Birds in Wondama Bay

I had an exploratory birding trip to Wondama Bay a few months ago. I visited several sites that are suitable for birding including the forest  in the northern region of Wondama peninsula, around Rowi river, Wandamui Hill, and forest along the road to the southern part of Wondiboi forest. 

It was a nice birding trip and I was able to see interesting birds such as Palm Cockatoo, Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, Black-capped Lory, Lowland Peltop, Blyth's Hornbill, Grey Crow, Oriental Dollarbird, Lesser Birds of Paradise, Glossy-mantled Manucode, Spangled Drongo, Black Sunbird, Olive-backed Sunbird, Red Myzomella, Common Paradise Kingfisher, Helmetted Friarbird, Pinon Imperial Pigeon, and White-bellied Sea Eagle, Brahminy Kite, Lesser Frigated Bird. 

I also heard the calls of Yellow-billed Kingfisher, Rufous-bellied Kookaburra, King Bird of Paradise, Red-bellied Pitta, and Hooded Pitta, Pink-spotted Fruit Dove.

Much of the forests in Wondama regency have not been explored. 

Eclectus Parrot

I brought Canon 200D and Tamron 150-600 mm telephoto lens, a good pair of binoculars and a spotting scope. These optical devices greatly enhanced my birding experience. Some people from tourism department and the national park of Cendrawasih bay accompanied me. They enjoyed the birding activity through the spotting scope.

In addition to birding, we also enjoyed swimming and snorkeling where coral reef of Wondama was teeming with abundant marine life. I used Nikon 130 to take pictures of the fish, the sea star and the coastal environment. 

Red-bellied Pitta

Most of the indigenous people in Wondama live as farmers, and fishermen. Their staple food is sago. Sago flour is extracted from the pith of sago palm tree. It is interesting to see how sago flour is made. There are a lot of villages in Wondama where we can see local people make sago.

 In town, they work as government employee, construction workers, teachers, ojek (motorcycle taxi) drivers, and etc. 

The trip to Wondama was great and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves birdwatching, hiking, snorkeling and sightseeing. Anyone who is a nature lover will find a lot of natural places to explore both at sea, islands, and on mainlands.

Wondama is a regency in West Papua province of Indonesia. To reach it, visitors need to take international flight from their country to Jakarta (the capital of Indonesia) or to Denpasar city of Bali island. The next trip is flying to Manokwari city. Airlines such as Sriwijaya, Batik, or Wings/ Lion Air offer regular flights to Manokwari. We can meet visitors at the airport and organize the trip to Wondama by small turboprop aircraft or by passenger boat. 

In the town of Wondama, there are hotels, homestays, restaurants, shops and markets, hospital, banks and ATMs. 

Flight route to Wondama regency

If you are interested in visiting Wondama to enjoy nature based tourism activities, please, contact me by email to: peace4wp@gmail.com or by whatsapp to: +6281332245180.

A British Family Took A Rainforest Tour in Sorong

I have just organised a rainforest tour for a British family in Sorong regency of Indonesia. During the tour, they did hiking to the lek of Lesser Birds of Paradise (Paradisaea minor) which they watch for around 2 hours. They were able to see Blyth's Hornbill (Rhytoceros plicatus), Pinon Imperial Pigeon, Eclectus Parrot (Eclectus roratus), Sulphur-crested Cockatoo (Cacatua galerita), Red-cheeked Parrot and a lot more. The villagers conducted night walk for them to find wallaby and cuscus possum.

European Visitors were taking rainforest tour in
Sorong regency

The tour in the forest of Klasow valley lasted for 3 days/ 2 nights. They enjoyed the tour because they could see tropical birds, butterflies of West Papua directly in their own natural habitat. After taking the tour in the forest of Sorong, they continued their trip to Raja Ampat.

If you are interested in taking a rainforest tour in Klasow valley of Sorong regency, Indonesia and want me to organize your trip, please, contact me (Charles Roring) by email to: peace4wp@gmail.com or by whatsapp to: +6281332245180.

