Site Report: Arfak Mountains, Indonesia

Visits

• 2024-07-23: Just to get to Manokwari was a very long way. I had to fly from San Francisco to Taipei to Jakarta to Sorong to Manokwari. When I finally arrived in Manokwari, I was exhausted and suffering from food poisoning. Luckily, I did not head up to the mountains until the next day. Instead, I hung around in the hotel and the attached mall. Everyone in Manokwari was thrilled to see me. I walked into the pool area of the hotel, and a woman who was there screamed and ran to grab her phone for selfies. When I arrived at the homestay, it was raining. I was a bit worried it would rain the entire time that I was there. This was not the case, and it stopped raining for a few minutes before a bunch of Masked Bowerbirds flew in for a fruiting tree. I didn't think much of it, but one theme from this trip was a bunch of people showing up to the homestay to unsuccessfully search for them. They mostly never saw the bowerbird, though, while I saw them every day. Next up was a hide that had been set up to view a Vogelkop Bowerbird hide. This hide is very impressive with a lot of plastic trash decorations. We walked down a steep and muddy trail to the hide, and after arriving, I was left there alone wondering how long it might take for the bowerbird. Lucky for me, it came three times in the two hours I waited. The final attraction for the day was another hide where the Magnificent Bird-of-Paradise hangs out. Another two hours waiting in a hide, and the bird showed up for a short cleanup of the display area.
• 2024-07-24: I was handed a note just before the generator ran out of fuel that I would be picked up at 4:30AM to look for birds of paradise. We drove over to a nearby location where we walked up a very steep and muddy hill in the rain. It was a really difficult hike for about 45 minutes. Once we arrived on the top, there was a blind set up along with a setup of some weird native fruit. We waited in the dark while birds of paradise came down to eat the fruit. After a few hours of doing this, the next event was bushwhacking through the forest to try and find the owlet-nightjar. It was not found at the expected location, but some more searching turned up the well-camouflaged bird. There were some other birds calling in the forest, but it was nearly impossible to get the binoculars on most of them. It was quite rainy in the afternoon. The rain cleared up late in the afternoon, and I walked around by the village to see what I could find. Every bird was very skittish, though, and I only saw a few species. That night, after the heavy rains, the guesthouse was moth central, and I spent a bunch of time trying to photograph all of them.
• 2024-07-25: Started a little bit later on this hike, left the homestay at 5:30AM. There was another walk down a steep and muddy trail to arrive at a hide around some forest fruits. We did not have to wait long for the male Lesser Bird-of-Paradise. Got back to the homestay just in time to enjoy another rainstorm. There were a number of cool spiders hanging around under the roof. In the afternoon, we drove over to a forest overlook where we saw several colorful and unique bird species. In the night, did another moth survey. Most of the moths were different from the previous night.
• 2024-07-26: Another early start, the path to the parotia display area was a bit less muddy today as the rains were not as strong the day before. It was still a tough hike, but I felt I was finally getting into shape a bit. We arrived at the Parotia display area, and we were lucky enough to see the display before it started raining again.
• 2024-07-27: In the morning, I walked from my homestay to visit a place where you can see the Arfak Catbird. It was another very steep and muddy trail. On the way back, it was raining a bit. There were some various rumors about Owlet-nightjars, and eventually, we ended up hiking down another steep muddy hill with some local kids to see one of them. Later that day, there was another steep muddy hike to find a papuan boobook. There it was seen with the x-ray vision of the local villager.
• 2024-07-28: Headed up to look for some birds of paradise again, this time it was not raining at all. Saw some of the same birds on the hike. Then, it was off to Manokwari to catch a flight to Sorong.

Species Seen

Lifelists

• Asia
• World

Trips

• Indonesia