Day 5 – 10th March
Another early one, and once again we were walking through the village at about 6:30am, but this time to the eastern end of the airstrip. Here, a large swathe of mangroves has been cleared (to give arriving aircraft space for a lower approach before landing) and has resulted in a swampy clearing. As well as some waders in the swamp, this is also a good location for watching birds flying across the island. Soon the sun came up – there were very few clouds about – and it began to get warm quite quickly. I was happy because I could get some decent photos with the sun out. We spent a couple of hours here, and saw quite a number of species; the usuals we had seen yesterday plus
Radjah Shelducks,
Black Butcherbird,
Dollarbird,
Striated Herons,
Sharp-tailed Sandpiper,
Pacific Golden Plover and
Lesser Sand Plover. There was a large group of
Eurasian Tree Sparrows feeding on the edge of the runway, with about three female
House Sparrows amongst the flock, and we could see further down along the airstrip there was probably 30
Masked Lapwings and quite a few
Pied Herons on grassy borders of the runway. I wandered around a little into the swampy areas and found two more lifers –
Red-headed Honeyeater (a female) and a pair of
Rufous-banded Honeyeaters. There were quite a few swifts and swiftlets in the skies above, but I have a lot of trouble seeing them, however everyone else happily watched them, hoping to see a rare Papuan Spinetail.
Radjah Shelducks
Striated Heron
Sharp-tailed Sandpiper
Pacific Golden Plover
Eurasian Tree Sparrow
Female House Sparrow
Female Red-headed Honeyeater
Rufous-banded Honeyeater
Bar-shouldered Dove
Torresian Imperial Pigeons
Spangled Drongo
Birders on Boigu
After a couple of hours Rob left to join Jenny at the Stephan’s site (as we were calling the spot in the mangroves where the Emerald Dove had been seen), and not long afterwards I decided to head back to the clearing we visited yesterday morning beyond the rubbish dump, to photograph some of those birds in the sun (and with a pretty blue sky as the background). As I passed Tom, who was peering into some bushes, he turned to me and said “I’ve just seen a White-eye”. As the Pale White-eye (aka Ashy-bellied White-eye) is known from several of the islands I suggested it was probably that species and I continued on.
Walking through town I managed to get a few good pictures of the
White-breasted Woodswallows perched in trees or on power lines, and one of a
Singing Starling (another PNG 'endemic' however there is a small resident population on Boigu). The woodswallows are all clustered in town on rooftops and powerlines at dawn (we probably saw about 50 of them), but soon after disperse and finding one in town when the sun is up was lucky.
White-breasted Woodswallow
Singing Starling
At the site we were at yesterday I sat down for half-an-hour and saw absolutely nothing. But walking back past the tip I saw the usual birds (
Pied Herons,
Marsh Sandpiper,
Willie Wagtail,
Olive-backed Sunbird,
Tree Sparrows etc.), but also a couple of
Whistling Kites, one being harassed by a pair of
Torresian Crows.
Olive-backed Sunbird
Torresian Crow harassing Whistling Kite
Whistling Kite
By the time I walked back through town the sun was quite fierce and I was beginning to feel the heat. I walked into the cool of the mangroves where I thought the other birders were, and found they had moved around the levee to another site. If they found any birds, they might be flushed towards me so sat on a log and stayed put. This made the mosquitos very happy, as they were enjoying finding parts of me that I missed with the DEET – like inside my ear, the corner of my eye, or my scalp. I found a couple that had force their way through my hair and were biting me directly on the top of my head. Several brave mozzies even bit me through my shirt; they will perish soon, as I had soaked all my clothes in Permethrin a week before I left. But even so, the numbers of the little buggers were still so bad I had to take out a mosquito net for my hat and head to keep them away from my face.
After 20 minutes or so all I had glimpsed was
Shining Flycatcher and a
Tawny-breasted Honeyeater, and as it was almost time to meet the boat, I walked to the Supermarket and bought an ice-cream and a drink with the rest of the group. Then, as the sun disappeared behind grey clouds that eventually covered the skies, we all headed back to the
Eclipse for lunch.
On the eastern side of Boigu is a wide channel, about 100 metres wide that flows from the north side of the island through to the south side. We took the
Eclipse towards this river and then headed out in the tenders again, on our way to the south side looking for more birds. I spotted another
Mangrove Monitor on a tree branch and again we got photos before he ran off, but it was Emerald Monitors I was more keen to find. As the name suggests they are a brilliant green, with some black barring on the back. Unfortunately, I was unsuccessful.
