Recently I published a trip report about birding for a few days in Timor. This was part a trip that involved travelling to both West Timor and Sumba in Indonesia. This blog post covers the Sumba part of the trip. See this previous post for the Timor part.
3 November - Waingapu
After giving up on the buttonquail we made our way to Lewa where we stayed in a homestay.
4 November - Langgaliru
The next morning was spent birding near the village of Langgaliru. The traffic was pretty light so it wasn't too unpleasant. Initially we focussed on the roadside. Initially it was foggy enough to make good photos impossible But before long the sun was out and it cleared. This netted decent photos of Sumba Flowerpecker and Yellow-spectacled Heleia and some record shots of other species.
Once the sun was too high we drove down the hill to a hairpin bend and walked a short way into the forest. Several Elegant Pitta were calling in this area, and we were able to see Sumba Jungle Flycatcher as well. I spent a few hours attempting to photograph the pitta here and got a passable photo through vegetation, but ultimately I wanted to do better so would try again in later days. It was challenging because of a thick understory consistent with secondary forest.
In the evening it was time to focus on nocturnal birds. Daris had sites for both birds and both were photographed pretty easily for this reason. The usual method was used to photograph them - observe and line things up in the dark with the thermal with Daris holding my flash attached to a BeamMount Pro with a small torch mounted and turned on a few moments before one or two low power flash pops.
5 November - Taman Nasional Manupeu Tanah Daru
By about 9am we moved on and I put in more effort for the Elegant Pitta and Chestnut-backed thrush. I succeeded with the Pitta basically by very carefully stalking two calling birds in two locations and got something passable for the thrush.
That night we did a little more nocturnal birding. I didn't bother with a checklist on eBird, but mostly we just saw more Sumba Boobook.
6 November - Manurara and Manupeu Tanah Daru National Park
In the afternoon we headed to a top secret site where I was told there would be a tree with Eclectus Parrot nesting in the hollow. To get there we walked about 20 minutes through new slash-and-burn agriculture to find a solitary large tree with a number of hollows. Short-tailed Starling occupied some of these and there were some visits from Citron-crested Cockatoo. More slashing was going on on the next hillside and there was fresh smoke, so I had pretty mixed feelings about the whole affair about staking out what felt like the one tree left behind. We didn't see the Eclectus, and we did see some Short-tailed Starling checking out the same hollow without an argument. So I think perhaps it had finished using it for the year. At least I got a flyover the day before!
7 November - Final Birding: Umbu Ratu Nggay, Yumbo Bridge, Pandawai
We returned to Umbu Ratu Nggay at dawn for one more attempt at Sumba Green Pigeon, a species that had remained photographically difficult.
Afterward we revisited the buttonquail site (Yumbo Bridge). With the sun already up, the rocks were warm again, and thermal detection remained ineffective. The sandflies were really active this time, but I had covered up better so just got a few bites on the backs of my hands. This was really the end of the trip. The next morning was an early flight back to Denpasar and eventually home.
