Abstract
Introduction: For those working with wild birds, the connection to nature is inescapable. For me, the relationship between the birds I work with and their habitats in often distant, exotic and wild places has always been a source of imagination and daydreaming. In order to better understand the birds we keep, I think it is important to understand where they come from
The fascination with exotic places and wild birds is something I share with my employer, however he is less inclined to travel to difficult places and in his own words walk though wet forest for hours just to see a glimpse of a birdITThat is how I found myself in the position to liveout his as well as my own ambitions to go to New Guinea and look for the King of Saxony Bird of Paradise in the wild. He did elaborate though, that if I would return alive, he would consider doing the same travel himself!
Al Wabra Wildlife Preservation (AWWP) is a private institution owned by HE Sheikh Saoud Bin Mohammad bin Ali Al-Thani and it is located in the small state of Qatar, on the Arabian Peninsula. AWWP has a large state-ofthe-art breeding center for selected bird and mammal species and is focusing on conservation breeding. The center is also involved with in-situ conservation projects worldwide. There has been ongoing breeding success with birds of paradise since 2002 and bowerbirds since 2003. More recently the AWWP has focused on blue macaws from Brazil, but that is another story.
The Papua New Guinea (PNG) trip was set for August 2003. The purpose was first of all to see if it would be possible to travel comfortably and safely to the New Guinean highlands and observe both the blue and the King of Saxony Bird of Paradise in the wild. Secondly it was my aim to investigate the needs of in-situ conservation projects involving birds of paradise and bowerbirds and finally to learn as much as possible about the places where these birds live in the wild.
To do things right it was important to get the best advice and guidance for the trip. This was achieved in abundance when Clifford Frith, the author of the acclaimed book IDhe Birds of Paradise[]rom Oxford University Press, agreed to go to New Guinea with me. Cliff has been observing, photographing and banding birds of paradise and bowerbirds in the Southern Highlands of PNG together with his wife Dawn for decades. I could not have wished for a better guide to this magical world. Cliff and Dawn work as freelance scientific authors and photographers and occasionally guide birding tours. They have both since become very good friends and have visited Al Wabra to observe and study the birds of paradise and bowerbirds kept at the breeding center
Cairns and Atherton Tablelands, Australia:
The trip started in Australia where I arrived at Cairns Airport in tropical Queensland. It was mid-afternoon and I immediately rented a car and headed north. After almost 24 hours of flight-travel and out of the deserts of Qatar for the first time in several months I was awestruck by classic Australian bush land on one side of the road and a beautiful beach on the other, it certainly did not make it easier to keep the head straight and stay in the right[] mean left side of the road.
By late afternoon I had arrived at the Port Douglas Rainforest Habitat, which was straightforward to find, and I was welcomed by about a hundred Rainbow Lorikeets sweeping over the parking lot. This Zoological facility boosts a large walk-through aviary and mainly keeps birds but also some marsupials and reptiles. Since I arrived relatively late in the day I had to rush through but still I was able to observe Green Catbird, Satin Bowerbird, Regent Bowerbird and Great Bowerbird in the walk-through aviary. The aviary complex incorporates a number of different simulated habitats including a nice wetlands area where I also found a nesting pair of Black-necked Storks, a species that has the reputation of being nearly impossible to breed in captivity. This was certainly news for the large chick in the nest at Port Douglas, carefree and begging for food from its busy parents. A Thai zoo actually claimed the world's first breeding for this species in 2004, about a year after I saw the chick in Port Douglas, something that this particular pair of laid back ~ussiecstorks never challenged but just continued to breed at their own pace.