Gidday Everyone
I have just returned from a trip to PNG which started off at Bensbach Wildlife Lodge with a group of mates who head there every year to fish for huge Barramundi, I managed to photograph Spangled Kookaburra which is virtually endemic to that region as well as distant shots of Glossy-mantled Manucode also Rufous-bellied Kookaburra and White-winged Fairywren but alas even though we tried for half a day we had no luck with the Fly River Grassbird but found a Masked Owl Ssp calabyii in a tree on the river. From there we Flew up to Lake Murray which is the biggest freshwater lake that I have ever seen and Trans New Guinea Tours are building a new lodge here and from what I saw of the area should make a great birding spot. We dropped a couple of blokes off who were going to search the lake for Black Bass one of the hardest fish to catch on rod & reel. From there we went to Tari and spent the night at Ambua Lodge and with the help of Joesph Tano I was able to photograph Short-tailed Paradigalla and Female BOP before flying into Mt Hagen and up to Rondon Ridge where I spent 8 days trying to photograph BOP and others. Some of the trails are extremely tough as I can attest to by the couple of times I sat down on my backside unintentionally and muddy hiking boots wet socks and shortness of breath for the 3 times that I went up onto the top of the ridge. But the birding was extremely rewarding seeing Orange-crowned Fairywren, Black Sicklebill, King-Bird-Of-Saxony, Wattled Ploughbill, Lesser Ground Robin and Brown Sicklebill. There were a couple of fruiting trees not far from the lodge and it was here that I obtained reasonable photographs of Superb BOP and Princess Stephanie’s Astrapia. This has been my second serious sojourn to PNG to try and photograph the birds that live there and it is one of the most difficult yet rewarding places that I have been and as long as I can put one foot in front of another I will continue to go back and chase some of those elusive birds. Here is my usual link to a couple of BOP’s that I have shot as well as a couple of photos of Spotted Whistling Duck on the Bensbach River
http://barraimaging.com.au/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=lastup
Kindest Regards
Geoff Jones
Website www.barraimaging.com.au
Slideshows http://barraimaging.smugmug.com/
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