March 28th-April 2nd
Port Moresby, south-east Papua New Guinea.
So, was I back in my homecountry for the first time in 2008, I had felt homesick for quite some time and it feelt really great to be back again!
March 28th
The first days of my home coming I spend with family and relatives just outside Port Moresby, the place where I lived for the first of my 20years:t:
I had much time to catch up together with the family so virtually no time for birding, just a few minutes back and forth from the local food grosery and birds seen in my parents garden. And after being spoiled by birding along the northern coast of Papua New Guinea for the past year I couldent help being disapointed about the little amount of birds I saw during these few days, trapping pressure is surely taking its fair toll on the birds. And many birds found in this part of New Guinea is also found in Australia, where I had seen them earlier in 2008.
About the first I saw on the day upon my arrival was a few boys trying to catch Munias and Fairywrens (and other small grassland species) in a remaning patch of grassland just outside the airport entry, I stopped closeby to buy some fruits (about 20min) and was happy to see that the boys seemed really lousy at what they were doing, they were jumping around with hand nets and some sticks and according to the shop owner they had been jumping around in the patch of grassland since early in the morning but he hadent seen them catching anything apart from some snake and a few rats.
During my short stop at the fruit market I managed to see a few birds, 3-4 cattle egrets swarming around a water buffalo and a distant Black Kite. I had no hope to find much else considering the trapping going on nearby.
In the late afternoon I heard the call of white-winged fairywrens in my parents garden and with great effort I managed to see 1 white-winged fairywren, this day must go into the records as the most lousy birding day I have ever had
297. White-winged Fairywren.
April 1st.
The following days I saw several other species, including Brahminy Kite, House Sparrow, White-bellied cuckoo-shrike and Wandering whistling-duck, but all of them seen previous in Australia and most of them just only briefly flying over my parents neighbhourhood anyway. I had heard the call of Grey Crow on several occasions during the past days but no luck spotting any, a Kookaburra seen parched on a wire above the road running through the village, but then I spotted it!!! a small, blackish bird feeding on some flower in a high bush, it disapered into the bush several times but finally choosed to take its escape as I approached the bush, it was a male Black Sunbird, dont think I have ever been so happy to see a Black Sunbird before.
298. Black Sunbird.
