More Birds and More King of Saxony!

Scanning the forest for signs of bird life.

After birding along the Highlands Highway on that morning of King of Saxony magic, we drove down the dusty road to some land owned by the clan of our guide, Benson. He had cut some forest trails that ambled along to good vantage points for some other avian specialties.

Driving the Highlands Highway in our combi bus. Note the Obama sticker on the windshield!

We saw birds with truly weird names: yellow-browed melidectes, Belford's melidectes, rufescent imperial pigeon, Papuan mountain pigeon, Papuan lorikeet, canary flycatcher, rufous-naped whistler, regent whistler, Whistler's mother, blue-capped ifrita, crested berrypecker, lesser melampitta, mountain firetail, red-collared myzomela (some confusion over its pronunciation: myZOMela or MYzoMELa) and three small, active birds (the names of which sound like a game of "One of These Things is NOT Like the Others") friendly fantail, Willie wagtail, and dimorphic fantail. And, I must confess we didn't actually see Whistler's mother.

Mountain firetail.

Perhaps my favorite bird name of the day was certainly descriptive of the species, but even more, it sounded like the name of a sexy villainess in a James Bond movie from the 1970s: smoky honeyeater.

All of these birds were very nice. Some offered themselves generously for observation. Many did not. What did stand out, however, was another session with a wonderfully cooperative (or oblivious) King of Saxony bird-of-paradise. This one was singing and waving his ostentatious plumes from just inside the forest canopy. Here's a little clip of the late morning antics of yet another King Sexy bird-of-paradise. I apologize for all the camera sound in the background. It was a narrow trail with a small viewing window to the bird, so we were all clustered together trying to capture our images.

This day was only partly over, and we'd already had an embarrassment of feathered riches. We did not know it then, but the day had one final bird-of-paradise sighting in store for us.

King of Saxony Bird-of-Paradise!

Male King of Saxony bird-of-paradise displaying.

We left things hanging earlier this week when I described getting my first look at a King of Saxony bird-of-paradise. I would have been back with the goods sooner but my trusty Mac laptop needed a brain transplant in the interim. But we're back now! And one of us has a new brain!

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Somehow the gods were smiling on us that morning—perhaps to make up for the long journey we'd had the day before and the cold, rainy, late-afternoon arrival at our first bit of decent bird habitat. Now, standing along the Highlands Highway, with a singing male King of Saxony bird-of-paradise in front of us, we might not have imagined things could get any better. And then the sun came up behind us, illuminating the scene in a wash of golden color, burning off just enough of the morning mist so we could get sparklingly clear looks at this amazing beast before us.

He waved his head plumes back and forth, uttering the occasional song. We stood gob-smacked for a spell, and then came to life as we realized we had a chance to capture images of this aparition.


Imagine a large black, yellow, and white roundish bird with giant, spidery, iridescent feathers coming (seemingly) out of its ears. I struggled to find words to describe the head plumes. They were like pheasant tail feathers in length, but their bright metallic blue spots made them look like something from a Lady Gaga video.


One of our group asked "What King of Saxony was this bird named for?" I did not hear the answer ( it turns out it was Albert King of Saxony, whose full name was Frederick Augustus Albert Anton Ferdinand Joseph Karl Maria Baptist Nepomuk Wilhelm Xaver Georg Fidelis—a name as long as the head plumes of the bird that bears his moniker.) I guess we're lucky they did not pick one of his other names for this magnificent species. Nepomuk bird-of-paradise does not really cut it.

I thought of something different to myself, and apparently spoke this out loud: "They should just call it the King Sexy bird-of-paradise!" On this point we all concurred.

Here is the video I shot via my digiscoping rig. I apologize in advance for the background sounds of me struggling to pull another camera out of my waist pack. The King Sexy had me all shook up.