Ciblek Mania

Before we launch into the Papua New Guinea birding trip posts in earnest, I feel it might be helpful to introduce you to the folks on the trip—six Brits, one Canadian, and one American. Above is a shot I took of our group eating lunch in Tabubil. So here, in brief, are my fellow travelers:

The trip's organizer was Tim Appleton, MBE, one of the co-founders of the world's largest birding event The British Birdwatching Fair held annually at the Rutland Water Preserve in England. Tim has more stamps on his passport than the post office has for sale. And he's a jolly good fellow, despite having the initials MBE following his name (bestowed upon him for his good deeds in conservation by the Queen). We were required by the laws of the Commonwealth to refer to Tim as "His Lordship" during the trip.


Author, reformed twitcher, and world-class conversationalist Mark Cocker is perhaps best known for his many popular books on birds and nature, including Crow Country, Birds Britannica, and one of my favorites Birders: Tales of a Tribe. His new project is called Birds and People, which he's currently researching and writing. Mark saw it as his duty to interview nearly everyone we met, usually starting with the question: "Do you know anyone who does not chew betel nut?"


Ray Tipper is a talented bird photographer and a tour leader for Avian Adventures. He lives in Portugal, but lived for many years in Hong Kong. His deep knowledge of Asian bird life—especially shorebirds—makes him a valuable travel companion. Even more endearing is Ray's willingness to laugh at all of my silly jokes.


Matt Merritt is the features editor at Bird Watching magazine in the UK. He is a quiet fellow, and a deep thinker (the smoke in the above photo is actually being generated by Matt's mind). Matt maintains the Polyolbion blog, which is always interesting and readable. He is also a fine poet —you can read some of his work here.


Chris Collins was perhaps the birder on our trip with the most actual experience in the Central Pacific. He has led many extensive pelagic trips for WildWings. Chris came loaded with audio gear and bird song recordings, which netted us quite a few species we might otherwise have missed. He also single-handedly supported local artisans by buying their fine works of art.


Gavin Bieber (secretly Canadian) was the only other North American on the trip, which was great because he and I had no language barrier to overcome. Gavin leads birding tours for WINGS, and though he'd never been to PNG, he'd done so much homework in preparation for this trip that he knew more than any of us about PNG's birdlife.


Barry Trevis leads tours for Ramblers Worldwide Holidays. He's traveled extensively both as a guide and just for the heck of it, and he has the stories to prove it. At one point, when the birding was slow, Barry and I started quoting lines from our favorite movies. His imitations of Bruce Lee were totally hilarious. "Ahh, Mr. Braithwaite! Some tea?"


That's me (Bill of the Birds) with the gang, birding on the mountainside at Nick's Place on New Britain. Photo by Tim Appleton.

And that's the band of birders that participated in the fam trip to Papua New Guinea from September 24 to October 12, 2010.

Last March I went on a birding trip to The Philippines, about which I wrote a few posts here on Bill of the Birds. I saw many amazing birds there and made a whole passel of new friends. One of my new friends is Lisa Marie Paguntalan, who is leading a team that is working to save the critically endangered Cebu flowerpecker. I interviewed Lisa for episode 21 of "This Birding Life" my podcast, and people all over the world got to hear her incredible story.
I also got to know some fabulous Filipino birders, like Nicky Icarangal, Ivan Sarenas, Mike Lu, and Adrian Constantino. A nice side benefit was meeting many British bird tour leaders and birders also along on the trip. One of these Brits was Tim Appleton, co-creator of the Bird Fair.

When I realized that most of these fine folks would be at the British Birdwatching Fair, things had reached the tipping point. I HAD to go across the pond for this mammoth birding event held each August.


Because the theme of this year's Bird Fair was Saving Critically Endangered Species, and because the Philippines is trying to encourage ecotourism to their country as a way to save habitat and grow their economy, it was only natural that this Asian nation of islands would have a strong presence at the Bird Fair. Not only did the Philippines have a large, striking booth, and sponsored signage all over the place, they also brought a live band from home to entertain fair attendees. Throughout the weekend, the band played their traditional instruments—many of which resembled marimbas—on a variety of traditional Filipino songs and modern pop tunes. During one three song segment, they played, in a row, "Yellow Submarine" by the Beatles, "In the Mood" by the Glenn Miller Orchestra, and "The Macarena".


