June 30th - Day 4: Yasukom area

We should have had a 5am breakfast but there was no sign of life in the kitchen. It turned out last night’s celebrations had continued late and somehow the message didn’t get through. So while Leio knocked on doors and made phone calls we went mothing instead. Eventually staff were woken and breakfast was had and we could go birding, well after ticking the Great Woodswallow hawking over the hotel car park.

Yasukom Resort

We visited a brand new birding location that Max had scouted out. It was slow going at first in the forest but we managed to tease some new birds out: Belford’s Melidectes and Sooty Thicket Fantail for starters. At a clearing we could see a distant black blob that was a displaying BoP. Through the scope we could make out the pale blue eye of a Lawe’s Parotia. 

Yasukom area

Here on the forest edge there were more birds around with several Common Smoky Honeyeaters along with a Brown-backed Whistler that showed more than a passing resemblance to a Lesser Whitethroat, some fly-over Yellow-billed Lorikeets and a Long-tailed Shrike. Suddenly someone called Superb BoP and we turned to the same tree the parotia had been in and there was a different displaying BoP, what used to be one species but now split into four, this one being Greater Lophorina. It displayed on and off for half-an-hour,  with great scope views of the wide metallic green breast patch.

We carried on along the trails adding several flocks of Papuan Sitellas, a family of Nuthatch like birds and better views of feeding Yellow-billed Lorikeets with at least one Orange-billed amongst them. Turning a corner I saw a Brown Sicklebill fly over and land and my call meant most of the group got onto it before it quickly moved on. 

I’d earlier missed a Princess Stephanie’s Astrapia fly over (good job I didn’t need to call that out as it’s a bit of a mouthful) which meant we’d seen four BoPs in this patch of forest, clearly a very good site and one that groups are likely to visit in future.

Lookout where we lunched

View towards lake

We stopped for lunch at a lookout with a large lake in the distance and our hotel on the other side. Lunch was brought up by porters and we relaxed for a while. As we rested a pair of Black Kites were hunting in tandem over some fields and a pair of Brown Falcons were seen in the distance. 

Fully rested, we walked back down the road and tried a few other spots but it was still quite hot and bird activity was low. Later in the afternoon we saw a Yellow-browed Melidectes. As we drove back I saw a bird fly up into a tree and start calling, as we stopped I recognised it as Mountain Kingfisher but it fly off as we piled out of the vehicle. We spent a little while trying to relocate it but failed, however we did see several Brush Cuckoos.