A Year in Papua New Guinea

The forest behind our village has nearly disappeared under the clouds. Since Christmas there has been little rain - just enough to keep things looking green but nothing like the rain we had back when we first arrived. Things began to change a month or so ago however with storms most evenings and the occasional rainy night. Last Monday the wind changed the clouds rolled in and it was actually, almost chilly. Since then it has hardly stopped raining. This is welcome but brings with it some problems. Infrastructure is strained, landslips become a risk and the cooler weather increases the number of fires that people have and increases the number of burns victims presenting at the public hospital in town (according to fellow volunteer Laura who is a nurse in the emergency department there). Our normal view out over the mountains to our south. The same view on Saturday morning. As a birder I know that such a change in season triggers movement by many bird species. We are surrounded by mounta...

Early morning looking south from Loloata Island. Our TCL TV was getting progressively darker - first a strip down the left hand side then regular blanking out and finally a dark strip down the right side as well. I searched online for the manual and ChatGPT eventually told me that the TV was ancient and that I should be embarrassed. I didn't tell it how old my TV is at home. Anyway we came home one evening and there was a shiny new Samsung (a bit smaller but you can't have everything). Thank-you HBS Village! Next job is to get the bedroom aircon fixed. Our ancient, dying TV. We have just had the Easter break in Port Moresby - two nights in town and two at Loloata Island Resort. Unusually for us we do not have to put in a travel insurance claim as all plans worked just fine. On Saturday we went up to Varirata National Park for a day's birding with legendary local guide Daniel Wakra. I've been there before. In 1994 I went on a PNG Bird tour with Rockjumper Birding and we ...

When preparing to come to Lae last year I kept an eye on the weather app and it looked like there is no well-defined wet/dry seasonality here. It turns out that that is true of Lae on the coast but the further inland you go the more defined the seasons are. We are at 11 Mile on the Highlands Highway - 13 km as the Torresian Crow flies from the coast. We have definitely been in a dry phase since December but it should be reverting about now. Jenny is sad as the swimming pool here has been closed for a couple of weeks because the water supply to keep it fresh is too low. Every night lately we get thunderstorms building up and usually some rain but not enough yet. It will be interesting to see what happens to bird and insect life once the wet comes properly. Monthly average rainfall (mm) at Lae. We have had very little rainfall at 11 Mile since December. An exciting week at work as we received the first submissions to the PNG Journal of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries since it went do...

Sunday 15th February we went for a walk with a group of expats and locals up the forested hill behind our village. The highlight of the afternoon was actually walking out our gate and into the world outside our electric fence. It felt like we had been liberated. It was a blazing hot afternoon and people fell away as we climbed higher - why would you not bring water? We walked through village gardens and greeted lots of our neighbours. I added a couple of Red-cheeked Parrot near the top of the hill and then a Brown Falcon near the heliport on the way back down. We agreed to do it again soon one morning - before it gets too hot. A nice view over the valley from the hill behind our village (Jenny's photo). At work my focus has turned to the two journals which are now open for submissions. Jenny and a colleague here have put together a story for the Harvest journal on Black Soldier Fly larvae for getting rid of plant waste and producing fertiliser and food for livestock in return. We h...