Papua New Guineans join BBC Expedition

By Malum Nalu in Papua New Guinea

Over 20 Papua New Guineans are part of a group of 50 scientists, explorers and TV presenters on a BBC expedition to one of Papua New Guinea’s last frontiers, Southern Highlands Province’s Mt Bosavi.

The team, who are part of the world-renown BBC Natural History Unit, are filming a major TV documentary series entitled ‘Expedition New Guinea’ which will be aired in the UK and around the world towards the end of the year.

Daniel Huertas, a British researcher with the group, highlighted the international composition of the expedition team and in particular the pivotal role played by the PNG participants.

“We have a number of PNG scientists and local community members assisting and advising the international team in species recognition and location finding. The project would not be possible without the support and amazing knowledge of our colleagues from Port Moresby, Kiunga, Fogomaiyu, Talisu and Siena Falls,” he said.

British High Commissioner to PNG, David Dunn, welcomed the team to PNG and highlighted that the shooting of such a major documentary series reinforced the special relationship between the BBC Natural History Unit and PNG, which started more than 50 years ago by British broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough.

“Sir David's ‘Zoo Guest’ series, which heralded his entry into wildlife television documentaries and 50 years of broadcasting, brought him to PNG in 1957. That much remembered pioneering series changed the way broadcasters filmed natural history forever and opened the wonders and beauty of the planet and in particular PNG to the world. Although the technology has changed dramatically since those early days the warmth of the welcome and generous support given to the numerous and regular visiting BBC teams by the people of PNG has not. I would like to thank the Government of PNG and all those associated for their continued help, support and collaboration and I look forward to PNG showcasing to the world its amazing beauty and bio-diversity through the Expedition New Guinea programmes,” he added.

Mt Bosavi, a dormant volcano endemically rich in flora and fauna, has been the subject of various studies by international research and conservation groups in recent years.

Mr Huertas said the mountain’s isolation and the enthusiasm of the local communities for their forest to be part of the documentary series made it the first choice for the BBC.

The expedition team’s adventures can be tracked through the BBC Science and Nature News website and a Blog by expedition member and the University of California’s curator and department chair for ornithology and mammalogy, Dr John Dumbacher.

Read more on PNG at the Malum Nalu blog

Tales from the field: New Guinea's secret species

Written by Jonny Keeling, producer, Expedition New Guinea for BBC News

An international team of explorers and scientists is on an expedition to the forbidding jungles of New Guinea. They plan to survey a lost world of volcanoes, caves, mountains and rivers in search of the strangest animals on the planet. They will have to endure one of the toughest jungles on Earth to step where no scientist has set foot before. A successful expedition could result in this unique forest being safeguarded forever.

In this weekly diary, the BBC Natural History Unit crew accompanying the researchers will share their adventures.

MONDAY 02 FEBRUARY
WORLD OF THE WEIRD
New Guinea is the land of the bizarre: kangaroos that climb trees, carnivorous mice and giant rats bigger than domestic cats.

Our first find was a strange one; the smallest parrot in the world. Buff-faced pygmy parrots, no bigger than your thumb, do not eat fruit and nuts but lichen and fungi, and they nest in termite mounds. As I write, our cameraman is in a mosquito-infested hide staking out their nest hole to see if he can glimpse this peculiar petite parrot and record its calls; "pieces of two" rather than "pieces of eight".

The expedition's bird expert has been setting his nets. On day one, he caught the most exquisite king bird of paradise, with crimson feathers, violet-coloured feet and a pair of tail streamers each ending with a perfect emerald disc. Everyone in base camp stopped their work and, for the next hour, the king bird was given paparazzi treatment.

By tracking bats, the team hopes to learn more about the flying mammals

Evening time in base camp and the air is full of bats. They flutter through the dining area feeding on insects drawn to our lights. We've managed to catch one and stick a miniscule transmitter on its back to see if we can track it to its roost in order to learn more about that species. Each animal we find makes us realise just how little is known about the extraordinary creatures of New Guinea. In the coming weeks, we hope to uncover some of those secrets.

Keep up to date with the team at BBC News

Barnaby goes to Bangla: Composing for the Natural World

If you're interested in how composers make the music for wildlife films, take a look at this 10 minute film called Barnaby Goes Bangla on the BBC You Tube site.

It's a short companion film to the latest Natural World called Man-eating Tigers of the Sundarbans about how Barnaby Taylor composed an original and emotional score for the film with Bangladeshi musicians and their traditional instruments.

With funding from BBC Music Publishing and the Natural World, Barnaby was sent out to Dhaka to record the music accompanied by cameraman/editor Steve White.

The Secret Life of Elephants – behind the scenes of the filming.

