Papua New Guinea mid-May 10

From Con

Just finished doing my expenses for the trip and paying all the bills.  Ouch, the two week trip to PNG cost me S$6,500.
Because of airline schedules, etc, we had
Four days, four nights in Port Moresby
Five days, five nights in Kumul Lodge near Mt Hagen
Five days, four nights in Madang

PORT MORESBY

In Port Moresby we made three trips to Virirata National Park, one trip to Pacific Adventist University and one city tour.

Virirata National Park is PNG's largest National Park and about an hour drive from Port Moresby.  It's at about 830 meters elevation and so has some hill slope birds, not just lowland birds.  It's at about the same elevation as The Gap at Fraser's Hill.  It was quite easy to see the Raggiana Bird of Paradise there, PNG's National Bird.  There is a lek that the birds use every morning from about 6am to 8am and have been using the same lek for years and years.  But is was quite tough, actually nearly impossible, to get a good photo of the Raggiana.  And the rest of the birding was just your luck as forest birding is everywhere.  The guide we had wasn't particularly good and didn't know where the birds usually hang out.

Pacific Adventist University grounds is near sea level and it's quite easy to see 20+ species of lowland birds, mostly birds that you could see in Northern Australia.  Photography was pretty easy because it's a very open setting with mowed lawns, etc.

KUMUL LODGE

The highlight of the trip was Kumul Lodge.  Kumul means Bird of Paradise in one of the local languages.  Kumul Lodge is located on the high mountain pass on the road going by Mt. Hagen.  The elevation is 2,840 meters at the lodge so you are definitely getting all montane species.  The lodge has a very large bird feeder where they put out papaya, pineapple, apples, bananas, tomatoes, etc; and I counted eight species of birds that came into the feeder or hung around nearby.  While we were there this included two species of Birds of Paradise and one Bowerbird.  But the mix can vary a bit with the weather and season.  So for these species, it was easy to get full frame shots but difficult to exclude bits of pineapple, etc, from the frame.  The feeder was really setup with bird watchers in mind, without proper attention to perches or backgrounds that photographers would want.

Also we made thee half day trips by Land Cruiser to neighboring leks to see other Birds of Paradise.  We picked up five more species of Birds of Paradise on these excursions, but photographically nothing actually worthwhile.   With some exceptional luck you might have gotten a great shot, but it didn't happen for us.  Two of these excursions were wholly unsuitable for large camera gear, the terrain was just too steep.

Mainly in the afternoons we walked around the grounds at the lodge, they did have trails through some pretty good forest and we got one more Bird of Paradise.

MADANG

The lowlight of the trip was definitely Madang.  To get there we had to fly back to Port Moresby and then catch a flight to Madang.  This basically took all day.  The next morning we rented a Land Cruiser for the drive to Keki Lodge which is located about 125km from Madang up in the fills at about 850 meters elevation.  The last 25km of the drive are on dirt road, the first half of which has been graded by road equipment relatively recently.  But the last half has not seen any road equipment for who knows how long, if ever.  The bottom line, we could not reach our destination, but couldn't get any closer than 8km to our end point.  We even had around 15 to 20 local village boys helping to push us up the hill.  But we just couldn't make it.  It turns out no vehicle has been up that road at all for at least six months, and not sure when the last vehicle actually did go up.  So we had to turn around and go back to Madang.  Because we were locked in with prepaid hotel accommodations and airline tickets we were stuck in Madang for the full five days and fours nights and we got zero bird pictures there.

And, to top if off, Jean Rene picked up a nasty bacterial infection in the gut and has spent the last week suffering upon return to Singapore.

Our best photo of the trip was a Pheasant Coucal who perched open and was quite obliging, but obviously we didn't go to PNG to take pictures of coucals so overall the trip was a disappointment, especially with the failed portion in Madang.  In comparison it is tough and difficult in the Philippines, but there at least it is inexpensive.  Attached is my checklist, I only saw 80 species of birds.  Our birder friend from Australia probably saw another 10 species or so.

Normally when I leave a country I keep the remaining foreign currency for the next time I go back.  But PNG is the first country that upon reaching the international departure lounge, I changed all the PNG currency back to Singapore Dollars.  Would I go back?  Perhaps, but not without a lot better trip planning.  The guides we had just weren't very good.  No one in PNG could tell me when breeding season is.  How basic is that?  But I do think it is possible to put together a trip that could yield better results; and Bruce is already planning on going back again next year, but I won't be interested in joining that trip, it would have to be planned differently for photography.

Number	English Name	P/S/H/C
1	Northern Cassowary	P
2	Dwarf Cassowary	P
3	Little Pied Cormorant	P
4	Darter	P
5	Little Black Cormorant	P
6	Intermediate Egret	P
7	Australasian Grebe	P
8	Pacific Black Duck	P
9	Brahminy Kite	P
10	Black Kite	P
11	Purple Swamphen	P
12	Dusky Moorhen	P
13	Comb-crested Jacana	S
14	Masked Lapwing	S
15	Bar-shouldered Dove	P
16	Peaceful Dove	P
17	Victoria Crowned Pigeon	C
18	Brown Cuckoo-Dove	P
19	Orange-bellied Fruit-Dove	S
20	Papuan Lorikeet	S
21	Goldie's Lorikeet	S
22	Rainbow Lorikeet	P
23	Red-cheeked Parrot	P
24	Vulturine Parrot	C
25	Sulphur-crested Cockatoo	S
26	Brehm's Tiger-Parrot	P
27	Brush Cuckoo	H
28	Pheasant Coucal	P
29	Greater Black Coucal	P
30	Common Kingfisher	P
31	Sacred Kingfisher	P
32	Dollarbird	S
33	Blyth's Hornbill	H
34	Barred Owlet-Nightjar	P
35	Large-tailed Nightjar	S,  H
36	Great Wood-swallow	S
37	Pacific Swallow	S
38	Island Thrush	P
39	White-bellied Cuckoo-Shrike	S
40	Green Figbird	P
41	White-shouldered Fairy-wren	P
42	Papuan Scrub-wren	S
43	Large Scrub-wren	P
44	Dimorphic Fantail	P
45	Black Fantail	P
46	Friendly Fantail	P
47	Willie Wagtail	P
48	White-winged Robin	P
49	Black-breasted Boatbill	P
50	Regent Whistler	P
51	Rufous-naped Whistler	P
52	Hooded Pitohui	P
53	Tit Berrypecker	P
54	Fan-tailed Berrypecker	P
55	Green-backed Honeyeater	P
56	Grey-streaked Honeyeater	P
57	Varied Honeyeater	P
58	Common Smoky Honeyeater	P
59	Belford's Honeyeater	P
60	Ornate Honeyeater (Melidectes)	P
61	Mountain Firetail	P
62	Hooded Mannikin	P
63	Grand Mannikin	S
64	Yellow-faced Myna	P
65	Fawn-breasted Bowerbird	P
66	Yellow-breasted Bowerbird	P
67	Crested Bird of Paradise	P
68	Lesser Bird of Paradise	P
69	Raggiana Bird of Paradise	P
70	Blue Bird of Paradise	P
71	Brown Sicklebill	P
72	Ribbon-tailed Astrapia	P
73	Stephanie's Astrapia	P
74	Superb Bird of Paradise	P
75	King of Saxony Bird of Paradise	P
76	Papuan Spangled Drongo	P
77	Singing Starling	P
78	Archbold's Bowerbird	P
79	Torrent-lark	P
80	Magpie-lark	S
81	Black-backed Butcherbird	P
82	Torresian Crow	P

P: Photographed. S: Seen. H: Heard. C: Captive.