Into the mangroves

After much frustration we've finally managed to organise an outing. Jenny and I, Ringisai (another Australian volunteer) and a couple of her friends went with LaeAbout Tours to Labu Lake. We met guide Emma at the jetty at the Lae Yacht Club and headed off in a banana boat to Labu village with Emma's brother Noah and two other chaps, 5 km across the harbour. As required, we had our official life jackets, an epirb, a satellite phone, our personal trackers and fully charged mobiles.

A Little Tern with 2 Common Terns for size comparison.

Common Tern

Common Tern

We cruised around inside the mangroves on Labu Lake for a couple of hours and then headed to Labu village to sample mud crab, shellfish, sago cakes and fresh coconut milk. Then we walked down the beach to the end of the village for a swim. The water was almost bath temperature.



I, of course, was looking for birds the whole way with the occasional "Stop the boat!" gesture to the chap driving. It was not possible to go chasing the many interesting calls coming from the mangroves but I did manage to see some nice birds.

As we were leaving the jetty there was an Osprey perched on top of an old crane and it looked like there may have been a nest there. In the more open water there were small numbers of Common Tern and at least one Little Tern. In the mangroves I had Great and Little Egrets, Pacific Black Duck, Torresian Imperial Pigeons, Pinon's Imperial Pigeon, Brahminy Kite, a distant Gurney's Eagle, Willie Wagtail and Torresian Crow.

Ancient outrigger boat and 21st century mobile phone tower.

Great Egret

Gurney's Eagle


Brahminy Kite

Back at the beach and village I added a Satin Flycatcher and Helmeted Friarbird. On the way back to Lae we passed under a large flock of Lesser Frigatebirds. I estimated about 150 in all. They appeared to have followed in a large fishing boat.

About 40 Lesser Frigatebirds in this shot.

A great day out. The best thing from my point of view was meeting Noah who was our guide in the mangroves. Noah is from Labu village and his people own the mangrove swamp and the mountain behind. This is one of the forest-covered mountains I look out over every day from our house. We have begun negotiating birding trips up into the forest.


I'm hoping to get up into this forested mountain.

In other news we paid our respects to the recently deceased Morobe Governor Luther Wenge. He died a couple of weeks ago in Port Moresby and on Friday he was flown to Morobe on Friday and driven from the airport into Lae through thousands of people lining the highway. Jenny has covered this in her recent blog post.

Work is going well. My survey report has been seen by management and I've sent it out to all the science staff with my recommendations. I've started receiving draft papers to review. I've also distributed lots of self-study books (pdfs) and videos on R, statistics and scientific writing. Once I have my presentation on scientific writing drafted I'll sit a few scientists from here down and run them through it for comments before thinking about how to reach the scientists in the various research stations. I need to find someone who can run a statistics/experiment design course as this is not a skillset I have.

Jenny and I have booked a few days break at Walindi Resort on New Britain for late November. It's one of the places we can fly to direct from the airport here. Most places we would have to go via Port Moresby. From here we can also fly to Rabaul, Madang and Manus Island so good potential for further breaks.

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