UKARUMPA, PNG — I looked up from tying my boots. A small, stout silhouette was perched on a wire nearby. A Sacred Kingfisher? The season’s first?

By the the time I’d finished tying and taken a couple steps down, the little bird had disappeared completely.

Rats. But if they really are back, it surely won’t be long before I see them everywhere.

My walk around the center didn’t turn up anything new, though I did confirm that we have Singing Starlings up here. I thought I’d seen some immatures two weeks ago, but today I had much better looks at several immatures and two blue-black adults with bright red eyes.

The rest of the birds I saw were those I encounter every day, or nearly so. Rainbow and Pygmy lorikeets flew around in their usual noisy morning flocks. I keep wondering if the Pygmy Lorikeets will stay here through the fall and winter, because I never saw or heard them here last year.

I think the arrival of Sacred Kingfishers is about the extent of migration here, unless the Pygmy Lorikeets really do leave. I hurt a little when I think of the warblers, vireos, tanagers, buntings, and shorebirds that soon will sweep across the North American continent. I’m really going to miss them.

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