July 1 - Day 5: Yasukom area again

We left the hotel in low cloud cover; it had rained overnight but it soon cleared. We drove a short distance to a new area known as The Ridge and walked along the main track. This was quite a birdy place for a change. 

One of the first birds seen was a Black Sicklebill which flew over and landed high in a tree then stayed there for ten minutes, occasionally calling. This was the only one we saw all trip so it was great to get such good views. At the same time, a Princess Stephanie’s Astrapia flew over, making up for the one I’d missed yesterday; we later saw another five and several more in the afternoon so this is clearly a good location for them. Our first pigeons for several days were a flock of Papuan Mountain that flew over, which they typically do.

Hooded Manakins

New trip birds were regularly added with Black-billed Cuckooshrike, Regent Whistler, Hooded Manakin, Rufous-backed Honeyeater amongst others. We walked up and down the track before taking a trail into the forest. Here we saw a new BoP, an immature male King of Saxony; it was singing but resembled a female in plumage so wasn’t the view we were hoping for.

We returned to the hotel for lunch; it was already laid out and had clearly been sitting there a while as it was stone cold. The staff obviously hadn’t learnt anything from the visiting chef and need to do a lot better if they want to attract groups to stay there. At least Max had finally arrived, having suffered a repeat performance yesterday of flying out and back to Port Moresby without landing due to the cloud cover.

King of Saxony Bird-of-Paradise

After lunch we returned to the same area and had good views of the exquisite Blue-capped Ifrit and four King of Saxony BoPS – the same prince we saw in the morning, a queen and two distant but cracking Kings complete with twin foot long serrated head feathers. With darkening skies we retreated back to the hotel.