Flores August – September 2014, Pagal

Next to the Potawangka Road, Pagal is the only more or less reliable place to see Wallace’s Hanging Parrot on the “standard” Flores birding circuit. The area is actually the patch of decent forest behind the village Pagal, which is located north of Ruteng. We got there by ojek from Ruteng in 45 minutes and paid 200.000 IDR per person for the drop and pick-up.

We arrived around 7:30 and noticed that here, as in so many places in Flores, the road was being widened and a lot of road repairs were being done as well. We birded the area mainly by walking the road up and down. As soon as we started birding a Bonelli’s Eagle of the endemic renschi subspecies flew over. Very nice! A bit further in a bend of the road there was a small stream were we heard a thrush singing. We played the tape and a Chestnut-backed Thrush flew over the stream a couple of times but always perched out of sight. We walked further along the road and sat down near some flowering trees, but unfortunately only common species came by such as Variable Goshawk, Oriental White eye (ssp. unicus), Rusty-breasted Whistler, Crested White-eye, Flores Minivet, Flame-breasted Sunbird, Black-fronted and Golden-backed Flowerpecker. However a single male Blood-breasted Flowerpecker of the local rhodopygiale subspecies was much appreciated.

Male Flores Minivet (Pericrocotus lansbergei)

1st cy male Black-fronted Flowerpecker (Dicaeum ingiferum)

Juvenile Variable Goshawk (Accipiter hiogaster) in flight

Then the road workers had started and the pounding of rock made so much noise we couldn’t hear a single bird, so walked back along the road and checked more flowering trees and some fruiting figs but no sign of the Hanging-parrot (or Flores Green-pigeon). Suddenly a small green torpedo shot over the road and disappeared in the forest. A Hanging-parrot? No, a Tawny-breasted Parrotfinch! I don't think I have ever been so dissapointed in seeing a Parrotfinch... Later we entered the forest near the forest stream where we had seen the Chestnut-backed Thrush, but we did not find it again. However we heard a Wallace’s Hanging-parrot screeching while flying over the canopy, but we did not manage to see it. We did not see any Leaf Lorikeets (another speciality of this site) during our visit here, but luckily we already had found them in a patch of Eucalyptus forest between Labuanbajo and Ruteng, but I have no clue were this patch is located exactly.

Around 11:00 we left the area as it got quite hot by now. This site seems a nicer spot to search for the Hanging-parrot than the Potawangka road to me, as there is much less traffic and if there are no road works it must be nice and quiet. Although I don’t know if the traffic will increase when the road has been widened and finished…