The day started with me finding a Papuan Frogmouth, whilst my group were having an early morning cup of coffee at 4.30am and which obligingly stayed for everyone to see. Shortly after we were walking up the hill, trying for Papuan Boobook without getting any response, so continued to the Lesser Bird-of-Paradise display lek. We spent the next hour and a half from sunrise marvelling at these extraordinary birds displaying in the canopy overhead. I think someone said they were the cream egg bird, which rather accurately describes them but what an exotic-looking bird!
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| Lesser Bird-of-Paradise |
Their loud call rang through the forest and when you eventually got your bins on one perched high up in the canopy, you could see it puffing its ‘cream egg coloured’ tail out and shaking it, while it splayed its body horizontally and holding its wings out. Wow! Once satisfied with the views we walked a further 15 minutes along a trail to the display site of King Bird-of-Paradise but nothing was happening here. So we walked around to another tree where, sure enough, the male was actively displaying in the canopy and after a little patience we were rewarded with great views of this brilliant red and white bird! In fact, there may have been more than one male as this supersonic vision of brilliant red and white zoomed around the canopy chasing after the females and sometimes it seemed it was everywhere at once. A picnic breakfast followed, during which a Rusty Mouse-Warbler began calling and the battle began! I don’t know how this bird could move around the forest without any of us seeing it, but it was like a ghost. When I first played the call it flew straight in at us, perching for a nanosecond about 3 feet right in front of us and that was it. Over the next maybe 45 minutes we tried various methods, moving position, placing the speaker way off in the forest but none of it did any good. So we eventually gave up and began walking slowly back towards the lodge, seeing barely anything save a Grey Crow. But boy it was hot here today and the forest was incredibly dry which might indicate why we didn’t have much activity. So it was a relief to get back to the lodge for lunch and a rest.
However, William and I decided to walk up the trail and spend a bit of time at the canopy tower – what a good move this was. No sooner had we started out than a Blyth’s Hornbill flew over and a pair of Long-billed Honeyeaters appeared not too far away from us. At the tower we enjoyed the view over the treetops and had a constant stream of birds appearing. We began with the first of several Black-browed Trillers, followed by Mimic Honeyeater, Streak-headed Honeyeater, a flock of Metallic Starlingsfeeding on some berried below us, another Blyth’s Hornbill flying past, Black Butcherbird, Eclectus Parrot, a cracking Sulphur-crested Cockatoo perched nearby, Pale-billed Sicklebill appeared briefly, 3 Salvadori’s Fig-Parrots flying overhead and a Red-cheeked Parrot. But by now it was nearly time to depart for the afternoon session so we walked back to the lodge and saw a group of Crimson Finches and Streak-headed Mannikin that Royke had found in the field behind the lodge.
The afternoon session was pretty productive as we birded an open area in search of Fawn-breasted Bowerbird, which was eventually scoped perched up in a distant tree next to our first Meyer’s Friarbird. We also saw its amazing bower with an ‘entrance path’ of cut grass stems about 15 feet long leading up to the bower! Incredible! In fact, this area was very busy as we also saw a superb Ivory-billed Coucal, White-breasted Cuckooshrike, Orange-bellied Fruit-Dove, a pair of Shining Flycatchers and some other common species.
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| Orange-bellied Fruit Dove |
Leaving here we drove to another patch of forest and walked inside to the river where we searched for Shovel-billed Kingfisher, but only managed to hear one along with a Hook-billed Kingfisher.
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| Marbled Frogmouth |
However, I did manage to call in a fantastic Marbled Frogmouth that sat rather insolently overhead, totally ignoring the spotlight and camera clicks! So not a bad day at all.
