Watching Red Bird of Paradise in Waigeo Island

There are several places in Waigeo island where visitors can go to enjoy birding. The usual place which tourists go is Saporkren. I personally go further to the south to entrance area of Kabui Bay. There is a guesthouse at the beach where I and my clients stay. Early in the morning, we wake up to have some preparations and tlhave some tea or coffee. After that we will start hiking up the steep slopes to the lek of Red Bird of Paradise. 

Red Birds of Paradise

Birds start to get active at around 06.00. The male land on the top branches of a tree where they usually gather and begin calling his mating partners. Other male birds also come and call their female birds. When the female Red Bird of Paradise have shown up, the male birds will compete one another to perform  their courtship dance. The one that wins the dance competition will mate with the female bird. 

Two male Red Birds of Paradise were performing courtship dance

In general the dance performance lasts from 06.00 to 09.00. Visitor need to bring binoculars to watch them well. Camera with telephoto lens will also be good for shooting the paradise birds. Canon SX70HS, Nikon P900 and P1000 are the ones that birdwatchers bring. Wildlife photographers bring D-SLR camera with telephoto lens to shoot birds and other wildlife in the jungle. 

Because I like art, I created several drawings of birds of paradise both manually using watercolour pencils and digitally using stylus and cell phone. They can be bought in printed versions on such products as t-shirt, cell phone case, bags, tank top, mini skirt, framed art print, water bottle, zipper pouch and a lot more. Here are some of them:

A Couple of Red Bird of Paradise

Male Red Bird of Paradise

I hope that you are interested in buying some of them. When the Covid-19 Pandemic has been mitigated, visitors can travel to Raja Ampat again to watch its birds of paradise and see its beautiful nature. by Charles Roring 🙏