New Guinea: Birding Mysterious West Papua

The island of New Guinea has long been held with fascination among birders, for it holds the majority of arguably the world’s most dramatic bird family: the birds-of-paradise. Included among the possibilities on this tour of the western (Indonesian) side of the island are Wilson’s Bird-of-Paradise, Red Bird-of-Paradise, King Bird-of-Paradise, Splendid Astrapia, Magnificent Bird-of-paradise, and Twelve-wired Bird-of-Paradise. The number of species we are likely to see from this remarkable family is expected to exceed 15. Wilson’s Bird-of-paradise has been named by none other than Sir David Attenborough as his favorite world bird, and one glimpse at an image of this stunner has caused many birders to immediately add this destination to their personal bucket list. While birds-of-paradise will be hard to displace from center stage, the island of New Guinea holds plenty of other birds that are aptly described by adjectives like spectacular, gorgeous, and outstanding, such as Golden Cuckoo-shrike, Goldenface, Golden Monarch, MacGregor’s Honeyeater (long thought to be a bird-of-paradise), Papuan Pitta, Western Crowned Pigeon (one of the World’s largest pigeons), and a legion of parrots. Even birders that have visited the other half of the island, Papua New Guinea (PNG), look at the list of birds on this tour with envy, and often conclude that they need to return to ‘paradise’. With more than 300 species of island-endemic birds, West Papua outranks PNG in terms of New Guinea endemics. Any birder is sure to leave with a healthy list of lifers, and many spectacular ones among them. This tour covers a range of habitats, from mossy montane cloud-forests to tropical lowland forests, plus grassland, coastal environments, and secondary habitats.