From BBC Wildlife Magazine

For the new BBC1 series ‘The Secret Life of Elephants’ we’ve revealed the elephant’s hidden world - the depth of their emotions, their remarkable intelligence, and the intimate complexities of their family life. We spent three months in Kenya, filming the elephants and following the work of Iain Douglas-Hamilton and the Save the Elephants research team. We wanted to tell the stories of individual elephants, which meant we spent every hour from dawn till dusk finding and following our stars across the Samburu reserve. We focussed on the most dramatic moments in their lives – a calf from the day of her birth, a bull using tactics to win a mate, a matriarch making decisions to protect her family. We followed the research team on missions across northern Kenya to protect the elephants; we see them helping a community terrorised by crop raiding bulls, uncovering an outbreak of poaching which killed two of their best known elephants, and tracing the new dangers on ancient elephant migration routes.

After weeks of hard work, we were rewarded with astonishing glimpses into the elephant’s lives. But we couldn’t have imagined that we’d become so directly involved in a life or death operation to save a baby elephant’s life.

Our filming team spotted a calf, just a few weeks old, in a pitiful state. She’d badly injured one of her front legs, and was having serious trouble keeping up with her mother. It’s a difficult dilemma – is it better to step in and help, or let nature take its course? But as we’d been finding out, elephants feel emotion deeply. Letting this distressed calf and mother suffer was not an option for the Save the Elephants team.

A wildlife vet was called in – he needed to examine the calf, but there was one literally enormous problem: Her 3 tonne, highly protective mother. To save the calf, her mother had to be anesthetised first. But the huge female started to fall on her chest, sphinx-like, a position where an elephant’s lungs can be compressed by their own body weight. Worse, the calf clung to her side – if she fell over suddenly, the calf would be crushed underneath her.

The team were shouting for help - there weren’t enough people to push over the mother, and hold back the baby. There was no hesitation, all of us on the production team leapt out of our cars and rushed in. Out hearts were pounding as we tried to hold the calf away from her mother – she was amazingly strong – she knocked several people over, and it eventually took five of us to hold her steady. Others wrapped tow ropes from a truck around her mother, and a combination of horsepower and manpower pulled her onto her side so her breathing could stabilise.

The vet examined the calf, and found her leg was badly broken. He felt it would heal, but the risk was slow spreading infection in the bone. The vet gave her a life saving injection of antibiotics, and with relief, we watched as mother and calf were reunited.

The months of working with the Save the Elephants researchers culminated in a true team effort, and we all felt privileged to have played a part in saving that baby elephant.

By Holly Spearing, producer
BBC Wildlife Magazine

From the field: Vogelkop Bowerbird filmed for BBC Life series

From: PapuaExpeditions
Physically speaking the Vogelkop Bowerbird Amblyornis inornatus may be a rather uninspiring 'brown job' but a male's so-called 'roofed maypole' bower — nothing less than the most complex and largest structure known in the avian world — more than makes up for that. Now add to this a frantic obsession to collect colorful or shiny environmental items to decorate this bower, plus a vast array of electronic, almost extra-terrestrial-sounding territorial vocalizations, haphazardly interspersed with convincing mimicry, and a male has everything to impress the ladies as well as make a good bird program. Not just 'any good bird program' if you will. As it turns out, the BBC Natural History Unit back in Bristol (UK) has been staging the making of 'the best bird program ever made': 'Life of Birds'. And wacko bowie is to be its grand final!

From September 3 to October 8, 2008 Papua Expeditions assisted a BBC production team in the remote and trackless Moari area of the Arfak Mountains, situated in the northeastern extremity of the Bird's Head Peninsula in Indonesian New Guinea. PE resident birder Iwein Mauro said: 'The BBC wanted pristine, natural-looking bowers, quite lit(t)erally a world apart from the 'trash-bowers' tended near accessible human settlements where fashionable male bowerbirds nowadays resort to discarded wrapper plastics, fish cans, and battery hulls to aspire to the ladies. Last April a PE exploratory tour into the Moari region disclosed a high density of unspoiled bowers and produced a promising venue for the shoot. However, the site's positioning on a secluded ridge-top at 1,700 m elevation meant prolonged camping under challenging conditions, and that in excess of 800 kg of filming equipment and logistics had to be carried in on foot.'

MEET THE ALFA-MALE! One of two dominant males Vogelkop Bowerbird Amblyornis inornatus that quickly became the focus of our attention, indefatigably working and calling in and around its awe-inspiring roofed maypole bower. Copyright © BBC Natural History Unit and Stephen Lyle.

Two selected dominant bowerbird males with tastefully decorated bowers 80 m apart were on show in and around their respective monuments throughout much of all dry field days. Soliciting females appeared fairly regularly too and a first mating was witnessed on only the fourth morning out. But in order to obtain the ultimate dream-sequence of courting and mating birds — a world first — cameraman Barrie Britton eventually spent nearly 200 hours sequestrated in hides.

