Tropical Birding Trip Report Sulawesi & Moluccas Extension: August-September 2015 A Tropical Birding set departure tour Sulawesi (Indonesia): & The Moluccas Extension (Halmahera) Birding the Edge of “Wallace’s Line” Minahassa Masked-Owl Tangkoko This tour was incredible for nightbirds; 9 owls, 5 nightjars, and 1 owlet-nightjar all seen. This bird was entirely unexpected; rarely seen at night; we were very fortunate to see in the daytime. Voted as one of the top five birds of the tour. 15th August – 4th September 2015 Tour Leaders: Sam Woods & Theo Henoch “At the same time, the character of its natural history proves it to be a rather ancient land, since it possesses a number of animals peculiar to itself or common to small islands around it, but almost always distinct from those of New Guinea on the east, of Ceram (now Seram) on the south, and of Celebes (now Sulawesi) and the Sula islands on the west.” 1 www.tropicalbirding.com +1-409-515-0514
[email protected] Page Tropical Birding Trip Report Sulawesi & Moluccas Extension: August-September 2015 British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, writing on Golilo (now called Halmahera), in the “Malay Archipelago: The Land of the Orang-Utan, and the Bird of Paradise. A Narrative of Travel, with studies of Man and Nature.” in 1869 Acclaimed British naturalist (and co-conspirator with Charles Darwin on the development of the theory of evolution of species by natural selection), Alfred Russel Wallace spoke of the “peculiar”, and it was indeed the peculiar, or ENDEMIC, which was the undoubted focus of this tour.