Birds-of-Paradise (Paradisaeidae) are famous for elaborate displays. This is one of the more bizarre looking birds in the world with bright blue skin on top of its head. It is endemic to Waigeo and Batanta islands. We were up before dawn, made an unsafe jump from the tender to the pier, then climbed a set of steep stairs to a waiting jeep taking us up the mountain, and eventually a strenuous hike in the dark on a non-existent trail through the rain-forest to a blind where we eventually got a few glimpses of this non-displaying male. Classified as "near threatened" because of its limited range in mature rain-forest habitat, it is apparently named in honor of Edward Wilson, a British Ornithologist and not the American, Alexander Wilson. Sometimes called Waigeo Bird-of-Paradise or Bare-headed Little King Bird-of-Paradise and formerly placed in the genus "Cicinnurus."
