UKARUMPA, PNG — Black Kites wheeled in the gray sky, circling tightly in bunches, swooping behind trees, lighting on branches, whinnying, wailing. I couldn’t get an accurate count — a dozen, probably more.

I sometimes see them bunching up toward evening, but today’s encounter was especially spectacular.

As I continued, I started hearing the descending calls of a flocking bird I’ve yet identify. I’ve seen them near the tops of trees, but never when I had binocs. Then I could see them, dropping out of a tree into a fruiting hedge — so close!

I walked over to stare, but in the dim evening light, I saw nothing but tiny bodies moving. And only yards away. Argh!

I continued home, wondering what chance I had of getting back with binoculars before they moved on, and wondering what kind of a birder I’d be if I didn’t even try.

Well, I did try. I went back right away, but the tiny birds were gone.

So the noisy little flockers must wait until another day. Again, I thought how different my position is, here in a land where every day is a mystery. I barely remember those days with American birds, but I’m living them over again here.

Now, though, I have even more information to nourish me, and to stimulate my hunger. I picked up three books at our library today — three books on New Guinea’s birds!

Two are dated ornithological tomes: Jared Diamond’s “Avifauna of the Eastern Highlands of New Guinea” and Rand and Gilliard’s “Handbook of New Guinea Birds.” The other is a book of crude descriptions and even cruder sketches. “Birds of the Aiyura Valley” was compiled nearly 30 years ago by self-proclaimed “enthusiastic amateurs” who lived in this very valley.

It feels like a treasure trove! Much information is decades out of date and none of the pictures are very good, but I’ve spent several hours with the books this evening, and I’ve already learned a great deal.

Some of the most interesting information, of course, concerns my immediate surroundings. And now my sights are set on a magic kingdom: the forested ridge behind the agricultural station, or whatever it might be called today. There, the forests have been protected from clearing, and there, birds-of-paradise and bowerbirds dwell.

That must be the place Brian mentioned once, and now I know I’ve got to go. How I’ll manage, I can’t say yet. It’s not as if I could just walk — but if I could, ah!

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