Dear Friends, I hope you are all well, and staying safe wherever you are hunkering down during these unprecedented times. I’m at home and won’t likely be making my usual field trips any time soon, but I find myself thinking about the amazing Birds-of-Paradise that I enjoy photographing and sharing with you so much. They are still out there in the forests of New Guinea doing their thing, and while I can’t be creating fresh images right now, I have an archive with a wealth of imagery and associated stories that might help brighten your day just a little during these crazy times. So for the coming weeks, I’m going to share a favorite Bird-of-Paradise image each week, and to make it more fun, I’m also going to have a drawing to give away a print of that image each week. |
Print Giveaway: If you have received this newsletter, then you are automatically signed up for my weekly Bird-of-Paradise print giveaway. Each Friday, we will randomly select one of my newsletter subscribers to receive a print of that weeks featured image, and announce the winner on my Facebook page. |

The Red Bird-of-Paradise is definitely not one of the easiest birds-of-paradise to photograph. It only inhabits a handful of islands off the western tip of New Guinea, in the Indonesian region called the Raja Ampat Islands.
All that my collaborator Ed Scholes and I had to do was to fly half way around the world to Jakarta, then east, hopping islands across Indonesia. Then we travelled by boat with local guides to the island of Batanta, hired porters in a village, hiked up into the mountains and set up a camp. Then we had to find the birds. After a few days, we found where the birds were displaying, but there was just one catch. The display site appeared to be the tallest tree in this whole area. There was plenty of activity, and the location seemed very promising. But the tree climb was going to be a problem. I was going to have to climb this tree in stages.
I was back the next morning after the birds had left. After a few tries shooting a fishing line with my bow and arrow, I got my arrow over one of the large branches that looked like it wasn’t even half way up the tree. It was a start. I pulled up my rope and climbed to that point. Then I used a weight bag on the end of a throw line to toss over higher and higher branches, pulling my rope over and climbing up each time until I was finally up to the level where the birds had been displaying.
As I rose above the crowns of the surrounding trees, an amazing view opened out over the rain forest of Batanta Island. After taking in this view, I kept climbing. I built a blind 50 meters (165 feet) above the ground, the highest I had ever constructed, perched among branches in the opposite side of this giant tree to where the birds display branches were.
Then for several days, rising well before dawn, I hiked to the site and climbed my rope in the dark, hauling my camera and lenses in a pack dangling below me. I distinctly remember one morning, breaking out into the more open upper canopy and seeing an incredible starry sky as I inched up the rope in the blackness with my headlamp off. It was a surreal feeling, like I was climbing a rope into outer space.
The real excitement came though, once I got set up in the blind and it started to get light. The moment came when one male became excited by a nearby female and went to the broken off branch that appeared to be his prime display spot. He turned to face the sunrise and I got this shot. I knew I had seen something special from a viewpoint perhaps never recorded before.
Behind the Scenes Shots: Here are a couple images from that memorable tree climb in Batanta.



Gallery Update: We regularly add new images to my galleries at www.timlamanfineart.com. Recent additions include hummingbirds from Sunnylands added to the open edition paper prints category, and also a collection of favorite East Africa images from my recent trips. Please have a look!
Hope you enjoy these birds and stories, and can also get outside and enjoy the beauty of birds in your own area, wherever you are.
Stay safe everyone!
Tim