Our first full day or birding. We planned to have breakfast at 4:45, but somehow that message hadn’t reached the kitchen crew, so Forrest arranged for them to deliver it to us up the mountain.
We started in the dark up a steep muddy trail (evidently a vast improvement from the old trail). As the light grew, we heard bird songs begin. Forrest (and some of the others), knew all the songs. We stopped occasionally to see a bird — including the King of Saxony Bird of paradise (“BOPs” for short) performing in his tree.
We made it to the clearing (much smaller than I expected when I heard “clearing”) and watched birds as they showed up. Forrest played songs when he heard a shy bird. We hung out there for several hours (breakfast did finally appear – one of the assistant bird spotters hauled it up the trail).
Then we headed back down.
Next day plans were to drive to Kumul Lodge (fortunately, not flying).