11 Nov 22 - Indonesia - Banda Sea Cruise Day 16 - The Morning On Tanahjampea

The morning of our last full day of the Banda Sea Cruise saw us landing on the island of Tanahjampea. Like Kalaotoa Island that we visited the previous day, we had left the Lesser Sundas region of Indonesia & were in the Sulawesi region. This group of islands are separated from the Lesser Sundas by a very deep canyon in the Flores Sea. We saw a good selection of Birds on the island.

Coming into land on Tanahjampea

Black-naped Fruit-dove: This is the melanauchen subspecies which occurs in Java, the Lesser Sundas & the Islands South of Sulawesi. The black nape can be tricky to see without a good view of the back of the head

Kingfisher: This is the hispidoides subspecies which occurs in Sulawesi to Moluccas in Indonesia, New Guinea & the Bismarck Archipelago. This subspecies is grouped with the salomonensis subspecies of the Solomon islands in the Cobalt-eared group of subspecies of Common Kingfisher: the remaining subspecies are grouped together with the nominate subspecies

Collared Kingfisher: This is the nominate chloris subspecies which occurs in Sulawesi, the Lesser Sundas & Moluccas in Indonesia & North West New Guinea

Temminck's Elegant Pitta: Elegant Pitta has now been split into three species: Banda Sea Pitta, Temminck's Elegant Pitta (which IOC call Elegant Pitta) & Wallace's Elegant Pitta (which IOC call Ornate Pitta). This is the virginalis subspecies which occurs on Tanahjampea, Kalaotoa & Kalao Islands. I saw one of its other two subspecies on Sumba in my Indonesian trip in 1991

White-shouldered Triller: This is a monotypic species which occurs on East Java, Bali, parts of Sulawesi & the Lesser Sundas

Black-naped Oriole: This is the boneratensis subspecies which occurs on the Flores Sea islands

Lemon-bellied White-eye: This is the intermedius subspecies which occurs on South Sulawesi & the large Sulawesi islands of Muna & Butung, to Flores & Sumbawa

Lemon-bellied White-eye: I love the way White-eyes are happy to hang in many different directions to look for food

Red-chested Flowerpecker: This is the splendidum subspecies which occurs on Tanahjampea & Salayar Islands in the Flores Sea

Black-faced Munia: This is a monotypic species that occurs in the lowlands of Wallacea, except for the Lesser Sundas

Black-faced Munia: It's not often I manage to photograph a bird's underwing whilst perched

Despite all the of land where we landed having been cultivated, it appeared that the local Birds had adapted to this degraded habitat

Indonesian Beetle sp: This looks like a Weevil

Indonesian Beetle sp: I'm not really sure if this is a Beetle or something different

I will cover the remaining species we saw on Tanahjampea in the next Blog Post.

10 Nov 22 - Indonesia - Banda Sea Cruise Day 15 - An Afternoon On Kalaotoa

Finally, we were close to Kalaotoa Island.

Local houses on the beach

Osprey: These two Ospreys were enjoying this navigation tower

We were now very used to these beach landings

We saw a reasonable number of species in the scrubby bushes & cultivation on the island. However, we also spend too much time unsuccessfully trying to see our first Temminck's Elegant Pitta of the trip in the dense scrub.

Wilbur & some of the dense scrub

Flores Sea Cuckoo Dove: This is the longa subspecies which occurs on the Flores Sea islands of Kalaotoa & Tanahjampea

Flores Sea Cuckoo Dove: There is another subspecies that occurs in South West Sulawesi & some neighbouring islands

Banda Sea Gerygone: This is the senex subspecies which occurs on the Flores Sea islands of Kalaotoa & Madu. This is also known as Rufous-sided Gerygone

Rusty-breasted Golden Whistler: This is the everetti subspecies which occurs on the Flores Sea islands & the Tukangbesi Islands nearer to Sulawesi

Black-naped Oriole: This is the boneratensis subspecies which occurs on the Flores Sea islands

Olive-backed Sunbird: Male. This is the teysmanni subspecies which occurs on the Flores Sea islands of Kalaotoa, Tanahjampea, Kalao, Bonerate & Madu

Olive-backed Sunbird: Female. The Birds of the Indonesian Archipelago has proposed that the Indonesian subspecies should be split from those subspecies that occur in South East Asia, the Philippines, the Bismarck & the Solomon Islands, but this hasn't been adopted by Clements & the IOC

Osprey: One of the Ospreys had a fly around in the late afternoon

There were several Cashew Nut orchards

This looks like the foul-smelling, but supposedly delicious-tasting Durian fruit

We headed back to the Lady Denok just before the light gave out. There were two final Sulawesi islands to visit on the next day.

23 Dec 13 - The Early Birder Catches The Boat

The alarm went off at 04:00 (& this is supposed to be a holiday). Just time for a strong coffee before getting to the hotel door for 04:30. The driver showed up 10 minutes late, but we still caught the 05:00 ferry in the half light of dawn. A few minutes later we were driving through lagoons & mangroves, before entering some decent forest at a site called Jirgatna, on the opposite side of the bay to Port Blair. For the rest of the morning, we were birding along a road with lots of birds & a car every 15 minutes or so. Can't think of many places where forest birding from a road has been so pleasant. By the end of the morning we had seen 2/3rds of endemic Andaman birds.

Vikram showing how high this forest is

Long-tailed Parakeet

Andaman Coucal: For once not in a dense tangle of vegetation

Spot-breasted Pied Woodpecker: As with Great Spotted Woodpeckers, this is sexed based upon the extent of red on the head. This is a male

Spot-breasted Pied Woodpecker: The female has no red on the head

Andaman Cuckoo-shrike: Surprisingly the only one we saw. Good job this bird performed well for the camera. The rusty throat indicates this is a 1st Winter bird

Andaman Cuckoo-shrike: Not a sharp picture, but shows the size of prey it eats. This lizard was dispatched pretty fast

Scarlet Minivet: Male. The females have yellow replacing the orange

Andaman Bulbul: Until fairly recently this was lumped with the widespread Black-headed Bulbul. Perhaps the lack of a black head gave them a clue about splitting it

Black-naped Oriole

Andaman Drongo: This is smaller than the superficially similar looking Black Drongo & is strictly a forest species, whereas the larger Black Drongos prefer open & degraded habitats

Andaman Treepie: They seemed to go around in parties with Andaman Drongos. Perhaps they enjoy watching the Andaman Drongos squabbling like these 2 birds

Andaman Butterfly: Saw similar looking Butterflies on other days so presume it's a fairly common species

 

The Port Blair Bay Ferry: Very like a Scottish ferry on the face of it, but when loading/unloading it's a free for all of motorbikes & people trying to get on & off, with only the cars being organised by the crew

The Port Blair Bay Ferry: The jetty was sharply angled making it more tricky to get the car on

Indian House Crow: Ready to steal away on the next boat to Ireland!!!

House Sparrow: No prizes for identifying this one. This is the indicus subspecies