Birding and Snorkeling

I am trying to set up my own adventure in search of Bower Birds and Birds of Paradise.
And I would like to do some excellent snorkeling. I am a budget traveler who likes to get way off the beaten track. Any advice out there?

For the birds, the best localities are the Arfak Mts in West Papua or Tari in PNG.
The best snorkeling may well be in the Raja Ampat Islands in West Papua.
Note that neither WP nor PNG can really be called cheap.
Getting off the beaten track is easy.

I think Raja Ampat would be a pretty good place for you DustiLifeNet. There are - among lots of others - four species of birds of paradise endemic to Gam Island and the snorkelling there is the best I've ever done.

I'd recommend Mambefor Homestay for the best of both worlds - hope that helps :)

Only 2 species of the birds of paradise are endemic to Raja Ampat actually (red and Wilson's) and only one of those (red) is found on Gam! ;-)
Wilson's can be seen on Waigeo and Batanta.
For the more widespread species from southern/western Papua (like king, twelve-wired and lesser), Salawati is a good island in Raja Ampat.

Really? Oh - OK. The Wilson's we saw there must have been introduced and our guide must have been mistaken about the others. Thanks for the correction Laslo. :)

Surely Wilson's wasn't introduced, but when I visited Gam, the local guide taking us to see the display ("dancing") tree of red told me Wilson's was only seen on neighboring Waigeo (and on Batanta, of course). I guess back then they hadn't found the right sites for it on Gam yet (though it's quite vocal and should be easy to find). Gam is between Waigeo and Batanta where Wilson's has long been known to be present, so it makes sense to have it there, too. Thanks for the update!
But still, that's only 2 endemics. ;-)
I guess the 4 includes those birds of paradise not endemic to Raja Ampat (like the manucodes) which are also found there (and in many other places).
Try not to confuse the term endemic (meaning ONLY found there) with the word native (naturally occurring there, but not necessarily only there) species.

I don't know - I wouldn't put it past an enterprising guide who knows tourists want to see birds of paradise to buy a few Wilson's in Waigeo and release them on Gam! :P You're right of course - cheers Laszlo