Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea (PNG), the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, has been our top priority destination for the last four years. The top draws here are seven bird families endemic to New Guinea (found nowhere else); and the birds-of-paradise, most of which occur only here. It took us three attempts to get on an operational tour to PNG: we were on a wait list in 2022, then in 2024 the opposite occurred, and not enough people signed up.

New Guinea is the second largest island in the world, just slightly larger than Borneo (Greenland, of course, is the largest). It is interesting to compare New Guinea with Borneo; despite being similarly sized Pacific islands only about a thousand miles apart, they differ dramatically. Borneo lies on the Sunda Shelf, which provided a land connection with Southeast Asia during past ice ages, when sea levels were nearly 400 feet lower. In contrast, New Guinea lies on the Sahul Shelf, connecting it with northern Australia at low water. Consequently, the flora of Borneo is essentially Asian, whereas that of New Guinea is fundamentally Australian. Birds and mammals are hunted relentlessly in PNG and so are scarce and very wary except in a few areas, while they are significantly easier to see in Borneo. PNG is not an especially safe country to visit; the capital, Port Moresby, is widely regarded as the most dangerous city in the world, and in the highlands, there are frequent tribal conflicts and occasional incidents involving tourists. Borneo is safe and welcoming in comparison.

As mentioned above, New Guinea has seven endemic bird families, an exceptional concentration (the Caribbean and much larger Australia also have seven). Three families contain only a single species and are said to be monotypic: Blue-capped Ifrita, Wattled Ploughbill, and Mottled Berrypecker. The Melampitta family has only two species, and the Satinbird and Crested/Tit-Berrypecker families just three each. The last endemic family, Longbills and Typical Berrypeckers, has nine species. We saw all seven of these families, a good accomplishment; four of them could easily be missed. We also encountered three other families new to us, which also occur in Australia: Owlet-Nightjars, Boatbills, and Birds-of-Paradise. We’ve now seen 232 of 253 extant bird families (91.7%). The remaining families are pretty scattered, though four are possible in Australia and three in Indonesia.

Birds-of-Paradise are a remarkable family of 44 species in 17 genera, which are found primarily in New Guinea, but also on nearby islands and in northeastern Australia. They are frugivores and in most species the adult males have spectacular plumages and perform remarkable courtship displays, sometimes at leks (communal display sites). They are in the same superfamily as crows and jays. You may have seen nature documentaries featuring their displays, but this is not easy behavior to observe; although we saw 13 species of birds-of-paradise, only one provided a good lek experience.

Our PNG tour was with Field Guides, Inc., and was led by Doug Gochfeld and Jesse Fagan. The trip went very smoothly, despite seven flights on local airlines that are notoriously unpredictable. New Guinea is bisected by a substantial mountain range along the main axis of the island, creating parallel bands of lowlands and foothills on either side of the highlands. We sampled lowland and foothills south of the spine, and highlands up to an elevation of about 9600 feet. We also visited New Britain, a smaller island northeast of New Guinea, but part of the country of PNG; only lowlands were accessible there.

The tour began and ended in Brisbane, Australia, so that all travel on the New Guinea airlines was as a group with a block of tickets; we did not do any birding in Brisbane. From Port Moresby, we visited two sites. One was the grounds of Pacific Adventist University, which have several nice ponds and open woodland. (Because of the strong effect of elevation on fauna and flora, I will give approximate values parenthetically for each location — in this case, 400 feet.) In a few hours there, we found a nice selection of water-birds, including the deep purple Australasian Swamphen. We also saw the nocturnal Papuan Frogmouth, which is challenging to find on its day roost, because it is superbly camouflaged to look just like a tree branch. We particularly enjoyed a roosting colony of Spectacled Flying Foxes, which are large fruit-eating bats (wingspan in males about 30 inches) that hang upside-down from tree branches.

Our second site near the capital city was Varirata National Park (2700 feet). We had a long list of birds here; highlights included Papuan Pitta, Barred Owlet-Nightjar, Papuan Dwarf Kingfisher, Rufous-bellied Kookaburra, Rainbow Bee-Eater, three species of fruit-doves, Broad-striped Tube-nosed Fruit Bat (Nyctimene aello), Common Green Birdwing (Ornithoptera priamnus, a large emerald green and yellow butterfly), and Hooded Pitohui (the plumage of which is poisonous due to accumulated toxins from its insect prey).

But the star of the show at Varirata was the national bird of PNG, the Raggiana Bird-of-Paradise. One morning we observed a lek with three actively displaying males, plus a couple other males and two females! The males are mostly brown but have emerald green and yellow heads, and long, rufous uppertail coverts that extend well beyond the tail itself, producing a fluffy “bustle”. We watched the males perform two types of display, both accompanied by raucous calling: hanging upside down; and hopping sideways up and down a branch. It was a remarkable experience!

From Port Moresby, we flew west to Kiunga, near the center of New Guinea, close to the border between PNG and West Papua. We spent two days exploring the Fly and Elevala Rivers (300 feet) by boat and hikes therefrom, finding Twelve-wired Bird-of-Paradise, Channel-billed Cuckoo, Gray-headed Goshawk, and Great Flying Fox (Pteropus neohibernicus). Drimgas Road (400 feet) yielded the handsome Purple-tailed Imperial-Pigeon, and, after dark, great views of Marbled Frogmouth.

