Indonesia Update 6: Arfak Mountains
After a slight delay caused by a broken engine on his ship, Ethan finally arrived on the word’s second largest island where his first stop was the Arfak Mountains. Even in the best of times, the Arfak Mountains can be a challenging place to bird but Ethan’s time their seemed especially cursed by uncooperative birds, influenza, endless logistical difficulties, and unseasonable rains which claimed at least part of nearly every day. All of this resulted in a lower bird total than he would have hoped to start out his time in West Papua but here are some of the ones he did get.
Even the buah merah feeders where a bit difficult given the extremely low light levels but Ethan managed to photograph the Magnificent Riflebird and the Long-Tailed Paradigalla which, disappointingly, does not have a particularly ling tail.
Ethan saw a lot of rather dull birds which made these two yellow gems stand out. The Black-Breasted Boatbill, a member of a new family for Ethan, and the Goldenface, which is apparently a very cool Acanthizid.
The Olive-Crowned Flowerpecker is fairly boring but Ethan needed all the birds he could get.
Here is an Ornate Melidectes, certainly one of the better named Honeyeaters.
Here are a couple fairly interesting and locally abundant Papuan endemics that proved difficult to photograph. On the left is the most toxic species of bird, the Hooded Pitoui, that contains contains high enough levels of a neurotoxin also found in many Poison Dart Frogs to apparently sicken the ornithologists handling its skins. On the right is the Papuan Mountain-Pigeon which is a new Pigeon genus for Ethan. Exciting!
Ethan doubled his Owlet-Nightjars with the Feline Owlet-Nightjar, which he’ll usually tell you is his favorite bird, and the Mountain Owlet-Nightjar which he thinks is pretty neat as well.
Despite his best efforts, Ethan did not get to see the male Black Sicklebill doing his famous dance so he had to settle for some females skulking around the feeders.
Here is the Friendly Fantail, which indeed was the only Fantail friendly enough to let Ethan get a decent photo, and a Mid-Mountain Berrypecker, another new family.
Two good but not great birds that Ethan picked up where the Papuan Treecreeper and the rarest of the three local White-Eyes, the New Guinea White-Eye.
Ethan finally caught the Pygmy Eagle, which had evaded him on Halmehara, after spotting it from a car on the way down from the mountains.
Ethan got both of these new Cuckoos in the same tree. The White-Eared Bronze-Cuckoo was the one he was looking for but it was also nice to pick up a Pacific Koel which he had missed in Australia. There was also a Mountain Honeyeater in the tree as well making it the first tree with three lifers that Ethan can recall.
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays this Vogelkop Bowerbird from the swift completion of his appointed rounds of visiting all the crap he’s collected. Well, the snow would probably kill him but he did come out it the rain which, combined with the thick tree cover, made him very difficult to photograph although Ethan thinks he managed to capture the sadness in his eyes as he contemplates the profound emptiness of his materialistic existence.
Ethan didn’t have great luck with the Australasian Robins this time but at least he managed to get a couple like this Blue-Gray Robin and Green-Backed Robin.
Here are two guys that Ethan was not expecting to run into. On the left is the Olive Straightbill which is apparently some kind of mutant Honeyeater. On the right is the Spectacled Longbill which despite resembling a Honeyeater or Sunbird is actually closely related to the Berrypeckers. Wiggity-Wack!
It’s just as sweet little Red-Breasted Pygmy-Parrot guy crawling around in search of lichens and fungi to eat.
One Bird-Of-Paradise Ethan did get to see doing his dance was the Western Parotia. It was pretty cool but each time it was done doing a little routine it would fly directly at Ethan and over his head which scared him a little bit.
Having salvaged all the birds he could from his ordeal in the in the Arfaks, Ethan will now set off across Cenderawasih Bay to his most remote destination yet, the Cenderawasih-less island of Biak.