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Papua birding breaks

Our birding breaks have been designed with the occupied, regionally living bird watcher in mind, who wants to make the most of a week-long birding escape to Papua. These trips generally provide an excellent introduction to New Guinea birding, and by focusing on one particular hotspot alone, invariably prove highly rewarding in tracking down those most-wanted goodies otherwise not uncommonly dipped due to time-restriction alone.

So whether you simply seek a first taste of Papuan birding, or foster more ambitious plans for multiple visits in order to gradually get to grips with Papua's scattered and difficult-to-get-to endemics, our short bird watching packages cater to both these wills. Why not extend your birding break into a fortnight adding any of our ready-made extensions? Or use these and our breaks as 'building bricks' to put together your customized birding adventure.

Blue-grey Robin Peneothello cyanus is one of 279 widespread New Guinea endemics and is easily seen in mid-montane forested habitats of the Arfak Mountains.

Arfak montane specialties

In search of the 10 Vogelkop endemics, we basically follow in the footsteps of the great Italian collectors D’Albertis and Beccari, who first explored the Hatam-country only a few kilometers away from our base in the Arfaks: the settlement of Siyoubrig, situated at a chilly 1,600 m elevation on the mid-slopes of Mount Indon.

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'Biak' Shrike-thrush Colluricincla [megarhyncha] melanorhyncha is among a suite of 25 often highly distinctive Geelvink endemic subspecies, and may well prove to merit reclassification at allospecies level.

Geelvink Islands endemics

No less than 12 endemic bird species, including two fabulous paradise-kingfishers, plus heaps of highly distinct yet almost 'forgotten' endemic subspecies await us on this birding adventure covering the islands of Biak and Numfor in Papua's Geelvink Bay.

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Snow Mountain Robin Petroica archboldi is one of three bird species that occur only in the Snow Mountains of Indonesian New Guinea and nowhere else on Earth. This little gem appears to be genuinely confined to Peak Trikora or Wilhelmina and Peak Jaya or Carstenz, reliably setting in above 4,000 m elevation only. Copyright © Papua Expeditions/cv.Ekonexion and Like Wijaya

Snow Mountains specialties

Following in the footsteps of American explorer, mammalogist and millionaire Richard Archbold, a superb selection of New Guinea's wonderfully diverse montane avifauna can be seen when hiking through cultivation and upper montane forests up the Ibele Valley onto the Lake Habbema alpine plateau at 3,200 m elevation above the timberline, in the shadow of Peak Trikora.

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Wilson's Bird of Paradise Cicinnurus respublica occurs only on the Raja Ampat islands of Waigeo and Batanta and has often been claimed by seasoned world birders to be the best bird roaming the face of our planet! Copyright © Charles Davies

Waitanta endemics

Every self-respecting world birder is bound to at least once in a lifetime undertake the pilgrimage to Waitanta’s avian delights. Bruijn’s Brush-turkey Aepypodius bruijnii, Wilson's Cicinnurus respublica and Red Bird of Paradise Paradisaea rubra; this birding break has been designed to deliver exactly those dream birds. But best of all perhaps, just by joining this birding adventure of a lifetime, you actively help protecting an entire river catchment containing a spectacular component of Earth's living diversity.

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Large Owlet-Nightjar Aegotheles insignis is the largest living member of the essentially Australo-Papuan owlet-nightjar family, which further has living representatives on Halmahera in the northern Moluccas and on New Caledonia, as well as a prehistorically extinct species on New Zealand that apparently inclined towards gigantism.

Thank you very much for an excellent week on Waigeo. We all enjoyed it a great deal. You have a very good team and run the trip remarkably well considering the fairly difficult logistics. It was fantastic to see such an interesting and new variety of birds and we were lucky to be in the hands of an expert spotter and knowledgeable guide, though you did both miss the cuscus at the base of that tree ;-)
Well done for providing lots of tasty food throughout and an endless supply of lime juice. [Dr. Ivo Elliot, UK]

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