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.
