the quaint little airport in Waingapu, Sumba

Picture taken from my plane of the mangroves at top of picture where I did all my birding one afternoon and morning. The Padadita hotel which is the 3-4 storey building just in the foreground of the mangroves at the top is a useful landmark for your car’s driver….stay there if you can….it was full when I tried so had to stay at Elvin Hotel about 10 min away by car….

Waingapu is known for its little horses called Sandpaper horses….and you will see many of them being walked by their syces…the Padadita Hotel can be seen in the background

the peaceful surrounds of the hotel Padadita

The hotel Padadita is the red dot and the birding area was the beach and mangroves to the left of it

First bird of the afternoon was this Arafura Fantail,…very hard to shoot as it barely stopped

Making my way down to the beach and the river…..

a common Kingfisher zipped up and down the river estuary

and then I spotted another KF skulking amongst the branches….A collared KF or Sacred KF??

another view of the same KF with a buff belly

and then in a flurry of activity this appeared in the late afternoon light

the lovely Broad Billed or Melanesian Flycatcher…habitat stretches from northern Australia to the lesser Sundas

Indonesian Honey Eater in the fading light

Indonesian Honey eater with olive green back

Indonesian Honey Eater

Honey Eater

Setting sun over the mangroves at low tide

630am the next day saw sunrise over the hotel

The Lesueur’s or white shouldered Triller, common in Sulawesi and the Sundas…in the early dawn light

Common Sandpiper in mangroves

The Broad Bill Flycatcher was active and vocal in the morning

the colours of the Broad Billed FC picked up by the morning light

Lesueur’s Triller with breakfast

Broad Bill FC

Black morph Pacific reef egret

and just before i left, I spotted two interestingly coloured swallows on the wire

A most beautifully coloured Striated Swallow!

Striated Swallow

So it was farewell to the mangroves by the sea at Waingapu