5 Nov 22 - Indonesia - Banda Sea Cruise Day 10 - A Plethora Of Pigeons On The First Day On Wetar

The crew had motored overnight so that we were off the island of Wetar: our base for the next three days. Wetar has a good selection of species that overlaps with the neighbouring & larger island of Timor, to its South. This includes the Indonesian West of the island and East Timor at the Eastern end.

We woke early for another well before dawn breakfast on the Lady Denok. One of the great things is the Lady Denok team were good at providing a substantial breakfast regardless of the start time. It helped given how early it was. After eating, we were quickly in the boats & heading to the shore. An open backed lorry arrived just after us in the village. We jumped in the back & were soon on our way up into the hills. It proved to be a slow journey as the lorry ended up going down into first gear on every hill: as the engine was knackered. It was the first of three slow drives across the island, as every lunchtime we returned back to the boat.

The first highlights were a couple of Timor Nightjars a few miles out of town on the road. One was giving its tok-tok-tok call, which didn't too dissimilar to what I remember of Large-tailed Nightjar. Perhaps it's call is more subtly distinctive as the Birds of the Indonesian Archipelago field guide states that while it was previously considered as conspecific with Large-tailed Nightjar, it has been proposed as a new species with a range of Timor & Wetar based up its distinct vocalisations. Perhaps not suprising as Mees's Nightjar, which occurs on Flores, Alor, Pantar & Sumba, was split from Large-tailed Nightjar about a decade ago by Clements & IOC. I think this is a case of the paper being written to formally propose the reasons for Timor Nightjar to be split.

Birding From The Lorry: This shows the high hills on the island

Graham Tebb

Roadside Birding

After watching the Timor Nightjars on the road, we carried on slowly trundling up the hill. It quickly started to get lighter & the light was reasonable by the time we have reached our destination about halfway across the island. This was the first session of roadside Birding. Quite often roadside Birding isn't great as you end up having to keep moving to the edge of the road as traffic passes. But when that is only a couple of times an hour, it's wasn't that bad on this occasion. This morning was a good morning for seeing Pigeons & Doves.

Timor Zebra Dove: This is also known as Barred Dove

Little Cuckoo Dove: This is the orientalis subspecies which occurs on Lombok, Sumbawa, Komodo, Flores, Sumba, Pantar, Timor & Wetar. This is the most South Eastern subspecies. Other subspecies occur in Burma, Thailand, Yunnan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Borneo, Sumatra, Java & Bali

Dusky Cuckoo Dove: This is also known as Timor Cuckoo Dove, but I will stick with the name that was used in 1991. This is a monotypic species which occurs on Timor, Wetar Alor, Romang, Kisar, Leti, Moa & Sermata Islands

Black Cuckoo Dove: This species in restricted to Timor, Wetar & Rota. I was glad to see this species well, as my only sighting of this distinctive species back in 1991, was an individual that flew past us

Black-backed Fruit-dove: Another island & another subspecies. This is the nominate cinctus subspecies which occurs on Timor, Wetar & Romang Islands

Pink-headed Imperial Pigeon: This is a small island specialist which is found on islands in the Java Sea & Flores Sea, as well as, some of the smaller & larger islands in the Lesser Sundas

Pink-headed Imperial Pigeon

Pink-headed Imperial Pigeon

Pink-headed Imperial Pigeon

In one of the roadside stops, I picked up two distant Eagles that were over a couple of miles away flying over the distant cliffs. Fortunately, they took pity on our inabilities to identify them at that range & glided over towards the cliffs on our side of the valley. They didn't pass that close, but they were close enough to allow us to confirm they were Bonelli's Eagles.

Bonelli's Eagle: This is the renschi subspecies which is endemic to the Lesser Sundas. The other subspecies occurs from Southern Europe to India, Southern China & Indochina

I will cover the other species seen on Wetar on the first day in the next Blog Post.

4 Nov 22 - Indonesia - Banda Sea Cruise Day 9 - More Leti Birding

We had had a successful start to the morning's Birding on Leti with good views of the endemic Kisar Friarbird, along with the local subspecies of Yellow-throated Golden Whistler & Southern Boobook. Plus, I had seen a bonus Red-backed Buttonquail. We still had more time birding the forest & field edges to the village where we had landed before dawn.

