Flores August - September 2014, Puarlolo

Puarlolo is famous among birders for being the only reliable site for a bird that has been discovered only recently: Flores Monarch. It is a small patch of good quality forest located around (mostly South) to the Puarlolo Telecom Tower, which can be reached within an hour driving from Labuanbajo. We went there by car for (500.000 IDR including three hours waiting time), but any form of transport should do, ojek, public bus, bemo etc. Just state that you want to go to menara telekom Puarlolo and than they will know where you want to go.

Once we got to the tower (8:30) we took the small tarmac road leading to the South, which has a big sign stating it goes to Wae Lolos just opposite of the tower. Normally people go a few hundred meter back toward Labuanbajo to enter the forest, but the forest around the entrance looked pretty good, so we gave it a try. The patch of forest turned out to be rather small, but in the end that turned out to be not the worst idea to check it out. We birded mainly on that small tarmac road, but also entered the forest through some small paths. After we birded the patch for an hour or so we heard the call of a monarch and slowly it came closer to show itself. In the end we had decent views even of it fighting with a female Black-naped Monarch. Another Flores endemic can be seen in this area as well: Flores Crow. We enjoyed rather fleeting flight views of two, but heard them most of the time we were in the area. Other interesting species recorded at Puarlolo included Russet-capped Tesia (very common here), Crested White-eye (common here), White-rumped Kingfisher (heard only distantly), Pink-headed Imperial Pigeon (surprisingly many heard and one seen perched briefly along the main road), Golden-rumped Flowerpecker, Flores Minivet, White-shouldered Cicadabird and Oriental White-eye of the unicus subspecies (which is sometimes split as Flores White-eye).

Flores Monarch (Symposiachrus sacerdotum)

Crested White-eye (Lophozosterops dohertyi)

Oriental (or Flores) White-eye (Zosterops (palpebrosus) unicus)

Female Flores Minivet (Pericrocotus lansbergei)

Golden-rumped Flowerpecker (Dicaeum annae)

We enjoyed the birding here a lot as a many Lesser Sunda (and Flores) specialties can be viewed here with reasonable ease and why would you skip this site as Flores Monarch can be viewed only here!