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In the bush finally and another training program delivered

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Sulphur-crested Cockatoos in PNG are mainly forest birds. We finally got into the bush! LaeAbout Tours sourced a vehicle and picked Jenny and me up (not quite as early as we would have liked) and off we went across the mighty Markham River to the village of Pile (pronounced 'peelay'). These are Labu people and own all the land between the river and the coast including some of the forested mountains we look at every day. Emma and her brother Noah are also Labu people so access was assured. We drove through the lowlands for a while then stopped and walked back along the road and up towards the Pele Waterfalls - 9 km in all. We didn't make the falls but enjoyed the walk through forest and village gardens with some good birds and lots of butterflies, dragonflies etc. Some interesting plant life as well. Although we were a good hour late starting the walk the bird activity was quite good for a while. In the late morning however all activity had ceased and I saw few birds for the...
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You win some - you lose some

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We’ve had a busy two weeks. At work I ran a training program over two days for staff on Spreadsheet Basics. I ended up with 11 participants and will probably run it again soon as there were others who expressed interest. It went really well.  The trouble with designing a training program is that until you have delivered it once you don’t know how long it will take or whether you have the content right. I asked Chat GPT to design me a 10 lesson basics course and it did a great job. I modified it a bit but probably 70% of the content and exercises were designed by AI. Jenny and I worked through the course several times to fine-tune it. The end result worked well. I had allocated two 3-hour sessions and the course fitted this well with a few exercises now moved to homework. The participants were at different levels so when some had finished a lesson they helped others. Jenny was my excellent assistant. I actually learned a few spreadsheet things in developing the training. So far I’v...
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Back in harness for 2026 after a Sunshine Coast holiday.

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Dec 21st saw us jetting off to the big island to our south. We arrived at Brisbane Airport, picked up a rental BYD Atto 3 EV and took the M1 up to Wurtulla on the Sunshine Coast. We had rented a nice house for the next two weeks in a quiet street adjacent to Currimundi Lake. After a couple of days on our own we were joined by Liz and Sophie, David and Toby on Christmas Day. The boys stayed a few days and the girls a week. We didn't do a lot as we were all tired at the end of the year but it was great to be together for the first time in quite a while.  Jenny, David and Liz chilling. Osprey Mistletoebird Red-backed Fairywren Little Corella The lack of daylight saving in Qld meant that the sun was up just before 0500 every morning and I took my coffee out the front to watch a great variety of birds along the lakeside park. A short walk towards the coast took us to Currimundi Lake Conservation Park - a small reserve of mostly coastal heathland. I popped in there most days and always a...
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International Volunteers Day and my first training session

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Friday 5th December was International Volunteers Day when the Australian Volunteers Program likes to showcase its activities around the globe. Jenny and I and NARI were asked to run an activity to represent the Lae volunteers this year so we came up with a program combining a few inspirational speeches, some group activities, a quiz and a free lunch. We attracted about 40 staff and others and I think it all went rather well. The speeches were (mostly) short, the activities were enthusiastically embraced, my quiz was a hit (especially the Rugby League questions) and the lunch prepared by the NARI hostel women was superb. Setting up - will anyone come? Dr Komolong launching proceedings. Volunteers Sam and Juliet writing inspirational messages on bunting. The quiz went well. Volunteer Duncan and Consul-General Brenton designing a poster. Following my survey of science staff members back in September I have been working on two training packages on scientific writing. These combined a coupl...
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A few days' holiday on West New Britain

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View across Stetin Bay from Walindi towards Mount Mululus, a dormant volcano. Check out New Britain on a map. It is divided into two provinces - East and West New Britain. We flew to Hoskins Airport on the western side and were picked up and driven to Walindi Dive Resort an hour to the west. The resort, as the name suggests, caters mainly to scuba divers but has become a popular spot for international birders as an add-on to the traditional PNG tour. There is a number of endemic birds on New Britain and I, of course, wanted to see all of them. Willie Wagtail in the rain. Black-capped Paradise Kingfisher Black Bittern So we arrived on Saturday late morning and were soon settled into our bungalow with views out over the ocean to distant volcanoes. This is one of the nicest lodges we have stayed in with lush gardens full of butterflies and birds, a great lounging area, a rec room, bar and a small pool. Excellent, friendly staff as well. We met lots of people who were here for the diving....
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