New entry
Mick Greene, Kentucky - USA 
wrote at 12/2/02, 12:00 AM:
Nurlin, I just want to say we all enjoyed our trip with you. You did a great job. Thanks a lot. When you get a chance, give me a rough estimate of a Bali, Sumba, Flores, and Timor trip.
Calvin Hill, California - USA
wrote at 12/2/02, 12:00 AM:
Hi Nurlin,
Thank you so much for an excellent birding trip. You took excellent care of us, just as John Shrader told me that you would. The flights home were long but all went well. The ANA flight from Jakarta to Tokyo was in a brand new jet that was very nice. The fun of the trip helped me survive the 146 hour shift at the hospital that I finished this morning.
On this trip I recorded 180 new birds, 127 of them endemics. According to Clements, Indonesia has 287 endemics so I still have 160 more to see. At least 2 more trips to Indonesia will be needed to make a dent in the total of what is left.
For me the high points of the trip were the Wallace's Standardwing Bird-of-Paradise at the lek, the Eclectus Parrot, the White Cockatoo and all those kingfishers.
I certainly hope that I will have the pleasure of birding with you again.
Frank Clayton, California - USA
wrote at 12/2/02, 12:00 AM:
Hi Nurlin,
The rest of my trip. I spent two nights on the beach with Goda. A few scrubfowl were there, but he wasn't able to find them staying still for me. So he led me on a walk early the second morning through the edge of the mangroves on the beach and I at least got to hear the Moluccanscrubfowl.
Early the first morning there I walked north along the beach to the river mouth about 2 km away and saw metallic pigeon perching, and then whiskered treeswift and beach thick-knee right at the river mouth. Didn't see anything else interesting walking around in the coconut groves the whole rest of the day.
From Goda's beach I took a boat out to the second island off the coast from Tobelo, where there is a government beach resort. Camped overnight. Didn't see much except beach kingfisher.
Then I went to Tidore and walked the road over the island the next morning and didn't see anything new. While there I first read about Weda Resort, and went back to Halmahera for several days there. I got a discount for updating his bird list. Heard drummer rail and saw Moluccandrongo cuckoo there. Looked and looked and no purple dollarbirds. Robert thinks they migrate somewhere else this time of year. Maybe higher altitude?
So I never went to Sula or to look for the Matinan flycatcher.
I lost the name of the village near Kota Mobagu and the forest guide's name to look for Matinan flycatcher. Could you give that to me again. And send me the list of guides for all of Indonesia. I suppose your list tells where each one does guiding. Thanks so much for a great tour. I'm writing good things about you in a trip report on Cloudbirder.
Your difficult friend,
Frank
Ellen Paul, Cape-town - South Africa
wrote at 12/2/02, 12:00 AM:
Hi, Nurlin,
I think Josep is referring to the Birder's Exchange program of the American Birding Association. It was run by Betty Peterson, who died a year ago. However, ABA still runs the program. In the past, they would provide optics only to South America and Central America, as I learned when I tried to obtain optics for a program in Zambia. However, I will ask them again.
Birder's Exchange provides used optics.
There is another program called Optics for the Tropics, run by my friend Joanie Ellis. I will ask her, although right now she is in Ireland. These are new optics, but she doesn't have many of them. She raises money to buy optics at cost from Eagle Optics.
As for getting them to you, I've learned that it is best to find someone who is traveling to the area and can carry them over in person. Using international shipping is not a good idea because valuable things tend to disappear. Plus of course, customs can be very expensive.
So I will start working on it, but it could be quite a while before I get the optics and find someone to carry them over to you. Last time I did this (I obtained a tripod for someone in Ghana) it took nearly a year. Prior to that, I obtained binoculars for people in Zambia and it took about 18 months.
Anyway, I appreciate your position on the camping gear, but I would still like to reimburse you for the extra cost of having the driver take me and Tim to Palu, so please let me know how much that was.
Ellen,
Cape-town, South Africa
