traveller
our country
The Birdman … Bruce Beehler armed with binoculars (opposite page); tangled up with a snake in the jungle (this page); an Orange-billed Lorikeet (top left); Huli Wigmen encountered on one of his expeditions (middle left); a Rainbow Lorikeet (bottom left).
expedition discovered more than 100 new species of plant, insect and animal life. A return trip in 2009 with a local group from Kwerba village didn’t go so smoothly. “While following the course of the Kali Ibem River we found ourselves trapped in a narrow stonewalled gorge and were nearly washed away by raging river floods, following heavy rain. It was a terrifying experience, but luckily we all survived. ”
During another expedition across the border, a red towel saved Beehler and his team from starvation in PNG’s Owen Stanley Mountains. Beehler convinced a youth group in the Kokoda Valley to help him blaze a track from the village of Kanga to a high mountain lake, which no living person had visited. He wanted to reach Lake Omha to study the little-known Macgregor’s Honeyeater. March – April 2015
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