Black-backed Fruit-dove: This is the lettiensis subspecies which is restricted to Leti, Moa, Luang, Sermata and Teun Islands. There are four other subspecies of this Lesser Sundas endemic

Rose-crowned Fruit-dove: This is the roseipileum subspecies which is restricted to East Timor, Wetar, Romang, Kissar, Moa & Leti Islands. Like the xanthogaster subspecies that occurs on Babar, Damar & the Tanimbar Islands, it does not have the rose crown that the third Lesser Sundas subspecies and the two Australian subspecies have

Timor Zebra Dove: This is more commonly known as Barred Dove. I've kept to the name I originally knew it as during my first visit to Indonesia, as I generally get confused with the names for this group of similar-looking small Doves

Little Bronze-cuckoo: This is the rufomerus subspecies which we had previously seen on Damar Island. It also occurs on Romang, Kisar, Moa & Sermata Islands

Cinnamon-banded Kingfisher: This is the dammerianus subspecies which occurs on Moa, Leti, Babar & Damar Islands. Two other subspecies occur on other Lesser Sundas & Tanimbar Islands

White-shouldered Triller: This is a monotypic Wallacean endemic which occurs from East Java and Bali to Sulawesi subregion & the Lesser Sundas

Paddyfield Pipit: This is the medius subspecies of the Eastern Lesser Sundas. Another subspecies occurs in Bali, Sulawesi, Bali & the Western Lesser Sundas. Other subspecies occur in Borneo, the Philippines, South East Asia, Indochina, the Indian Subcontinent and St Just in Cornwall (albeit sadly this individual never made it onto the UK List)

Zebra Finch: Male on the left & female on the right. This is the guttata subspecies which occurs from Lombok to Sumba, Timor & some of the Banda Sea islands, which Clements lumps with the Zebra Finch found in Australia. IOC & the Birds of the Indonesian Archipelago splits guttata as a monotypic species: so this will be another armchair Tick for me when I get the time to convert my birding database to follow IOC taxonomy

Zebra Finch: Female. That is an impressive bill

We returned to the village in late morning where we were met by the Lady Denok's boats. It had been another successful morning ashore.

Tree Sparrow: This is the malaccensis subspecies. We typically saw Tree Sparrows as we got back to the villages at the end of the Birding

Back in the village

Just in case, we weren't sure if this was a Christian village

On the beach waiting for the Lady Denok's boats

Looking back on the village

31 Oct 22 - Indonesia - Banda Sea Cruise Day 5 - Bonus Birding On East Babar

Thanks to the midnight or so departure from the Tanimbar Islands on the previous night, we arrived off the coast of the Eastern end of Babar Island in time for some bonus late afternoon Birding. Had we left the Tanimbar Islands as originally planned, we would not have arrived till after dark. We were keen to get ashore for some land Birding. The Tanimbar Islands are not regularly visited by independent Birders visiting Indonesia. However, with an airport they have been visited by a few more adventurous independent Birders in recent years.

The same cannot be said about any of the other islands we were to visit on the Banda Sea Cruise. There are no airfields on any of these islands & the only way to visit them is by boat. It would be time-consuming to try arranging transport on the occasional ships that supply those islands. Chartering a local boat would be an expensive & difficult option for a group of independent Birders. Therefore, the Banda Sea Cruise stands out as a very unique way to access these rarely visited islands.

Bird Tour Asia have over a decade of experience of visiting these islands since their first Banda Sea Cruise in 2011. Any Birder tempted by a Banda Sea Cruise after reading this Blog should be looking to book with Bird Tour Asia: rather than with an alternative company that has managed to work out enough of where Bird Tour Asia visit to start running their own trip. Why travel with a more expensive newcomer, when you can go with the experts on these islands?

Getting the boats ready to take us ashore

There seemed to be a reasonable amount of forest on the island: The big church indicated this was another Christian island

Like most of our Banda Sea landings, it was a beach landing. The trick was to get to the front of the boat & either step off or jump off the boat on a dropping wave, to avoid wet feet. We had to be equally carefully to get the timing right when getting back into the boats at the end of the Birding, but I always managed to keep my feet dry. The one exception was late on in the trip, when we had a fifty metre wade ashore due to one very shallow bay. But we were aware of that & I had my flip-flops for the landing & carried the shoes for the land.

