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Waitanta : Waigeo and BatantaThe fabled Raja Ampat or ‘Four Kings’ archipelago comprises over four million hectares of land and sea off New Guinea’s northwestern tip. Also known as the West Papuan Islands, the group is made up of the four large islands of Misool, Salawati, Batanta and Waigeo, plus a myriad of smaller satellites, including Kofiau and Gebe, scattered around these. Whereas Salawati and Batanta lie only five kilometers apart today, the calm and deep waters of the narrow Sagewin Strait that separates them, betray a dramatically different geological past for the portions of the archipelago respectively lying to the north and south of the strait. To the south, Salawati and Misool together with the adjacent Vogelkop essentially consist of a large, north-moving fragment of Australian continental crust that has always been in relatively close proximity to its modern location and is now apparently fully docked. In contrast, Waigeo and Batanta to the north, originated more than 2,000 km to the northeast in the Pacific as part of an Eocene ophiolitic suite known as the Halmahera Arc! During Pleistocene lowering of sea-level, Misol and Salawati were joined into an enlarged Vogelkop Peninsula, while Waigeo and Batanta were fused to a single landmass: ‘Waitanta’. Waitanta’s prolonged isolation produced nearly mythical, endemic feathered life forms as Bruijn’s Brush-turkey Aepypodius bruijnii, Wilson's Cicinnurus respublica and Red Bird of Paradise Paradisaea rubra, one by one species that make the hearts of ornithologists and birders alike beat faster. In fact, every self-respecting world birder is bound to at least once in a lifetime undertake the pilgrimage to the avian delights of Waitanta.
Waigeo supports a varied, predominantly lowland and hill forest avifauna, including, clockwise from left: Marbled Frogmouth Podargus ocellatus, Wilson's Bird of Paradise Cicinnurus respublica, and Red-throated Myzomela Myzomela eques. The myzomela actually was among the earliest widespread New Guinea bird species to be formally described to science from specimens obtained on Waigeo. The village of Wai Lebed on the southern shores of Batanta has been used as a base by famous New Guinea workers as S. Bergman in 1949 and E.T. Gilliard in 1964, and by virtually every birder subsequently seeking Waitanta’s violently enrapturing birds of paradise. Unfortunately, however, low-lying sectors bordering the Sagewin Strait in general, and the Wai Lebed area in particular, have now lost much of their magic in the wake of an illegal logging boom in Indonesian New Guinea from the turn of the century onward. Moreover, the brush-turkey only occurs on Waigeo, and then quite likely only east of the visually stunning Mayalibit Bay that divides the island in two. All the more reason then, to redirect the dedicated birder’s attention to Waigeo, which further boasts the highest number of land and fresh water bird species of any island in the Raja Ampat group, including the delightful Western Crowned-Pigeon Goura cristata and mysteriously distributed Brown-headed Crow Corvus fuscicapillus. Waitanta endemic birds (3 species)Bruijn’s Brush-turkey Aepypodius bruijnii Restricted-range species (7 species)Dusky Megapode Megapodius freycinet Widespread goodiesAzure Kingfisher Alcedo azurea Related linksRead on about our short birding break to Waigeo Island. Read on about our prolonged birding expeditions visiting Waigeo Island. Read on about the field discovery of Bruijn's Brush-turkey Aepypodius bruijnii on Waigeo Island by PE resident birder Iwein Mauro (from www.publish.csiro.au). Read on about the conservation status of Bruijn's Brush-turkey Aepypodius bruijnii on Waigeo Island by PE resident birder Iwein Mauro (from www.journals.cambridge.org). Read on about the first photographs taken of Bruijn's Brush-turkey in the wild on Waigeo Island on a PE exploratory bird tour. Browse our check-list of the birds of Papua. |
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Named in 1880 in honor of the immortal Dutch merchant of Ternate, A. A.
Bruijn — a dealer in virtually every product the Moluccas and Vogelkop
region had to offer, including natural history specimens — Bruijn’s
Brush-turkey arguably was the most sought-after bird species of the entire
New Guinea faunal region. Indeed, it were native collectors in the service
of the ‘King of Ternate’ (as Bruijn was nicknamed during the
height of his entrepreneurship) that stood at the origin of the collection
of likely all but one of a staggering twenty-four historical museum specimens
known from this brush-turkey. However, despite more than fifteen subsequent
ornithological expeditions and reconnaissance visits actively searching
for this megapode, it managed to remain entirely unknown in the living
world during the more than 120 years that elapsed in between its formal
description and its ultimate field discovery on Mt. Nok in May 2002 by
PE resident birder Iwein Mauro.