Birdwatching in Sangihe Island (Sulawesi)

Sangihe Island
Sangihe is the largest of a group of 77 islands (47 inhabited) strewn between North Sulawesi and the Philippines. Sangihe is almost totally covered in mixed plantations but the island’s four endemic species, Red-and-Blue Lory, Sangihe Hanging-parrot, Elegant Sunbird and Caerulean Paradise-flycatcher, can be found in forest remnants surviving on two of the island’s volcanoes, the active Mt Awu in the north and Tamako in the south-west.
Caerulean Paradise Flycatcher
www.biologicaldiversity.org
The paradise-flycatcher was though to be extinct until a british expedition made a brief sighting of one on Mt Awu in 1995.

Getting there
Passenger ferries leave the harbour every other evening at 6.00 pm. Check on the blackboard at the harbour for sailing dates. Fare is $5 for the 12-hr journey; cabins can be rented from the crew for $7. bemos meet the ferry to transport you to the other end of town, where accommodation is concentrated.

Mount Awu
From the terminal take the bus to Talawid Atas (2-3 hrs, IDR 15,000). Get off at the school, walk right along the road and pass a junction after 50 m. after a further 50 m the trail upwards through plantations for 1 hr. it climbs a ridge with forest in the valley on either side and plantations along the ridge top. This trail continues for 3-4 hrs but does not enter forest; however, you can see Sangihe Hanging-parrot and Red-and-Blue Lory flying overhead and Elegant Sunbird in mixed flocks in the plantation trees. This is where the 1995 sighting of Caerulean paradise-flycatcher was made.

source: Birding Indonesia. Periplus Publishing. Singapore