UKARUMPA, PNG — The fog was thick enough that I couldn’t see into the treetops — at least not well enough to make out field marks on small, active birds — so I ignored the lorikeets calling from the schoolyard and headed downhill, hoping that the fog might be lighter by the river.

I saw a Black Kite in the road, and I heard a few Rainbow Lorikeets screeching. Both species seem scarcer than they were in the winter, when the Black Kites were ubiquitous and the lorikeets roosted in noisy flocks, flying in and out each night and morning. Their clamor started before dawn. Now they are present, but they don’t seem to be behaving in quite the same way. Has their roost shifted? Do they act differently in the summer?

Along the road that leads to Ukarumpa village, I encountered two Long-tailed Shrikes. I’d seen them on the roadsides when I was here before, but I’d never had a really good look. They are beautiful shrikes — black-headed with small, stubby bills and gray napes. Their backs are rich red-brown, their breasts gleam white, and their flanks are cinnamon. Their tails are black and are indeed notably longer than those of the North American shrikes. Their flight is recognizably shrike-like, though their tails seem to drag a bit behind them.

An obnoxious dog barked as I went past his home, and when I turned around to go back, I saw him sitting in the muddy road. Wondering what I would do if he decided to do more than bark, I looked instead at a pair of Ornate Melidectes in a low flowering shrub. He barked once or twice, and then ambled off. Good.

Our center isn’t an ideal place to bird, I decided. There are houses everywhere, and I’m just not comfortable staring into people’s yards and gardens with binoculars. Usually, there are lots of people driving and walking along the roads, but Saturday morning seems like the quietest time, though I did encounter several pedestrians along the way. Nevertheless, I saw plenty of the more common passerines as I walked: Pacific Swallows, Gray Shrike-Thrushes, and of course, Willie-wagtails. I heard the mournful, descending whistles of Brown-breasted Gerygones, but (little surprise) never saw any. They are tiny treetop-dwellers and are very hard to find.

In one heavily treed spot, a flock of Rainbow Lorikeets fed high overhead, joined by several Ornate Melidectes. I never could see any of the birds very well — a pity since they’re all so spectacular. Ornate Melidectes remind me of flickers in that they are decorated with a wide variety of seemingly incongruous colors and patterns. Not hearing or seeing anything else in the trees, I continued on my way.

By the time I neared the store, I had started to hear the shrill, high-pitched calls of my presumed Pygmy Lorikeets. I followed the sound until I arrived at the base of two eucalyptus trees. One especially sounded as if it was teeming with the little birds, and I leaned my body against the trunk of the other, prepared to wait until I saw my life bird.

I could see several birds moving, but getting a good look at one was another matter altogether. I concentrated on the lower branches, and I quickly raised my binoculars to a quivering bunch of leaves. Tiny red bill, green body, yellow streaks…. There it was! A Pygmy Lorikeet.

I kept watching, noting flashes of red as one bird flew. I fixed my gaze on another as it crawled through the leaves, feeding on the small white flowers. The yellow streaks on its breast seemed fine enough to have been drawn with a pencil, and the bird’s crown showed hints of red and blue. What a beauty!. Before I left, I saw a Willie-wagtail chase a little male, and as he banked high over my head, his red underwings almost glowed.

I worked my way to the western fence, where I knew I’d have a view of grasslands and perhaps Pied Bushchats. I turned up a grassy track and found myself at the Horse Club, where a small bird landed in a patch of shorter grass. It was streaked, and I figured it was either a pipit or a lark. Working a bit closer, I had only seconds to take in its streaked, whitish breast and pale supercilium. It flew, and I saw narrow white edges to its tail.

When I lowered my binocs, I saw the reason it had flown. Someone was walking toward me across the pasture. He turned out to be a young German teacher (no, not a German teacher — a German teacher), and we talked for a few minutes. But I couldn’t help wishing I’d had a little longer with the bird.

The track I was on quickly deteriorated into a muddy little swamp. I’ve gotten in the habit of wearing socks with sandals here (Who does that?), and my lower extremities were soon very soggy.

I flushed a flock of Hooded Munias ahead of me as I walked. They kept moving just a little bit farther ahead, stopping again on tall grass and the wire fence and always calling in their chiming, squeaky way. Some of the birds were immatures, or so I deduced from their dull brown upper parts and dark masks. A pair of Pied Bushchats appeared a bit farther on, and I had an especially good look at the female, noting her thrush-like face. They do behave something like bluebirds, dropping from perches to catch their prey.

As I was watching the bushchats, I saw a few dark birds in a tree up ahead. They were not attractive — slaty gray above and streaked below with creepy orange eyes. They reminded me of young Singing Starlings, but they seemed dingier with paler eyes, and I didn’t hear their usual loud calls. They had moved on before I got there, and when I consulted with “Birds of New Guinea” later, I didn’t get very far.

Singing Starlings, as I thought, are primarily birds of lower elevations, though the authors allow that they may occasionally reach 1500 meters in mid-montane valleys. We are in a mid-montane valley, but we’re about 1600 meters high. What difference a hundred meters makes to an apparently brash and opportunistic species I cannot say. I can say, however, that nothing else I saw in the book — starling or otherwise — fits the birds I saw.

I had by that point reached the top of the hill, and my descent led through a more heavily treed area. A large bird flew up into a tree as I walked, and when I got closer, I could see it was still there. I raised my binoculars — and recognized the bird instantly. It looked like the Fawn-breasted Bowerbirds I’d seen in Moresby last weekend, but its lemon-yellow belly was immediately apparent. A Yellow-breasted Bowerbird — and now I’ve seen two species!

Then I started hearing a chattering noise — more like the calls of a Sedge Wren than anything else I’d heard — from a hedge nearby. I saw tiny silhouettes flitting through the leaves, and one bird perched for an instant. Its tail was cocked high, and it looked all dark. I followed them a little ways and then lost them. Just as I was about to give up, willing to concede that some mysteries could wait until another day, one popped up in the grass — then another, and another.

Fairywrens. All-black fairywrens with white shoulder patches. They clung to the grass stems, tails cocked straight up over their backs, and one of the little birds seemed to have a white crescent above its eye.

When I got back to the house where I’m staying, I spent a few more moments outside, watching the Pacific Swallows and a swift or two.

It rained the rest of the day, leaving me plenty of time to pore over books. The fairywrens are, to the VAAM’s satisfaction I’m sure, called White-shouldered Fairywrens. The bird in the horseyard, I decided, had to be an Australasian Pipit. It was either that or a Singing Bushlark, and its bill was certainly not stubby and conical like a bushlark’s is said to be. Too, it did not show rufous in its wings, nor did it fly like a moth.

I’m still puzzling over the swifts. I never figured them out last time I was here, and I still haven’t so far. The birds I see here in Ukarumpa fly with somewhat floppy beats, and they glide on tent-shaped wings — quite unlike the rigid beats and bow-shaped wings of the Chimney Swifts back home.

They seem larger than Chimney Swifts to me, and they show pale underparts and flight feathers when the light is right. They never make a sound. They aren’t blue above, and they don’t show any white patches on flanks, rumps, or throats. “Birds of New Guinea” discusses four drab swiftlets: Three-toed (Papuan), Whitehead’s, Uniform, and Mountain swiftlets.

The descriptions are unhelpful: “smaller,” “slighter,” “large-headed.” The species supposedly inhabit different altitudes and ranges, but the descriptions of Papuan and Whitehead’s ranges are sketchy enough not to inspire confidence. If anyone out there has experience with the Aerodramus (sometimes Collocalia) swiftlets, I’m all ears.

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