Not only did the band play well, they had unusual instruments (see the bamboo pan flutes above) AND intricate choreography. Needless to say it was all really cool.

Most of the folks who were working the Philippines tourism booth at the Bird Fair were kind enough to pose for a photo with me (above). I'm the fifth person from the right.

I'll leave you with a short video clip of the Filipino band, and one small dancing fan.

When you arrive at the British Birdwatching Fair, which is as close to a Woodstock for Birders as anything in the world, you are directed into one of several car parks. These fill up quickly, as shown above, just an hour after the gates opened on Friday. Two things amazed me about the car parks at the BirdFair (as it's called for short): One, I couldn't believe how MANY people attend this annual event—more than 25,000 this year! Two: I was astounded that all of these people know how to drive safely on THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD!


Just outside the entrance gates, the seed trucks stand by, sides splitting with tons (or tonnes) of seed waiting to be loaded into cars. You can buy your seed inside at one of the seed-selling booths (or stalls), take your receipt out to the seed truck and the jolly seedman will load your purchase into your car.

Once inside the gates, you notice many large white tents (called marquees). Inside, the marquees are teeming with people, like a beehive of bird watchers.

Among the special offerings at the Bird Fair is a quiz-show-style competition called Bird Brain, where some of the UK's leading birders and personalities compete up on stage, like a game show. The Bird Brain tent was filled to capacity for each round.

Over along the water that gives Rutland Water its name is the Optics Marquee, home to displays of the worlds leading binoculars and spotting scopes for birders. This marquee has grown over the years, and spawned some babies: a special marquee for retailers, and another for cameras and digiscoping gear.

Seeing all the new optics was enjoyable, but my favorite thing was getting my Zeiss 8x Victories cleaned by an expert optics technician. These two guys sat there all weekend cleaning Zeiss after Zeiss, inside and out. They did things to binoculars that made me feel light-headed—like taking out the lenses and swabbing out the optical tubes. And they did this while people waited!


I'm thinking that the cleaning did me some good because just two days later I spotted a fairly rare bird—one that got the local rarity hotline jumping. More on that in a future post.

Across the central path from the main marquees is the food court, where everyone ends up sooner or later. In fact, each time I wanted to try to find someone in particular, I went to the food and beverage area and looked around. I usually found them or they found me. And if not, I just waited, like a spider waits for a fly, and before long, here came my friend or colleague.

Over at the food court you could buy a wide variety of food and foodlike things. Shown above is the Traditional English Breakfast: Fried egg, fried whole tomato, fried sausage, fried mushrooms, fried pieces of country-cured bacon, and baked beans (unfried). Next to it is a cup of coffee-like liquid used to wash down the Traditional English Breakfast. I found that this worked better for me than Traditional English Breakfast Tea.

Tomorrow: visiting the Philippines in England.

The first few birds are painted in on the mural.

And then a few more artists add their contributions.

And a few more....


Soon the mural begins to look like a more complete work.


Chris Rose working on his grebe for the mural, mixing colors, adding shadows on the water.

Darren Rees added a peregrine falcon zooming upward over the scene.

It's a nice diversion from the Bird Fair to watch the artists create birds on the mural. At times there are three or four birds being painted by as many artists. The mural is just one of many things that make this event so interesting, successful, and world famous.

I have been in England for a few days, attending the British Birdwatching Fair at Rutland Water. This is the largest event for bird people in the world. There are a half-dozen giant tents filled to bursting with booths (called stands or stalls here) selling and promoting everything a birder could want: clothing, optics, gear, technology, travel info, books, artwork, memberships, feeders, seed, you get the idea.


My favorite part of Bird Fair is seeing my friends from all over the world. Sometimes I get to introduce people that I know to one another—people that otherwise may never have met. Yesterday afternoon I got to introduce several of my friends from the Philippines to my friend Ana Cristina from Guatemala. What an interesting conversation to listen to between Ana and Nicky, two people from opposite sides of the globe, trying to spread the word about the birding opportunities in their countries. They compared notes, told stories, and shared a lot of laughs.

Oh, and we had a beer in the beer tent.