In the morning, we returned to forest area we had been Birding along on the previous morning. Initially, we hung around outside the forest edge looking for Pigeons, Parrots & other forest edge species. Finally, we carried along the track into the forest as the light improved: it would have been fairly dark in the forest in the first hour of light.
Tanimbar Cockatoo: It was good to finally see some wild, endemic Tanimbar Cockatoos given I had previous seen a few feral individuals in Singapore. We saw them daily on Tanimbar, but this was the first one that was close enough to photograph
Little Bronze-cuckoo: This is the distinctive crassirostris subspecies knows as Pied Bronze-cuckoo, which occurs on the Tanimbar & Kai Islands. It has been proposed as a potential split from the Little Bronze-cuckoo complex, but so far this proposal hasn't been accepted by Clements and IOC
Collared Kingfisher: This is the nominate chloris subspecies which occurs in Wallacea and NW West Papua. It is a widespread species which occurs from India, through South East Asia, Philippines, Borneo, Indonesia, New Guinea & Micronesia
Dollarbird: This is the connectens subspecies which occurs in Southern Sulawesi, the Tanimbar Islands and the Lesser Sundas. This widespread species occur in the Indian Subcontinent, the Himalayas across to China, Manchuria & Korea, South East Asia, Philippines, Borneo, Indonesia, New Guinea, Bismark Archipelago & Australia
Broad-billed Monarch: This is the fulviventris subspecies which occurs on the Tanimbar Islands. Other subspecies occur in the Lesser Sundas, New Guinea and Northern Australia
Tanimbar Starling: Adult & Juvenile of this endemic Starling
Tanimbar Starling: Juvenile
Scaly-breasted Munia: This is the blasii subspecies which occurs on the Tanimbar Islands and Eastern Lesser Sundas
We spent a fair bit of the morning looking for & finally seeing a Banda Sea Pitta close to the territorial borders of two pairs. Eventually, Wilbur picked up where one was singing from. The views were better than this photo suggests and it proved very difficult to get the camera to autofocus on it, thanks to leaves in the foreground.
Banda Sea Pitta: This recently split species occurs on the Tanimbar, Babar, Damar & Kai Islands and a few other neighbouring Banda Sea islands
We saw a few of this stunning shuttlecock-sized Fungi
Having seen the Banda Sea Pitta which was the main target species for the morning, Wilbur decided we would head back to the airport lake for an hour before we returned to the hotel for lunch.
