Hello fellow birders,
Herewith Part 2 of a summary of a recent recce to New Ireland, Papua New
Guinea.
Happy Birding,
Phil Gregory
Adventures in New Ireland Part 2
Friday saw us fly back to Kavieng on New Ireland, and go straight to the cops
for a police report. Naturally we quickly learned that Mussau Islanders cause a
lot of the trouble around Kavieng, nice to be warned after the event! Both
Airlink and Air Niugini were amazingly helpful, and we got replacement tickets
once we had completed a statutory declaration. The gear was another matter, and
we had to leave it with the local negotiators to try and salvage something from
the mess.
Saturday May 29 saw us head over to Djaul Island, off southern New Ireland,
with a shared binocular agreement in place, just as well we picked up a
Heinroth's Shearwater on the crossing. This reminded me of a small sooty brown
Sooty Shearwater, with a whitish underwing, about Audubon's Shearwater size.
Djaul has an endemic monarch (Monarcha ateralba), which proved tough to find in
the cut-over regrowth and which was giving us some anxiety, until I heard the
whistled notes of a monarch and got onto two of them in a large tree by a
creek. It differs from the Bismarck Pied (Black-tailed) Monarch by being larger
and having more white on the mantle and some white on the under tail. It was
only described in the mid-1960's, by a Danish expedition of all things. Given
the speciation patterns of the Pied Monarchs in the area, it seems reasonable
to continue with specific status until more work is done. Good views of 4 Pied
Cuckoo-Dove were also nice, we saw 2 from the boat crossing and 2 on the island
itself, this being a fairly difficult endemic to find.
Sunday Chris Eastwood and I took our lives in our hands and undertook the open
sea crossing to Tench Island, way out in the NW of NI. We were banged about in
a small banana boat for some 4 hours, even losing the sunshade canopy due to
the continued pounding of the large waves, Chris found it hard to sit for some
days afterwards. I was very relieved to see Tench appear on the horizon, it's
presence initially indicated by the numbers of Red-footed Boobies and White
Terns that appeared. One of the islanders here was in the boat that was going
to Emirau last year, only missed the island and ended up off Nauru after 90
days at sea, one man dying, not terribly reassuring to us landlubbers!
We found Tench to be a good seabird station, with a reasonable cover of
woodland, including some large old trees, and a population of about 60 people.
Great Frigatebirds, White Terns, Red-footed Boobies and both Brown and Black
Noddies were breeding, whilst we also saw about 6 White-tailed Tropicbirds and
a single Masked Booby. Land birds were scarce, we saw Island Monarch, Bismarck
Black Myzomela, 10 Atoll Starling, 3 Pacific Imperial Pigeon and some 38
Nicobar Pigeons. These latter left the island in flocks at dusk, heading out to
sea in the direction of New Hanover or Emirau Islands, presumably Tench can't
sustain a resident population. These birds are hunted here, the nestlings being
taken and raised for food. I am embarrassed to report that our boatman even
took 10 of them back to Kavieng with us in basket, where they would be sold.
We spent a comfortable night in a hut, I even had a mattress, then left early
next morning on a lovely calm sea. We had good farewell views of the large
yellow eyed Atoll Starling from the beach, a very restricted range species that
has only a very small population here, about a third of its world range! This
assumes the Nissan Island birds are Atoll Starlings, which given a description
I recently read may not be the case, they sure don't sound like the birds here!
The crossing back was quiet and took just 3 hours, I had hoped for some Tahiti-
type Petrels, hoping to have a crack at identifying Beck's Petrel, but no such
luck, a single Wedge-tail was it. We called into New Hanover and found the
endemic race of Hunstein's Mannikin there very easily, right by the district
office at Taskul, along with Song Parrot. They look quite different to the New
Ireland birds as they are all black, with no grey scaling on the head at all,
and a similar rufous rusty rump and upper tail. This is split by Clements, but
it would seem to only differ by a single character and sounds much the same, so
I am leaving it as a subspecies for the moment. We took a look at the Kavieng
airstrip Hunstein's Mannikins when we got back too, the immatures having dark
heads, whilst Australian Reed Warbler was a surprise bird here.
Tuesday saw us leave at 0500 to head south to a road that goes across the
island. We drove for several hours, stopping at a clearing to look for
mannikins, which proved to be immature Forbes Mannikin, a NI endemic and new
for me. We also found 8 adult Buff-bellied Mannikins, these latter a new
species for New Ireland, previously known only from New Britain and Buka, the
rich colour beneath suggesting they may be the Buka subspecies.
We found a road going up into the hills some 160 km south of Kavieng, and
decided to see where it led, finding Red-chinned Lorikeet and Song Parrot a
short way up, plus Black Imperial Pigeon and lots of Red Myzomelas. This
encouraged us to continue, and getting up to about 900m we found the endemic
Olive-yellow Myzomela or NI Myzomela (M. pulchella) quite common, getting nice
views of adult males and what we take to be females, which have red chins and
throats unlike the descriptions in Coates. The yellowish underparts and olive
upperparts were distinctive, and the birds were smaller than Red Myzomela.
There was no sign of NI Friarbird, which seems to be a low density hill forest
species and is likely to be here, as is the White-naped Lory. Lots of
Red-throated Lorikeets, Finsch's Imperial-Pigeon, 2 Paradise Drongo, Lesser
Shining Flycatcher and some excellent adult Forbes' Mannikin were good
compensation, but it was on the drive back down that we made the most gripping
discovery of the trip.
