Arfak Mountains: West Papua

Arfak Mountains.

On 11th September we drove up into the Arfak Mountains from Manokwari. Birding the roadside en route before getting to our destination for the next few days the small village of Siyoubri, nestled deep in virgin territory. 

The road to the village.

This is very much a Christian community.

Seth, our local guide with a butterfly collector.

Green backed Robin.

Blue Grey Robin

Magnificent Bird of Paradise.

Displaying

Singing! 
The inside of the mouth is just amazing!

The other side of the bird!
Amazing!

Me at the higher camp.

It was very wet up here & birding was tough.

Our local guides, which added so much

 to our birding experience here.

 Mountain Owlet-Nightjar

Amazing birds!

We spent two night here & a further two nights at a camp much higher up the mountain.

Dawn high up in the Arfak Mountains.

Black Sicklebill.

The amazing bower of the Vogelkop Bowerbird!

Vogelkop Bowerbird

 Feline Owlet-Nightjar

Waigeo Island: West Papua

I caught a taxi to the airport & met up with the rest of the group. We had an overnight flight from Jakarta to Sorong on the Vogelkop Peninsula arriving early morning on 7th September. We had a few hours birding along a newly opened forest road just outside the town. It was hot & humid & quite hard work, but welcome to birding on West Papua!

Logging is a way of life here.

Notice the sweat towel!

Blyth's Hornbill

 Long-tailed Honey Buzzard

Golden Monarch

Frilled Monarch

Lowland Peltops.

We then hot footed it back to town & caught the fast ferry to Waigeo Island. This was not a great experience! 

Ferry to Waigeo Island.

 Papuan Boobook.

The next three days were basically the same format: up at 4 am & into the bird hides or birding along a narrow forest road. Birding was quite slow & tough but everything we did see was usually a new bird!

Birding is tough here, very closed dense forest.

The endemic Red Bird of Paradise.
Very hard to photograph as it displays
 high in the canopy.

One of our local guides at the Wilson's BOP lek.

Immature male Wilson's Bird of Paradise.

I spent four hours in the hide, but only this
 immature male came to play!

 It was an interesting morning though!

 The next day I tried a different hide & it worked!

The male came down & put on a great display.

 The only problem was the very low light 
inside the forest!

It was always busy, picking at leaves &
 removing them from the display arena.

Me, birding along the forest road.

Dwarf Koel

 Bizarre bird!

Red cheeked Parrot

One of the highlights of the entire trip.

 Western Crowned Pigeon.

 Hard to spot!

Caught the ferry back to Serong on 10th September where we spent the night before flying to Manokwari early on the 11th.