In the previous Blog Post, I covered the Cetaceans we had seen on the boat crossing between Babar and Damar. While the Cetaceans had been good throughout the day, the Seabirds had been disappointing. There had been around hundred Frigatebirds, at least some of which were Lesser Frigatebirds: but generally I didn't bother to try to figure out their identification, as they weren't close. There were at least thirty Red-footed Boobies, sixty Brown Boobies, plus a few Common Noddies and a couple of White-winged Black Terns. As we got closer to Damar, we had the unexpected sight of a distant Royal Spoonbill high over a forested island. But I didn't see any Shearwaters, Petrels or Storm-petrels.
Just before 09:00, I nipped down to top up my travelling coffee cup and had a natter to Steve who was on the lower deck. While we were talking, a medium-sized Seabird flew past fairly close to the Lady Denok. I said Tern & raised the bins. There was probably an expletive before I immediately changed it to Sabine's Gull. I was wondering how many records there were in Indonesian waters as I raced for the steps to the upper deck. I got on there to find the others were already on it. While they had probably found it before me, under the Punkbirder Self-found rules, as I had found and identified it independently of them & with no prior knowledge of its presence, then it countable as a Self-found record. It stayed around for about ten minutes, but moved away for some of that time. After a while, we noticed, that Wilbur had disappeared, but fortunately, he reappeared as we were about to go looking for him. At this point, it flew around for a final pass, before disappeared. Bird Tour Asia have now confirmed this was the second Indonesian & third South East Asian record. All the Australian-based Birders were very happy with this record, whereas, I would have gladly swapped it for the Abbot's Booby that was seen on the James's Banda Sea Cruise.
For me, the sighting of the day was not the Sabine's Gull, but the Longman's or Immature Cuvier's Beaked Whale covered in the previous Blog Post.
Finally, we could see Damar Island. We stopped on the reef & Steve & I had the chance for PADI dives, while the others were snorkelling. A better dive for Fish & Coral, but no more Green Turtles.
After the snorkelling and PADI diving, we headed off to the bay where we would be anchoring overnight. This allowed Raja, our Mr Fix It, to go ashore that evening & ensure we were cleared by the police & we had local guides who were ready for the following morning to escort us. While Raja knew the way, we did need the local guides to ensure ease of access to the path, without upsetting any of the local leaders.