Looking into a large Albizzia type, I saw a small flycatcher perched high on a
bare limb, and getting Chris to watch it I grabbed for the scope, where I was
able to confirm it was indeed a Microeca. These birds have an interesting
history here, discovered by Brian Finch and John McKean back in 1984 when they
saw a single on New Britain and a pair at Taron in the mountains of southern
New Ireland. Tony Palliser saw it again at Taron in 1988, then I know of no
sightings until David Bishop saw one on New Britain in 1998. Jon Hornbuckle's
group saw a pair near Bialla on New Britain and a single again near Taron in
May of this year.
We had excellent views of our bird, to 30m in good light against a leafy
background via a x 30 scope. Had I still possessed a tape recorder I would have
got the song very nicely too, a rather wiry upward inflected trill, distinct
from other Microeca including Lemon-bellied Flycatcher. Our bird seems to
differ from published descriptions as it was basically brown above and whitish
below, with a faint tinge of pale yellow on chin and throat in some lights. The
bird had a short pale loral stripe extending to just behind the eye, not long
enough to be called a supercilium. The base of the bill feathers were also pale
and the bill itself was dark with a pale base to the lower mandible, the legs
and feet also dark.. The bird was unlike any of the other Microeca, most like a
brown and white Lemon-bellied Flycatcher but not singing or chasing in flight,
being quite inactive much of the time, singing from a perch.
The chances are that this is an undescribed species, the fourth sighting of it
on New Ireland, though most previous views have been of distant individuals. We
propose it be known as Bismarck Flycatcher and should perhaps be named after
the late John McKean, co-discoverer of the species, once photos or trapped data
are obtained. It would be good to know whether New Britain birds are the same
as published descriptions seem rather different and the species is clearly a
hill forest bird here, all records being from above 800m.......
A quick postscript to the above: Jon Hornbuckle's group found White-naped Lory
here two days later, at 900m, a large range extension from southern New
Ireland. Once the Friarbird is located, all the NI endemics may now be found
within 3 hours drive of Kavieng, eliminating the need for a lengthy and
strenuous hike up into the mountains at Taron. Good news indeed, I've put off
the Taron trek for years as it's a real tough one!
List of species seen on Mussau and around New Ireland May 24-June 2 '99
Wedge-tailed Shearwater Heinroth's Shearwater Brown Booby Masked
Booby
Red-footed Booby White-tailed Tropicbird Reef
Egret Schrenk's Bittern
Common Tern Crested Tern Brown Noddy
Black Noddy
White Tern Bridled Tern Great
Frigatebird Whimbrel
Turnstone Pacific Golden Plover Common
Sandpiper
Melanesian Scrubfowl Osprey
Brahminy Kite Variable Goshawk White-bellied
Sea-Eagle
Mackinlay's Cuckoo-Dove Black-billed Cuckoo-Dove Brown
Cuckoo-Dove Pied Cuckoo-Dove
Red-knobbed Fruit-Dove Yellow-bibbed Fruit-Dove Nicobar Pigeon
Grey Imperial Pigeon
Red-knobbed Imperial-Pigeon Finsch's Imperial -Pigeon Pacific
Imperial-Pigeon Black Imperial-Pigeon
Bronze Ground-Dove Stephan's Ground-Dove Eastern
Black-capped Lory
Red-chinned Lorikeet Red-flanked Lorikeet Rainbow
Lorikeet Meek's Pygmy-Parrot Song Parrot
Eclectus Parrot Collared Kingfisher Beach Kingfisher Common
Kingfisher Variable Kingfisher (Heard) White-rumped Swiftlet
Glossy Swiftlet
Moustached Tree-swift Buff-banded Rail Pacific Swallow
Rainbow Bee-eater
Brush Cuckoo White-necked Coucal Violaceous
Coucal (Heard)
Cicadabird Varied Triller Mussau Triller
Yellow-bellied Sunbird
Black Sunbird Island Leaf Warbler Black-headed
White-eye
Australian Reed Warbler Golden-headed Cisticola Island Monarch
Djaul Pied Monarch Mussau Pied Monarch Black-tailed
(Bismarck Pied) Monarch
Golden Monarch
Paradise Drongo Scaly Thrush Bismarck Black Myzomela
New Ireland Myzomela Red Myzomela Willie Wagtail
Northern Fantail
Mussau Fantail Shining Flycatcher Lesser Shining
Flycatcher
Bismarck Flycatcher Microeca sp. nov. Bismarck
Flowerpecker
White-backed Wood-swallow Golden Whistler Hunstein's Mannikin
(New Hanover Mannikin) Forbes' Mannikin Buff-bellied
Mannikin Blue-faced Finch
Metallic Starling Singing Starling Atoll
Starling
Long-tailed Myna Island (Bismarck) Crow
Potential or likely splits from this list could include: Collared Kingfisher
from Mussau, Island Leaf Warbler from New Ireland, Cicadabirds from both Mussau
and NI, Scaly Thrush from Mussau, Mussau Triller, New Hanover Mannikin and the
long overdue Island (Bismarck perhaps a better name?) Crow, which so many
observers have indicated as not being Torresian Crow due to call, flight and
shape differences.
I have split Variable Goshawk (Accipiter hiogaster), Australian Reed Warbler
(Acrocephalus australis) and at last the Long-tailed Myna (Mino kreffti)
following recently published opinions.
This trip will be written up in various formats for publication. Comments
direct to me are welcome, the aim is to draw attention to these little known
species and encourage others to get out there to see what they can find.
My thanks to the staff of both the British and Australian High Commissions in
Port Moresby, who issued new passport and visa without major hassles within the
space of a morning each. My thanks also to the many Mussau Islanders who
assisted us in our predicament, to Noah of the New Ireland Tourist Board who
went well out his way to assist us all, and to John the manager at the Malagan
Lodge Hotel for his help.
Phil Gregory
sicklebill.vcf
Description: Card for Phil Gregory
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