Tabubil certainly lived up to its reputation as the rainiest
place in PNG. The group we’d met at Kumul had suffered four days of continuous
rain (and consequently did little birding) and it started raining first thing
and remained so on and off all morning. Despite the weather we still managed to
see birds, the highlight being a female Carola’s Parotia.
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| Driving to OK Menga, note the sign in English and Pidgin |
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| Low cloud and light drizzle is typical weather here |
However we’d managed
to see less than ten species before we decided on an early lunch. It seemed
like there were more birds in town with Great Woodswallows flying around over
the football pitch and a Scrub Honeyeater in the hotel grounds.
The afternoon session was fortunately much drier
and we started with a spectacular Golden Cuckooshrike, which seemed most
aberrant compared to its monochrome cousins.
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| Golden Cuckooshrike |
We saw a male Greater BoP, soaring
Long-tailed Honey Buzzard, a perched Doria’s Hawk, Pygmy Longbill, more Blyth’s
Hornbills, Beautiful Fruit-Dove and a good view of a Pesquet’s Parrot flying
over.
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| Greater Bird-of-Paradise |
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| Blyth's Hornbill |
At dusk we waited for Shovel-billed Kookaburra which finally decided to
respond just as we were climbing into the vehicle. We piled out and heard it
call from a nearby tree and saw it briefly fly between the branches.
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