There are 42 species of Birds of Paradise. Most of these are restricted to the island of Papua New Guinea. PNG is divided into PNG and Irian Jaya or West Papua which is a province of Indonesia.
These birds are very iconic and have a habit of displaying at their respective lek (breeding area).
The main obstacle is to deal with the heat, the humidity, the rather lengthy walks and the mosquitoes. Along with it also comes spartanic lodging and frequent rains.
The BOPs are most closely related to the crows/corvids and I suppose could be described as overdecorated crows. Ha!
They are very vocal but never musical.

In order to see some of these epic birds we had to set the alarm to 3:30 almost every day as we had to be at the displaying grounds before dawn.

This is the 12 wired bop.......

I was the tourleader for a group of 6 so took the 'back seat' for each photographic opportunity. I hope to be able to post some of the participants images later on.