Gilbert White's Ghost: Wanna see a BoP? Part five

The far west of PNG beckoned and, amazingly, our flights back to Port Moresby and out to Kiunga were both pretty much on time. From Kiunga we had a two hour drive to the mining town of Tabubil. A friend who had been there wrote in his trip report something along the lines of 'get me out of this god-forsaken shit hole' so perhaps my judgement was somewhat coloured before I arrived but neither the town nor the hotel did little to change my mind. The service in the hotel restaurant was the worst I've experienced anywhere in the world and on one evening my meal just never arrived. One hotel notice did provide entertainment though.

The area did produce a number of really good birds including Salvadori's Teal and Papuan Eagle although neither showed for long enough to allow photography. It seemed that most of the birds that we were going to see showed on the first day and I'd have happily not stayed on any longer. The weather wasn't helping much either.

The insect life in the area provided many of the highlights.

There were several different species of these tortoise beetles (or helicopter beetle) as some called them, and an entomologist in our group took a few specimens to send to a world expert in this group.

Jumping spider

Hawk-moth

Praying Mantis stalking skipper butterfly

My only cockroach sighting of the trip was in our bathroom at the hotel in Tabubil but by the time I'd called my brother to come and see it, it was an ex-cockroach.

During our time in this part of PNG we were followed around by a group of birders from (I think) Taiwan. Their attire was sufficiently entertaining that I couldn't resist.

Their behaviour in leaving all their rubbish behind at the Greater BoP lek was somewhat less entertaining and I was sorely tempted to tell them exactly what I thought of them. Thankfully our group removed the rubbish.

Not before time, we left Tabubil and returned to Kiunga where the main attraction was a site poetically called Kilometre 17. This is the site where David Attenborough was hauled up into the canopy to see the Greater BoP's lek. But before we got to that there were some more good insects to see.