In addition to filming the Vogelkop Bowerbird up-close and personal, the BBC-team took the opportunity to film the dawn display of the adult male Black Sicklebill Epimachus fastuosus, and eventually even extended its stay in order to accommodate a last-minute shoot devised for King Bird of Paradise Cicinnurus regius in the adjacent foothills.

Stephen Lyle, Assistant Producer 'Life' said: 'We came out specifically to film vogelkop bowerbirds but were treated to displaying Black Sicklebill and King BOP on top, two cracking species we had secretly hoped rather than expected ever to get to grips with, especially at such short notice without pilot survey.'

The logistically complicated filming expedition generated big dividends for indigenous Hatam and Sougb communities holding customary land rights over the Moari area, with over US$ 5,200 disbursed through local employment opportunities alone. Doubtlessly, a high-profile natural history documentary the caliber of 'Life' will help raise awareness among the channel's vast international audience for the awesome Vogelkop Bowerbird, both as a not-to-be-missed ecotourism experience and a flag-ship species for the conservation of an entire suite of regional Bird's Head endemic birds that almost exclusively depend on healthy sub-montane and montane forests for their long-term survival. Stephen Lyle said: 'We parted with traditional village leaders and landowners in the conviction that local communities essentially are keen on preserving Moari's rich natural heritage, and also are receptive to ecotourism development as an alternative income-generating mechanism to the present often deleterious usage of forest resources.'

Barrie Britton added: 'If only a small fraction of the BBC's massive pool of viewers could trickle through to the Arfak Mountains to see with their own eyes the amazing vogelkop bowerbirds, then the influx of these international tourists would not only bring financial benefits to the local people but would also be a huge incentive for the preservation of these birds and their beautiful forest habitat.'


Additional information
A bower is not a nest but a terrestrial display site. Bowerbirds Ptilonorhynchidae (except the monogamous catbirds Ailuroedus) have a highly complex polygamous mating system whereby males site, construct, maintain, own and defend bowers from where they compete to monopolize copulations, while females in turn also visit multiple bower-tending males in search of 'good genes'. Indeed, good genes are all a female bowerbird could hope for from a mate because males play no role whatsoever in subsequent nesting or parental care.

NO PLAYING HOUSES? Not surprisingly, it took the first natural history collectors to penetrate into the Arfak Mountains a good while to recover from their ascertainment that the roofed maypole bowers of the Vogelkop Bowerbird Amblyornis inornatus indeed were no playing houses made by the indigenous children.

The Vogelkop Bowerbird Amblyornis inornatus inhabits sub-montane and montane forests between 1,000 and 2,000 m elevation in the Arfak, Tamrau, Wandammen, Fakfak and Kumawa ranges of the Bird's Head (or Vogelkop in Dutch) region of western New Guinea. However, only populations in the Arfak, Tamrau and Wandammen mountains construct the formidable roofed maypole bowers. In the Fakfak and Kumawa mountains, males Vogelkop Bowerbird build much simpler maypole bowers similar to those of the geographically separated MacGregor's Bowerbird Amblyornis macgregoriae, which inhabits New Guinea's central dividing mountains and some outlying northern ranges. These large qualitative differences in bower structure in spite, the Vogelkop Bowerbird exhibits only minor morphological and genetic variation throughout its disjunct range. This suggests that the marked changes in bower structure evolved rapidly, and were driven by divergent female choice, consistent with the speciation by sexual selection hypothesis.

Vogelkop Bowerbird is part of a suite of ten so-called Vogelkop endemic birds that are confined to the mountains of the Bird's Head region in eastern Indonesia and occur nowhere else on Earth. The nine other avian Vogelkop endemics are: White-striped Forest-Rail Rallina leucospila, Vogelkop Melidectes Melidectes leucostephes, Western Smoky Honeyeater Melipotes gymnops, Vogelkop Scrubwren Sericornis rufescens, Vogelkop Whistler Pachycephala meyeri, Long-tailed Paradigalla Paradigalla carunculata, Western Parotia Parotia sefilata, Arfak Astrapia Astrapia nigra, and Grey-banded Munia Lonchura vana. Gateway city to the Arfak Mountains is Manokwari, capital of the novel West Papua Province (formerly known as West Irian Jaya Province) and situated on the northeastern tip of the Bird's Head Peninsula. Batavia Air currently operates four flights a week to Manokwari from the Indonesian capital Jakarta, stopping-over at Makassar (Ujung Pandang).

Related links
Read on about the birdlife of the Arfak Mountains.
Read on about our short birding break to the Arfak Mountains.
Read on about our prolonged birding expeditions visiting the Arfak Mountains.