West Papua, Moths and Butterflies

We took an LED travel moth trap with us on this trip and managed to get it out just over half the nights we were on location. Some preliminary identifications on this West Papua I-naturalist moth project HERE (Sue's uploads HERE) 

Update: We had a fews firsts for i-Nat HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE. Update 210226: I've uploaded all my pics to I-Nat now HERE. 

More on West Papua leps HERE.

If I get a chance I'll add some provisional identifications to the photos below but basically some of these are so mind blowing they don't need names to appreciate them. Thanks very much to Roger Payne for identifications of the butterflies. 

Tirumala hamata (Blue Tiger)

Taenaris catops (Silky Owl)

Hesperidae.

Ornithoptera priamus, female (New Guinea Birdwing). This has many subspecies and races.

Nacaduba sp.

Euploea ?alcathoe (Gove or No brand Crow). Many Euploeas are very similar. this one has a huge range extending from NG, the Moluccas to N Australia (Gove Peninsula) 

Cyrestis acilia

Danaus genutia, male, (Orange Tiger)

Cethosia penthesilea (Orange Lacewing)

albinus, a member of the P. fuscus group. I think it maybe this species, but it appears to have lost it's hindwing tail. It was discovered by Alfred Russell Wallace.

Likely a Nacaduba species. A lot of very similar species in this genus found over a vast area.

Parthenos tigrina (New Guinea Clipper)

Parthonos tigrina (New Guinea Clipper)

Another Nacaduba,?

Vagrans egista (Tailed Rustic)

Possibly Eurema species (Pieridae). Not easy with just the underside.

All four above are presumably in the Emperor, Royal, Moon and Giant Silk Moth family (Saturniidae)

Daphnis dohertyi

Lobcraspeda latefascia 

Eumilonia mediofasciata

Pseudarbela sp

What the actual f'@@k! 

Tanorhinus unipuncta

White Looper Moth

Pingasa meeki

Dysaethria sp 

Flatinae sp 

Lappett sp (above and below) 

West Papua, The Sorong to Waigeo Ferry Pelagic

One of the main highlights of the visit to Waigeo Island was the ferry crossing pelagic from Sorong. Ebird lists for the return and outgoing journey HERE and HERE. It's about a two hour journey and there was action all the way from both seabirds and cetaceans. 

Wedge-tailed Shearwater (dark morph). Dark morph is more common in the Southern Pacific and pale morph commonest in North Pacific. This species is largely sedentary in the region with nearby breeding colonies. 

Not experienced at all with Noddies, this looked pretty black in some lights (e.g. above) but browner in others (below). I'm leaning towards Brown Noddy as the bill looks quite heavy and it does look particularly brown below. Any comments most welcome. Howell and Zufelt suggest up to 12 different global Noddy species with 2 Brown, 4 Black, 3 Blue-gray and 3 White Noddy species. In this region the dark Noddy contenders are presumably Common Brown Noddy and Pacific Black Noddy. 

Streaked Shearwater- this species mainly breeds in the Japan region and migrates south in the northern winter so presumably the few birds we saw were early winter migrants

Bulwer's Petrel- we had a lot of these- at least 15 on the return leg

First-summer Sooty Tern (it's Spring in Papua) 

2nd-cycle Red-footed Booby 

First-cycle Red-footed Booby- the pale iris seems to be a variable feature 

Howell and Zufelt suggest 3 species of global Brown Bobbies- Brewster's (off California etc), Atlantic Brown Booby and presumably this one, Indo-Pacific Brown Booby showings it's characteristic cleaner white underwing panel and also perhaps of hint of blue on the face

Juvenile Long-tailed Skua- presumably this year's bird already quite far south. Didn't appreciate how widespread Long-tailed Skuas are but they seem to breed across the entire Arctic region and migrate south to all oceans. 

Pomarine Skua and Streaked Shearwater

Wilson's Petrel- a few of these. What with Streaked Shearwaters and Skuas just arriving after breeding further North and Wedge-tailed Shearwaters resident the Wilson's Petrels were presumably just leaving the region to head to the Antarctic region to breed 

Red-necked Phalaropes- some nice partial summer plumage birds in there too 

Second-cycle Lesser Frigatebird

Not entirely sure what this is, we did see some presumed Long-snouted Spinner Dolphins (actually spinning) so could be one of them. There were good numbers of cetaceans from the ferry, particularly on the return leg with probably 20+ Short-finned Pilot Whales and 50+ Dolphin sp (Bottlenose and Spinners). Update- this is a Bottlenose Dolphin but there could be two species in this region including Indo-Pacific Bottlenose Dolphin (thanks to Sean Minns). 151224 update- a further update on this, the final verdict was that these were Pantropical Spotted Dolphins HERE

Short-finned Pilot Whales

Look like Bottlenose Dolphins (above and below) 

Sources: 

Flood and Fisher 2020, North Atlantic Seabirds, Shearwaters. 

Howell and Zufelt, 2019 Oceanic Birds of the World, A Photo Guide 

West Papua, Waigeo Island

The final leg of this epic trip took us to Waigeo Island via a ferry between Sorong and Waigeo. The ferry is a great pelagic (will post separately on that). Waigeo is a great place to finish a trip to West Papua as the coral reefs, sandy beaches and bays provides a holiday like atmosphere following some very tough lowland rainforest and mountain environments. Ebird trip report with trip lists from Waigeo HERE.

Also the great thing about finishing a West Papua trip here too is that the best birds have been left to last. 

Red Bird-of-Paradise. This is the iconic kind of BOP with streamers and long plumes and plenty of dance moves that I dreamed of seeing one day after various David Attenborough programs from when I was young. The ultimate birds of the planet. 

Wilson's Bird-of-Paradise. Debate broke us in our group of whether top bird of the trip was Wilson's or Red BOP (or even Mountain Owlet-nightjar). I went for Red BOP- totally Glam, iconic BOP in every sense. However I was out voted and the group voted for this rather gaudy looking champion. 

Western Crowned Pigeon- what the actual f@@k! It's like a flying Dodo. It was massive. 

Palm Cockatoo- one mind blowing bird after another - this was a monster too

A highlight of a stay on Waigeo was a boat trip, two hours out to sea to a deserted tropical island (literally like something out of a Survival reality TV show) called Merpati. These Violet-necked Lorys greeted us on arrival. The island also hosted Island Whistler, Pied Imperial Pigeons, Puff-backed Honeyeaters and on the way back we drove past other islands (more forested and mountainous) and saw more Pied Imperial Pigeons, Spice Imperial Pigeons and Torresian Crow. 

Pied Imperial Pigeons

Spice Imperial Pigeon

Dusky Scrubfowl- apparently not an easy one to see or photograph. We also came across the amazing communal nests of this species, huge mounds of earth in which they lay eggs collectively in a self heating incubator like structure

Grey-tailed Tattler- finally got to see one of these iconic waders. Would still love to find a vagrant one. 

The tide was high when we arrived at Merpati Island so it was a wet walk round

On the way back from Merpati we stopped offshore Bat Island to watch the Black Flying Foxes leaving the day roost in their thousands