A tedious four-hour drive north put us in the mining town of Tabubil, from which we could reach higher elevations on rough roads using four-wheel-drive vehicles. Locations sampled were: Ok Menga (2000 feet), where we saw the elusive Shovel-billed Kookaburra and Blyth’s Hornbill, with its whooshing wingbeats; Henry’s Road (2700 feet), with Wallace’s Fairywren, Papuan Hanging-Parrot, and Small Green-banded Blue (Psychonotis caelius), an elegant, diminutive butterfly; Dablin Creek Road (2900 feet), hosting Pygmy Eagle; and the Hindenberg Wall (7900 feet), where we encountered Red-collared Myzomela (reminiscent of our Scarlet Tanager in plumage) and the interesting Knob-fruited Screwpine (Pandanus dubius), a striking, somewhat palm-like monocot.

Another flight to Mount Hagen brought us to the highlands. We stayed for three nights each at two lodges. Kumul Lodge (9600 feet) was rustic, with feeders that attracted a nice selection of birds including two species of birds-of-paradise (Brown Sicklebill and Ribbon-tailed Astrapia) and Brehm’s Tiger-Parrot. We spent a number of hours here using thermal imagers after dark, with great success; finds included Mountain and Feline Owlet-Nightjars, New Guinea Woodcock, Masked Ring-tailed Possum (Pseudochirulus larvatus), Mountain Cuscus (Phalanger carmelitae), and Black-tailed Giant Rat (Uromys anak)! Other bird highlights were a male Crested Satinbird, Fan-tailed Berrypecker, and the unique Blue-capped Ifrita.

From Kumul Lodge, we visited two other sites. The first was the Tonga Trail, a steep climb with few birds, these mostly around 7000 feet elevation. The second was Murmur Pass (9200 feet), a short walk through good forest to a clearing, from which we saw a number of birds, including Lesser Melampitta and Mottled Berrypecker. I reached a major milestone at Murmur Pass: the secretive and elusive Forbes’s Forest Rail was my 5000th bird species!

Our second highland lodge, and our most luxurious accommodations of the trip, was at Rondon Ridge (7300 feet). Muddy hikes from the lodge gave us access to elevations up to 8300 feet. Our most exciting find here was Wattled Ploughbill, our seventh and final endemic New Guinea bird family, found after many hours of searching, at the last possible moment! Other favorites here were Blue Bird-of-Paradise, Papuan Boobook, Red-breasted Pygmy-Parrot, and the utterly adorable Tit Berrypecker, looking like a yellow and black chickadee. 

Our final destination was the Walindi Resort (300 feet), an hour west of Hoskins, the capital of New Britain, an island northeast of New Guinea but politically belonging to PNG. There is a rather limited area reachable from the resort, which seems to be the only accommodation on New Britain that is regularly used by birders and mammalwatchers. But it is possible to see a fair number of endemics in a few days using the resort as a base. Our most interesting activity was a boat trip out to Malumalu and Restorff Islands. On the way out we had a fabulous encounter with a pod of Spinner Dolphins (Stenella longirostris), a small but highly acrobatic species noted for high leaps out of the water. Our main target was several birds that are essentially restricted to very small islands (tens of acres), and we saw all of those expected: Island Imperial-Pigeon, Sclater’s Myzomela, Black-tailed Whistler, Spot-breasted Cuckoo-Dove, Island Monarch, and Beach Kingfisher. We then spent several hours snorkeling on a reef, where we saw a fine assortment of beautiful fish and other sea creatures.

Back on land, we spent most of our time at different spots along the Kulu River, checking the water and searching through the narrow gallery forest corridor along the river. Our best finds were Violaceous Coucal, Black-capped Paradise-Kingfisher, Blue-breasted Quail, Pale-vented Bush-hen, Blue-eyed Cockatoo, and White-browed Crake. Dozens of Blyth’s Hornbills roosted in trees along the river, and put on quite a show rearranging themselves at dusk.

We also visited Garu Wildlife Management Area, which yielded Black Honey-Buzzard, Melanesian Megapode, and Yellowish Imperial-Pigeon; Haella Plantation, where Black Bittern and Stephan’s Dove were seen repeatedly; and Numundo Estate, with Bismarck Munia. Megapodes deserves special mention, as they cover their eggs with decomposing forest litter to warm them, rather than incubating the eggs. On our last night, thermal imaging around the resort grounds yielded three new bat species in not much over an hour: New Britain and Andersen’s Naked-backed Fruit Bats, and my most wanted mammal on the island, the elegant New Britain Masked Flying Fox!

In total, we saw well 261 species of birds and 12 species of mammals. Eileen had 177 life birds and 7 life mammals, and I had 189 and 10. In addition to the ten new bird families, and my 5000th bird, we had one more key milestone. In 2024, the Clements Checklist, maintained by Cornell, elevated the five families traditionally in the order Caprimulgiformes (nightjars, frogmouths, potoos, oilbird, and owlet-nightjars) to five separate orders. We had seen members of the first four, but Mountain Owlet-Nightjar was our first species in the fifth new order. This was our 46th and final bird order!