The Tale of the Papuan (Blyth's) Hornbill

I have added eight birds to my List between 27 February and 7 March. I am not going to write about them in chronological order. I will instead begin with the tale of the last Lifer of those ten days. Truly the greatest mega-rarity ever to be seen in Australia, Blyth’s Hornbill (Papuan Hornbill) on Dauan Island. The bird has been nicknamed ‘Randy’ by Joe, the owner of the boat, Tropic Paradise where we lived for a week. Randy was a first for Australia and at this writing has only been seen by 33 people (other than possibly being noticed by some residents of Dauan which has a population of 131). 

How I got there, what it was like living on a wonderful boat with some lovely people for a week, the other awesome birds we saw and much more will be told in other posts over the coming days. I will write them first on FB and then rewrite them for this blog. 

The Tale of the Papuan Hornbill 

Blyth’s Hornbill, also known as the Papuan Hornbill, was named for Edward Blyth an English Zoologist based predominately in India. I know very little about him except that he had a most excellent beard. I googled him of course.

   

Edward Blyth and beard

On 22 February my friend, Alison Nisbett posted a photo on the Australian Twitchers FB group with the caption: AUSTRALIA'S FIRST HORNBILL BLYTH’S HORNBILL photographed on Dauan Island (Qld) in the Northern Torres Strait.

Alison was on the first of Richard Baxter’s, Birding Tours Australia’s three Torres Straits trips of 2024. I was going on the third one. When I read Alison’s post my, as well as the majority of all Australian twitcher’s, head metaphorically and almost literally, exploded. This was the bird of a lifetime. This was a twitcher’s dream bird. Could it possibly still be there two weeks later? I dared not even dream that it would. No, I tell a lie. I did dream, hope, pray, wish and think about it still being around and being able to see it for myself. Oh yes I did and yes it was.

A quick note on Richard Baxter. I consider Richard a genuine friend as well as my birding hero. I have complete confidence in his knowledge and the utmost respect for his birding abilities. Richard has seen more birds in Australia than any other birder. His list is currently up to about 915. Only he and the late, great Mike Carter (who I truly liked as a person as well as a birder) have seen over 900 species in Australia. I do hope to get to 800 one day. We will see. I am working toward it.

  

The man himself, Richard Baxter

On 7 March I was living with nine other birders on the Tropic Paradise powered catamaran in air conditioned comfort and eating like a Hobbit (more about the food and our excellent chef, KB in later posts). We had visited Boigu Island before sailing over to the very small island of Dauan where Richard had made the arrangements for us to go ashore. There is a per-day fee paid to the Dauan Council and visits are not easily arranged. We landed there twice, once in the arvo of the 7th and then again on the morning of the 8th. 

When we arrived that first afternoon the excitement amongst our little group was palpable. You could taste the anticipation. If you have ever truly been as excited and hopeful as I was then you know that feeling. It fills all of your senses and yes, you can actually taste it. 

These boulders are the northern most end of the Australian Great Dividing Range. The southern most end are the Grampians in Victoria.

We signed-in at the council office and then walked the kilometre or so to the sports oval by the mountain ridge line. There were aluminium bleachers and we turned one to face the mountain. In about ten minutes time, at 3:44pm (God bless photo time stamps) a large, broad-winged, uniquely shaped bird flew up above the ridge for a few seconds. Everyone saw it. Everyone knew it. Everyone had beheld the Papuan Hornbill. 

    

Randy was in the building! We saw him many times over the next few hours. He would rise up from the other side of the ridge, fly around for a few moments and then once again, disappear behind the mountain. It was joy, massive, heart filling, joy! Lifer high reigned. We were all geeking out over this bird. We stayed there until dusk before beginning our walk back to the jetty and boat ramp where we would be picked up.

On that walk back, an almost magical thing happened. As we floated along on the broad, Hornbill wings of Lifer High we began to hear rock music. Distantly at first and then louder. It was the Bruce Springsteen song, “Blinded by the Light”. I love that song. This was Manfred Mann’s cover. As we got closer it got louder. Some Dauan islander was playing it through large speakers on his porch. It was a perfect song to hear at that time. Yes, we rocked, both literally and figuratively. “Revved up like a deuce another runner in the night.” 

    

The "Blinded by the Light' road. About 100 metres further along that song was ringing out from speakers on a local's front porch. I will never forget it. What a glorious day!

Back on the boat we had (as always) an excellent dinner and we toasted Randy. Richard had purchased some delicious Little Creatures non-alcoholic beers which he shared with me. I am having one now as I write these words. And it is in an Eclipse FNQ Charter’s stubby-holder (the Eclipse was the charter boat that was replaced with the Tropic Paradise).

Toasting Randy

The next morning we left on the Zodiac at our usual 5:30am and went ashore on Dauan. It was a wet landing since it was a low tide. I was wearing my gum boots but in one spot the water went just over the top of them and soaked my double socks. When we got to the sports oval, I took them off in an attempt to let them dry.

At 6:52am Randy made his first appearance of the day. And then at 7:03 he flew down and perched on our side of the ridge. Still far from us, but now we could have excellent scope views. I asked James to try and get a digiscoped photo through my scope. Using my old iPhone 8, he was able to get some recording shots. One of those has replaced the photo of a Whale Shark and me that had been my lock-screen wallpaper since January of 2019. I know a few other birders have gotten better shots, but these were through my scope on my phone. Thank you James my buddy, for getting these photos. I suck at digiscoping.

    

So we had done it. We had beheld the Papuan Hornbill, Rhyticeros plicatus, a first for Australia and even a new family of bird for Oz. The mega of all mega-rarities that has ever been seen in Oz. Thank you Richard Baxter and all involved. Truly a bird of a lifetime.

 

There will be ink!

And as of 27 March, there was ink.

Sending love as I do ❤️