Birds of Paradise

Nadya and I sit alone in the dark. We're in a leafy hide, faces pressed to 'portholes' punched in the side. Our view is of a clearing and of a pandanus cone balanced on a tripod of sticks. It is a massive fruit, bright red and phallic, twice the length and girth of an English cucumber. Our quarry is 19cm long with a lumped brown head, green belly, yellow back and wings, and blue legs. Jutting from its rear are two wires resembling coiled springs. This is the male Magnificent Bird of Paradise, and, according to Pratt and Beehler, it utters "a rapid rolling series of -8 loud, downslurred churr notes, growing louder and more insistent" (Birds of New Guinea).

We have been in New Guinea a month now, choosing to discover Keptang Burung, the Bird's Head peninsula, at the extreme western end (of the Indonesian half) first. One of our motives for visiting Papua was to behold the unique and quixotic Birds of Paradise, of which Pratt and Beehler list twenty-nine. Their appeal is not simply their extraordinary plumage, their antennae and wires, their unearthly cries, but their capacity to shape-shift (become more than simply a bird) in their courtship displays (relevant only to males).

A Black-eared Catbird, larger than our quarry and with a bright green back and pied head, visits the fruit first, then the heavily striated brown and white Eastern Koel. Next to feed are the female Magnificents, drab, thrush-like birds with blue eye-flashes and legs. A flash of yellow, and the male joins his potential mates in the clearing. Filled, it would seem, with a sense of occasion, he settles on a low branch, swallows his head, puffs out his green chest, and vibrates. He now resembles a green box. The females look on, suitably impressed. But there is more. He morphs out of box-being, tosses his head forward, and splays a yellow fan from behind his head. His tail coils quiver. His body is now stretched out and seems longer than 19cm. The females draw closer, and he contracts his body and returns to bird form. He churrs loudly and then says, "Kyerng!"

A friend in Canada said we'd be lucky to see Birds of Paradise perform courtship dances. Today, we are witnessing one ten metres away. We are in the Arfac Mountains, west of Manokwari (back of the Bird's Head), encountering members of this eclectic, rare family for the second time. Earlier in the month, we were in the Raja Ampat islands, chunks of land fragmenting from the bill of Keptang Burung, on a similar mission: up at 5am and trekking through the jungle to see Red and Wilson's Birds of Paradise. The Red male has a green face, yellow shoulders, "curved red flank plumes, and a pair of prominent, long, curling, black tail streamers." To impress the ladies, he inverts himself, fans his wings, and shakes like a tribal dance mask.

These are birds you do not see unless you have a guide. Ours in the Arfac Mountains is Hans Mandacan, a diminutive Papuan with tightly coiled hair and a machete, belonging to the Hatam tribe.

"Come my village," he exclaimed when we met in our Manokwari hotel, "and you see Western Parotia, Vogelkop Bowerbird, Black Sicklebill, and Magnificent Bird of Paradise!"

We didn't need much convincing. Anything to be away from the boiling streets of Manokwari, the capital of West Papua, with its open sewers, mounds of trash, buzzing motorbikes, and open fires. The air quality was terrible. And we were destined to see much more than a bird that turned itself into a shimmering green box. There were floppy tithonus butterflies the size of my hand, their abdomens striped like a hornet's; a tri-horned Hercules beetle; an abandoned ants' nest, resembling a sliced-open brain; and orchids cascading from tall branches. We would learn something of Arfac ways: how they trim prickly pandanus leaves and weave them together to make roofs, yank down lianas to use as twine, and cook chicken in a bark oven. The region is a protected area, the villagers agreeing not to shoot Birds of Paradise (to to use the feathers to decorate their headdresses) or litter in exchange for a tourist contribution (50,000 rupiah per person, per day, or 5 Canadian dollars).

Tony