We were quickly ashore to find there was a drivable dirt track just behind the first line of trees. This would allow us to easily see the trees. Sadly, we also found one or two patches of trees that had been cleared to allow for Bananas to be planted in the future. We saw a good selection of Babar's birdlife that afternoon, albeit there wasn't a lot of opportunity to get photos. Some of the highlights included Pacific Emerald Dove, Timor Zebra Dove (AKA Barred Dove), Rose-crowned Fruit-dove, Little Bronze-cuckoo, Banda Honeyeater, White-shouldered Triller, Wallacean Whistler, Cinnamon-tailed Fantail, a potential future split from the Australian Arafura Fantail (which the Birds of the Indonesian Archipelago call Supertramp Fantail), Island Monarch, the lovely Orange-banded Thrush & Red-chested Flowerpecker.

Timor Zebra Dove: This is more commonly known as Barred Dove. I've kept to the name I originally knew it as during my first visit to Indonesia

Little Bronze-cuckoo: This is what Little Bronze-cuckoos normally look like, which looks & sounds different to the distinctive Pied Bronze-cuckoo that we saw on the Tanimbar Islands

The Lady Denok

All too quickly the light started to go. We couldn't leave yet as we wanted to look for the local subspecies of Southern Boobook. Boobook Owls have long been a potential area for splits as studies look at their vocalisations and other differences. The Boobooks on Babar as currently considered to be the cinnamomina subspecies of Southern Boobook. Whether that will still be the case in another decade is something we will have to wait & see. Everybody was keen to look for one, just in case. One was heard calling as it got dark & Wilbur found a small forest track heading in for a couple of hundred metres. After a short wait, it responded to his recording & it was sitting above our heads.

Southern Boobook: This is the cinnamomina subspecies which is endemic to the Babar Islands. Other subspecies occur on Leti & surrounding islands, Sawu Island which lies between Sumba & Timor, the Kai Islands, Southern New Guinea and Australia. Like all my other Owl photos, this was photographed on a high ISO and using torchlight.

We had enjoyed some successful bonus Birding on Babar in the afternoon and evening. We had also avoided having to get up in the wee small hours of the following morning to look for Southern Boobook. Albeit, we still were up before dawn for breakfast prior to a dawn landing.

It was time to signal to the boats to return to the shore to collect us. Once we had eaten, the Lady Denok started sailing to our next destination at the Western end of Babar.

29 Oct 22 - Indonesia - Banda Sea Cruise Day 3 - A Few More Tanimbar Species

After lunch we returned for another afternoon & early evening session along the Eastern Road of the island. We stayed out after dark looking for Lesser Masked Owl, but as mentioned in an earlier Blog Post as a result of the group splitting up, only three of the group had views that evening. Tony & I had seen one fly across the road as we were driving back to the hotel on the previous evening, but that was far from ideal views.

Timor Zebra Dove: This is more commonly known as Barred Dove. I've kept to the name I originally knew it as during my first visit to Indonesia, as I generally get confused with the names for this group of similar-looking small Doves

Timor Zebra Doves occur on the Lesser Sunda & Tanimbar Islands, with an introduced population on Bali. The similar-looking Zebra Dove occurs on Sumatra, Java & Bali with introduced populations on Borneo, Sulawesi, Seram and a number of other countries around the world.

Zebra Dove: Zebra Doves have pale blue, not pale yellow, orbital skin. Tahiti (3 Nov 14)

There is a very distinctive subspecies of Little Bronze-cuckoo on the Tanimbar Islands: called Pied Bronze-cuckoo. The Birds of the Indonesian Archipelago propose it should be split based on the distinct vocal & morphological differences, but so far Clements and IOC have not adopted this proposed split.

Little Bronze-cuckoo: This is the distinctive crassirostris subspecies knows as Pied Bronze-cuckoo, which occurs on the Tanimbar & Kai Islands

Little Bronze-cuckoo: This is the distinctive crassirostris subspecies knows as Pied Bronze-cuckoo

Little Bronze-cuckoo: This is what Little Bronze-cuckoos normally look like. East Babar (31 Oct 22)

Banda Myzomela: This is the annabellae subspecies which occurs on the Tanimbar & Babar Islands

Banda Myzomela: The taxonomy of the Indonesia Myzomelas is likely to continue changing over the near future. Currently, Clements and IOC consider this as Banda Myzomela, which occurs on the Tanimbar & Babar islands with a second subspecies on the Moluccan Banda Islands. The Birds of the Indonesian Archipelago have proposed these two subspecies are split on the basis of strong vocal and some plumage differences. The authors have proposed this species should be called Tanimbar Myzomela

Banda Myzomela

Tanimbar Flyrobin

Tanimbar Flyrobin