Last night’s awful dinner gave me food poisoning so I
skipped breakfast. We packed up and drove back to the track for more birding.
Despite not feeling great I still managed to see a few new birds: Grey-streaked
Honeyeater, White-shouldered Fairywren, Fan-tailed Cuckoo, Garnet Robin and
Black-throated Boatbill. Mid-morning we left the area and drove to the next
lodge, arriving in time for lunch.
Kumul Lodge was a refreshing change from the last hotel and
is famous for its feeders which attract, amongst others, Birds-of-Paradise. We
dumped our stuff, grabbed our cameras and headed to the upper veranda.
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| Brown Sicklebill |
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| Ribbon-tailed Astrapia |
Within a
few minutes we’d seen two BoPs – Brown Sicklebill and Ribbon-tailed Astrapia.
Other birds came in regularly to feed on the fruit while other birds fed on the
lawn or in surrounding trees, such as Island Thrush, this race looking very
like our familiar Blackbird, along with White-winged Robin and Rufous-naped
Bellbird.
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| Island Thrush |
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| White-winged Robin |
After lunch we took a rather too energetic trail
around the grounds. It obviously hadn’t been walked for a while as a tree had
fallen down and completely blocked the path which meant crashing through the
undergrowth to rejoin it. And for our troubles, almost the only bird we saw was
Papuan Scrubwren. We returned to the feeders until we received news that a pair
of Crested Satinbirds were showing in the grounds so we dashed outside to see
these rare and stunning birds.
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| male Crested Satinbird |
Back at the feeders we also saw Brehm’s Tiger-Parrot
and Eastern Crested Berrypecker.
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| male Brehm's Tiger-Parrot |
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| female Brehm's Tiger-Parrot |
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