Raja Ampat is a great destination for visitors who like birding, snorkeling and sightseeing. I am guiding a group of American visitors this week (17 to 21 April 2023). Today we had a long hiking in the forest to watch Red Bird of Paradise. It was a challenging trip especially for participants who are not used to walking up steep slopes of tropical montane forest. Fortunately, we were able to watch the paradise bird.
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| Shining Flycatcher |
| We also saw Yellow-billed Kingfisher, Hooded Butcherbird, Blyth's Hornbill, Brown Oriole and Palm Cockatoo and etc. |
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| Birding and sightseeing in Raja Ampat |
In the mid-day, participants of the Raja Ampat tour enjoyed snorkeling at the house reef of the beach resort where we stayed.
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Because the main theme of our tour is snorkeling and birdwatching, I organized a trip by speedboat to small islands in the south of Waigeo where could watch birds and enjoy sightseeing. We landed at a white sandy beach of an island in Kabuy bay where we spent around 1 hour to watch Spice Imperial Pigeon, White-breasted Wood-Swallow, Singing Starling, Oriental Dollarbird, Eastern Osprey, Eclectus Parrot and Helmetted Friarbird. I used 10×50 binoculars that were mounted on a tripod to enhance the birding experience of the tour participants.
As we continued our trip by slowly moving along the coast, we saw a Beach Kingfisher sitting on a dry branch of a tree. We stopped the boat. All tour participants aimed their digital cameras to take pictures of the bird.
| We continued our trip again along Lesser and Greater Urai islands and along the sourhern coast of Waigeo. In addition to birds,we saw dolphins that were feeding on small fish while swimming very close to the limestone walls of southern region of Waigeo. |
We saw the reddish colour of the sunset. We also saw fishermen of Saporkren villagers were catching fish with their canoes. It was nearly dark when we arrived at the jetty of the resort again. It was a wonderful trip.
Our next activity for tomorrow will be watching Wilson's Bird of Paradise.
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