The first full day was another good day for seeing the birdlife on Tanimbar. It was initially spent along a roadside in the early morning. After the early morning roadside session, we did try another ex-logging track into a different piece of forest. The whole of the afternoon session was roadside Birding. While we saw a good selection of obvious open country species, many were seen perched up at a distance or in flight. As a result, I ended up taking fewer photographs due to the distances involved.
Crossing a clearing to the morning's forest patch
Some parts of the forest looked reasonable
Another tree lost to the local woodcutters
Tanimbar Monarch: As the name suggests this gorgeous Monarch is another Tanimbar endemic
Slaty-backed Thrush: I won't complain about views of another of these stunning endemic Thrushes
A large part of the time Birding on the logging track was dedicated to trying to see a Banda Sea Pitta. Elegant Pitta used to be one species which occurred on a number of Lesser Sunda and Banda Sea islands, as well as, occurring as a non-breeding visitor on some of the Southern Moluccan islands. It has recently been split into three species: Temminck's Elegant Pitta, Wallace's Elegant Pitta & Banda Sea Pitta, based upon pronounced plumage and vocal differences. I saw the first two species on my first visit to Indonesia in Sumba and Flores, respectively. The Latter species was still a Tick for me. Wilbur was trying hard to encourage one individual to show for the group, but it was stubbornly remaining in cover. Finally, it popped up onto an open branch & I had a clear view of it, but there wasn't enough time to raise the camera. Unfortunately, for the others it dropped down before any of them could reach my position a few metres away from the group. We had spent a lot on time looking for this one individual, with little satisfaction for most of the group. But this point, it was late morning and time to start heading back to the hotel for lunchhh.
These orange berries were fairly common along the track
We headed back into the field in the early afternoon with another plan to stay out after dark for Owls. This time is was to be roadside Birding from a road on the East side of Yamdena.
Roadside Birding: The road was largely in degraded forest, but it provided views of better condition forest in a deep valley & on the distant hillside
Elegant Imperial Pigeon: This is a small island specialist which occurs on small islands in the Kai and Tanimbar Islands, Banda Sea & Lesser Sundas
Blue-streaked Lory: This is a Tanimbar, Babar & Damar endemic which has also been introduced to the Kai Islands
White-breasted Woodswallow: This is the musschenbroeki subspecies which occurs on the Tanimbar and Babar Islands. It is a widespread species occurring from the Philippines, through Borneo, Indonesia, New Guinea, to Australia & New Caledonia
Cinnamon-tailed Fantail: This lovely Fantail is a Tanimbar & Babar endemic
Cinnamon-tailed Fantail: That's an impressive broad bill
Tanimbar Flyrobin: This is another Tanimbar endemic
Mistletoebird: This is the fulgidum subspecies of the largely Australian Mistletoebird. The Birds of the Indonesian Archipelago has been proposed to split this & the Kai Island subspecies as Salvadori's Flowerpecker based upon plumage differences, but this split has not been adopted by Clements or IOC yet
We stayed out till well after dusk looking for the Tanimbar subspecies of Lesser Masked Owl. Frustratingly, we had no luck. On the drive back to the hotel, Tony & I saw a Lesser Masked Owl fly across the road from the lead vehicle's headlights. We stopped the vehicles only to find we were next to one of the many army camps on the island: not a place that was sensible to try any further searching. On the last evening, Tony & a couple of the others had good views of a Lesser Masked Owl close to where we had been looking on this evening. Unfortunately, the rest of the group were too late in reaching the location. This proved to be the only Tanimbar endemic that not all the group saw.