Also read:

• Rainforest Flowers
• Rainforest Tour in Manokwari

Red Bird of Paradise Art

Red Bird of Paradise is a beautiful avifauna. I have seen the bird a lot of times when I go to Waigeo island to guide tourists on birding and snorkeling tour to Raja Ampat regency. Because I like art, I have created some drawings using ordinary watercolor pencils and digitally using vector software like inkscape and bitmap one like Autodesk Sketchbook. The artworks can now be purchased in the form of such products as t-shirts, mugs, pencil skirt, acrylic block, framed art print, postcard, totebags and etc. To buy them, visitors of this blog can visit my redbubble online shop: Nature Art. Or you could select the picture that you are interested to see more products that are available for you.

Red Bird of Paradise is not the only bird which visitors can watch in Raja Ampat. There are a lot of other birds too such as Wilson's Bird of Paradise, Palm Cockatoo, Eclectus Parrot, Red-cheeked Parrot, Great-billed Parrot, Coconut Lorikeet, Pied Imperial Pigeon, Pinon Imperial Pigeon, Lowland Peltop, and a lot more.

Raja Ampat is a great destination not only for birdwatching and wildlife watching in tropical forest but also for snorkeling, freediving and scuba diving. Pristine coral reef sites in Raja Ampat are the natural habitat of various kinds of marine creatures from colorful Striped-surgeonfish to Blue Sea Star and tiny but beautiful Christmas Tree Worm. This is written by Charles Roring.

Watching Red Bird of Paradise in Waigeo Island

There are several places in Waigeo island where visitors can go to enjoy birding. The usual place which tourists go is Saporkren. I personally go further to the south to entrance area of Kabui Bay. There is a guesthouse at the beach where I and my clients stay. Early in the morning, we wake up to have some preparations and tlhave some tea or coffee. After that we will start hiking up the steep slopes to the lek of Red Bird of Paradise. 

Red Birds of Paradise

Birds start to get active at around 06.00. The male land on the top branches of a tree where they usually gather and begin calling his mating partners. Other male birds also come and call their female birds. When the female Red Bird of Paradise have shown up, the male birds will compete one another to perform  their courtship dance. The one that wins the dance competition will mate with the female bird. 

Two male Red Birds of Paradise were performing courtship dance

In general the dance performance lasts from 06.00 to 09.00. Visitor need to bring binoculars to watch them well. Camera with telephoto lens will also be good for shooting the paradise birds. Canon SX70HS, Nikon P900 and P1000 are the ones that birdwatchers bring. Wildlife photographers bring D-SLR camera with telephoto lens to shoot birds and other wildlife in the jungle. 

Because I like art, I created several drawings of birds of paradise both manually using watercolour pencils and digitally using stylus and cell phone. Here are some of them:

• A Couple of Red Bird of Paradise
• Male Red Bird of Paradise

I hope that you are interested in buying some of them. When the Covid-19 Pandemic has been mitigated, visitors can travel to Raja Ampat again to watch its birds of paradise and see its beautiful nature. by Charles Roring 🙏

Red Bird of Paradise Art Drawing

I have created some art drawing of Red Bird hiof Paradise. Most of them are digital illustration but there is one that I created manually using ordinary media watercolour pencils on paper. Here is one of the artworks:

Red Bird of Paradise - watercolour sketch

The above art is now available in my Redbubble Online Shop

Red Bird of Paradise lives in tropical forest of Raja Ampat islands. Physically they look similar to Lesser Birds of Paradise from mainland New Guinea. Because of thousands of years of separation, the speciation of the birds led to the creation of new bird species called the Red Bird of Paradise.

Red Bird of Paradise

I also made digital illustration of Red Bird of Paradise (Paradisaea rubra) using Autodesk Sketchbook. It can also be seen in my zazzle tropical artshop and can be ordered at this link: Red Bird of Paradise Art.

Also read:

• Red Bird of Paradise
• Watching Red Bird of Paradise