LATEST IMAGES - WEST PAPUA7
Our final destination was the Island of Waigeo off the North West point of West Papua. The island was reached by Ferry from Sorong and is a well known dive site. We stayed in a dive resort, luxury after the Arfak Mountains but we couldn't work out why we were the only guests there and nearby dive resorts looked equally devoid of guests. Waigeo Island is famous for the outlandishly coloured Wilson's Bird of Paradise, which is only found here and on the neighboring island of Batanta, and the Red Bird of Paradise. Wilson's Bird of Paradise is now fairly easy to see as a number of commercial hides have been constructed in front of their display areas, mainly for visitors from the numerous small cruise boats that visit Raja Ampat. Thankfully we had the hide to ourselves on both our morning visits. It was more difficult to photograph the Red Bird of Paradise as the hides were quite a distance from the display trees and the birds spent most of the time being partially covered by the vegetation and moved around amongst the trees quite a lot. Thankfully one came close and performed its heart shape display on a clear branch but for only a couple of seconds.
MALE WILSON'S BIRD OF PARADISE
MALE WILSON'S BIRD OF PARADISE1
MALE WILSON'S BIRD OF PARADISE2
MALE WILSON'S BIRD OF PARADISE3
MALE WILSON'S BIRD OF PARADISE4
MALE WILSON'S BIRD OF PARADISE5
MALE WILSON'S BIRD OF PARADISE6
MALE WILSON'S BIRD OF PARADISE7
MALE WILSON'S BIRD OF PARADISE DISPLAYING TO A FEMALE
FEMALE WILSON'S BIRD OF PARADISE
FEMALE WILSON'S BIRD OF PARADISE1
FEMALE WILSON'S BIRD OF PARADISE2
MALE WILSON'S BIRD OF PARADISE CALLING
MALE WILSON'S BIRD OF PARADISE CALLING1
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