We awoke for breakfast prior to our first light landing at the Western end of Babar. However, having seen the Southern Boobook on the previous evening, at least we didn't have to get up really early for a couple of hours before dawn Southern Boobook search.
First light in Western Babar
The crew heading back to the Lady Denok: The boat crew all had other jobs on the ship to attend to
A typical coastal scene in Indonesia: Plastic bottles thrown into the sea as they just haven't heard the problems of plastic pollution
Early morning in the village: It didn't have the closely laid houses as many other Indonesian villages
We had to wait for our transport to arrive, which gave us the chance to have a look around some of the gardens as we walked through the village. There were a number of large weedy gardens around the edge of the village, which allowed a few photos in the early morning light.
Uniform Swiftlet: The subspecies that is thought to occur on Babar & Tanimbar is moluccarum
Banda Myzomela: This is the nominate boiei subspecies. We had already seen the annabellae subspecies on Tanimbar
Pacific Swallow: A freshly fledged individual
Pied Bushchat: This is the cognatus subspecies which is endemic to Babar
Tricoloured Parrotfinch: This is a Lesser Sundas endemic which occurs on Timor, Wetar, Babar, Damar, Romang & Tanimbar. I had seen my first Tricoloured Parrotfinches on Tanimbar a few days earlier, but the views were too short to allow photos
The weedy plot where the Tricoloured Parrotfinches were feeding
The rest of the group by the weedy field
Indonesia has some lovely looking local cattle
There seems to be a lot of food around the village for the local pigs
As the transport hadn't arrived yet, we carried on to explore the scrubby forest & coconut plantations on the edge of the village.
Scrubby vegetation and plantations on the edge of the village
Cinnamon-banded Kingfisher: This is the dammerianus subspecies which occurs on Moa, Leti, Babar and Damar. Two other subspecies occur elsewhere in The Lesser Sundas
Arafura Fantail: It sounds like the taxonomy of Arafura Fantails needs more investigation. Clements has grouped the Indonesian and New Guinea subspecies of Arafura Fantails as Supertramp Fantails and puts the nominate Northern Australian Arafura Fantail in a group on its own: but all are within Arafura Fantail. The Birds of the Indonesian Archipelago states that while the nominate Arafura Fantail looks similar to some the Western Indonesian subspecies, these differences become successively different in the closer Supertramp Fantail subspecies. Also, the Supertramp Fantails have more complex songs than the nominate subspecies
Cinnamon-tailed Fantail: This monotypic species is restricted to Babar and the Tanimbar Islands
It was a regular sight to see small groups of graves, often with tiled coverings, around the Banda Sea villages
Cashew Nuts were a regular crop on the Banda Sea islands
I will cover the rest of the morning on Babar in the next Post.
