Fiji Birds

It was great to be able to go birding in Fiji as part of the Birding Ecotours Pacific Tour. My Trip Report can be found here: http://birdingecotours.com/trip-reports/fiji-2

Fiji was a real treat in terms of Fruit Doves, we enjoyed Golden Fruit Dove, Orange Fruit Dove (my personal favourite), Whistling Fruit Dove, and Many-coloured Fruit Dove, along with a wide range of other really great birds, including Silktail and some smart parrots, like Masked, Maroon and Crimson Shining Parrots, and Collared Lory. So many great Myzomela, Flycatchers and Whistlers too.

I'll do a separate post on the Fiji Whistlers and some other species (e.g. Streaked Fantail and Fiji Bush-Warblers) soon as I think these warrant some discussion.

Some photos:

Orange Fruit Dove - simply spectacular 

Fiji White-eye - fairly common

Fiji Woodswallow - fairly common on some islands we visited

Kadavu Fantail - single island endemic (Kadavu)

Kikau - a recent split from the Wattled Honeyeater complex

Many-coloured Fruit Dove - another spectacular Fruit Dove

Masked Shining Parrot -  nice bird but woeful photo in appalling light!

 

Pacific Kingfisher - common

Pacific Robin - friendly little Robin

Silktail - the taxonomic puzzle!

Silktail - showing the tail

Slaty Monarch - common across all islands we visited

Sulphur-breasted Myzomela - very nice bird

Vanikoro Flycatcher - common

Whistling Fruit Dove - single island endemic (Kadavu)

Chestnut-throated Flycatcher - a very recent (October 2016) split from Azure-crested Flycatcher 

Barking Imperial Pigeon - common

Collared Lory - fairly common but timid

Fiji Parrotfinch - seemed common but tricky to get close enough for a decent photo

The details of the 2017 tour can be found here: http://birdingecotours.com/tours/destination/country/fiji-2 

Pacific Odyssey

This September-October I'm going to be journeying around the Pacific a little. I'll be commencing my travels from Brisbane, Australia (where I'll get a couple of days birding in with my mate Rob) before heading over to Noumea in New Caledonia for two-weeks of endemic searching. Obviously top target there is the endemic and rather unique Kagu (below).

Kagu (Pelagic Odyssey)

I'll likely try and get across to a couple of the loyalty islands if flights aren't prohibitively expensive - I'm thinking Ouvea and Lifou, each island also has some endemics to go for - such as the Ouvea Parakeet, and Lifou Large White-eye. Anyone know of a cheap way to do these islands?

There's so many exciting birds on New Caledonia - with New Caledonian Crow and Crow Honeyeater being two birds I'm keen on locating for different reasons, but one I really 'want/need' to see is Cloven-feathered Dove - wow!

Cloven-feathered Dove (Unknown)

After a couple of weeks exploration in New Caledonia I'm heading over to Fiji for a couple of weeks. I'll be visiting three islands - Viti Levu, Vanua Levu, and Kadavu, each with an interesting set of birds. Again some of the highlights are likely to be Pigeons... I don't say that often! But with Crimson-crowned Fruit-Dove, Many-coloured Fruit-Dove, Golden Fruit Dove, Whistling Fruit Dove, and Orange Fruit Dove (below) it's easy to see why! Plenty of interesting endemics to chase across all the different islands too - such as Silktail for example - still a bit of an unknown quantity.

Orange Fruit Dove (Aviceda)

The final stop on this leg of the trip will be a few days in (Western) Samoa - here there are a few more endemics to go look for. I think it will take a bit of luck for Tooth-billed Pigeon, but I'll give it a go! I'll be happy to see the Samoan Flycatcher (below)!

Samoan Flycatcher (Peter O)

I've got some personal birding while here, but the majority of my time will be leading the Birding Ecotours Pacific Tour - details of the 3 week tour can be found by CLICKING HERE. We're taking bookings for 2017!

After this tour is completed I head across to New Zealand. More on that soon....