Gidday Everyone
I have just returned from a trip
to PNG which started off at Bensbach Wildlife Lodge with a group of mates
who head there every year to fish for huge Barramundi, I managed to
photograph Spangled Kookaburra which is virtually endemic to that region as
well as distant shots of Glossy-mantled Manucode also Rufous-bellied
Kookaburra and White-winged Fairywren but alas even though we tried for half
a day we had no luck with the Fly River Grassbird but found a Masked Owl Ssp
calabyii in a tree on the river. From there we Flew up to Lake Murray which
is the biggest freshwater lake that I have ever seen and Trans New Guinea
Tours are building a new lodge here and from what I saw of the area should
make a great birding spot. We dropped a couple of blokes off who were going
to search the lake for Black Bass one of the hardest fish to catch on rod &
reel. From there we went to Tari and spent the night at Ambua Lodge and with
the help of Joesph Tano I was able to photograph Short-tailed Paradigalla
and Female BOP before flying into Mt Hagen and up to Rondon Ridge where I
spent 8 days trying to photograph BOP and others. Some of the trails are
extremely tough as I can attest to by the couple of times I sat down on my
backside unintentionally and muddy hiking boots wet socks and shortness of
breath for the 3 times that I went up onto the top of the ridge. But the
birding was extremely rewarding seeing Orange-crowned Fairywren, Black
Sicklebill, King-Bird-Of-Saxony, Wattled Ploughbill, Lesser Ground Robin and
Brown Sicklebill. There were a couple of fruiting trees not far from the
lodge and it was here that I obtained reasonable photographs of Superb BOP
and Princess Stephanie's Astrapia. This has been my second serious sojourn
to PNG to try and photograph the birds that live there and it is one of the
most difficult yet rewarding places that I have been and as long as I can
put one foot in front of another I will continue to go back and chase some
of those elusive birds. Here is my usual link to a couple of BOP's that I
have shot as well as a couple of photos of Spotted Whistling Duck on the
Bensbach River
http://barraimaging.com.au/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=lastup
Kindest Regards
Geoff Jones
Website www.barraimaging.com.au
Slideshows http://barraimaging.smugmug.com/
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