Mangrove Monitor
As we reached the southern opening of the river a fruit dove was sighted flying across the river. By the time we had got our cameras or binoculars on it, it had flown into some vegetation and vanished. We spent a few minutes scrutinising the trees but could not find it. A few PNG fruit doves have occasionally been spotted here, like the Orange-fronted Fruit Dove, but they are very rare hence the excitement.
On the south side of the island, amongst the mangroves, we found a sandy beach and all put ashore. Beyond the beach the sand was high and had a thin covering of grasses and low shrubs, bordered by mangroves as the ground got lower, so we birded this area for about half an hour but only got a few
Bar-shouldered Doves and a couple of
Orange-footed Scrubfowl.
Bar-shouldered Dove
On our way back to the boats we walked along the beach amongst the mangroves, looking at crab tracks and the crab holes in the sand. Bob was following a thin wavy line in the sand that he thought might be a monitor, and as I watched him he walked face first into a horizontal mangrove branch. I thought he could see it coming but apparently the brim of his hat had it obscured until the last second when it slipped under the brim to hit him in the face. I’ve seen people do similar things while on their phones, but never following a monitor track! Bob felt a bit silly at the time but a few more metres along and the track in the sand ended at the base of a dead branch that was leaning at a 45 degree angle against another tree in the water. And on top of this dead branch was a
Mangrove Monitor, so Bob’s tracking paid off. I didn’t get any photos of this one because, seeing it’s only real avenue of escape cut off by three birders armed with cameras, it jumped off the branch into the muddy waters below and disappeared.
A few minutes later I heard Bob behind me say to his wife Karyl “Look Honey, I found you a shell”. Thinking it was one of the mud snail shells that are common in the mangroves – I already had one myself – I threw a brief glance back to see the shell and was shocked to see him holding an almost fully intact Nautilus shell.
“Where did you find that?” I demanded from Bob.
“Just here in the mangroves” he said, “Why?”
“You bastard! I’ve been looking for one for the last 50-odd years and never found one!”. (I should point out this was mock anger/frustration on my part, although I have wanted a Nautilus shell for a long time.)
“Oh, this is the third I’ve found for Karyl” Bob said, winding me up to see if smoke would come from my ears. I was getting ready to direct some choice adjectives at him when Karyl took all the hot air out of my sails and offered the shell to me.
Completely deflated, and worried Karyl didn't realise I was joking and actually thought I was upset (my sense of humour sometimes goes a little too far), I thanked her sincerely, and told her that I was determined to find one myself. However, I suspect there is little chance of this happening any time soon, if ever.
A
Torresian Crow landed in a palm back at the beach and vocalised for us, probably telling us to "Bugger Off" which is exactly what we were about to do. In the tenders on the way back to the
Eclipse we were all scouring the vegetation for birds, no sound except for the gentle putt-putt of the motors, when Sam, who was piloting our tender, quietly said “Rain ahead”.
Torresian Crow
I looked down the river ahead of the boat, expecting to see dark clouds and rain near the PNG coast, but saw nothing. Then I noticed the surface of the river three hundred metres in front of us was all rippled from raindrops that we couldn’t see falling, but the impact on the water indicated there was a lot of rain there. Then, as one, everybody was suddenly galvanised into action, frantically opening their drybags and putting their cameras and binoculars inside, and grabbing their wet weather gear. Prior to leaving Sydney I had purchased a drybag backpack which was also waterproof and could survive a short dunking in the ocean (recommended by Richard for all participants on the tour). My rain jacket was right at the bottom of the bag, and by the time I got it out the rain was already on top of us. Then I had to undo the velcro and unzip it, put it on and zip it back up, but by this time I was soaked through. We were all wearing thin shirts and pants and it didn’t take much for our clothes to get sodden.
The rainstorm only lasted a few minutes and was almost over by the time we reached the
Eclipse, but we were all soaked. And after hanging up our clothes to dry we all either had showers, had a lie down, or uploaded photos to our laptops. While looking at my bad, blurry photos of the snake we had seen in the water the previous day, I came to the conclusion it wasn’t a snake at all but more likely an eel. Richard had a look at his photos of it and agreed.
The White-eye that Tom had seen earlier in the day might have been a Pale White-eye, but Richard thinks there’s a possibility it might be a Papuan White-eye, which would be a first for Australia, so the plan for tomorrow was to go back to that site to see if we could find it and confirm its identity.
Tomorrow: Boigu Island in the morning and then on to Saibai Island in the afternoon.
Hix
