldwin of Pancawati down the well-forested ridgeline of Pr Kramat, near to the village of Pancawati in sector B.

We were puzzled to see many holes in the ground beside the trail, that looked as if they had been dug recently with a shovel. At one of them, I saw an oddly-shaped inverted "basket" beside the hole. Our guide Pk Empad explained that this was an ingenious trap for the gonggong bird. There were actually two holes, one open and the other below the basket, with a "tunnel" between the holes. When in use, the open hole is to be covered with many leaves, so that a heavy walking bird might fall into the hole and fail to see any light above him. Instead, he would see light at the end of the tunnel, which would lead him to work his way into the second hole and thence up to the basket from which he could no longer escape.

"The gong-gong bird has become rare in the forest, most of them have gone to the city", joked the younger of our two guides. ("Burung gong2 sudah jadi langkah di hutan, kebanyakan di kota".)