The Deskbound Birder: Golden Dove

Showing posts with label Golden Dove. Show all posts

Monday, 21 December 2015

Australia, Fiji and New Caledonia - 22nd November (Day 12)

Today was much of a repeat of yesterday in birding and weather terms. We were up at 04:00 and out by 05:00 and drove the three hours to the Monasuva Dam area. En-route the back car stopped for an (Eastern) Barn Owl, we turned around and soon after we did so flushed another from a roadsign and I had brief views, by the time we got to the back car their bird had flown. We continued our journey up the mountain and as we did the rain started. We arrived at 900m at around 07:30 in heavy rain. The morning was spent trying to get views of Long-legged Thicketbird heading into the forest to a territory that Villi had shown us, it was wet, muddy and unsuccessful but for a bird coming in and calling but giving not even brief glimpses. e also birded the dam entrance gate where the highlights were a female Lesser Shrikethrush on a nest less than 1m from the ground, a male Golden Whistler, Polynesian Triller and a male Orange Dove. We headed back to the thicketbird site had lunch of cheese, onion and lettuce sandwich and went back in for the Thicketbird just as the weather ceased, we got into position at the foot of the cliff which by now was dripping like a waterfall and waited, we played the tape, had a response but nothing – we got soaked and got covered in mud, not the most enjoyable way to spend a morning. Back to the car very wet. We headed down the hill to Manuel’s House and back to the same spot we saw the Pink-billed Parrotfinch yesterday, after a few minutes a pair flew in with moss in their bills and proceeded to construct a nest located at approximately 10m above the ground on a fairly exposed branch, the nest consisted of a part constructed ball woven almost entirely of moss. Other birds we saw included Fiji Goshawk, Fiji Woodswallow, Giant Honeyeater, Lesser Shrikebill and female Golden Dove. After a short while it began to rain and so we headed for the cars and headed back to the hotel arriving at around 17:00 for much needed showers and beer.

Polynesian Triller - Monasuva Dam, Viti Levu

Monasuva Dam, Viti Levu

Picnic prepared by Volkert and Andy B in the back of the cars - Monasuva Dam, Viti Levu

The scarp at the rear of this photo is where the Long-legged Thicketbird territory

is located - Monasuva Dam, Viti Levu

Golden Dove (female) - Manuel's House on Road to Monasuva Dam, Viti Levu

Wattled Honeyeater - Manuel's House on Road to Monasuva Dam, Viti Levu

Pink-billed Parrotfinch - Manuel's House on Road to Monasuva Dam, Viti Levu

Tongan Fruit-bat - Manuel's House on Road to Monasuva Dam, Viti Levu

Links to other days of the trip

Day 1-3 (Part 1) - Fly LHR to Sydney, birding Centennial Park then drive to Capertee Valley.

Day 1-3 (Part 2) - Fly LHR to Sydney, birding Centennial Park then drive to Capertee Valley.

Day 4 - Capertee Valley, Sydney.

Day 5 - Fly Sydney to Viti Levu, Fiji then on to Tavueni, Fiji.

Day 6 - Tavueni, Fiji.

Day 7 - Tavueni then fly to Viti Levu, Fiji.

Day 8 - Viti Levu then fly to Kadavu, Fiji.

Day 9 - Kadavu, Fiji.

Day 10 - Kadavu, Fiji then fly to Viti Levu, Fiji.

Day 11 - Viti Levu, Fiji.

Day 13 - Viti Levu, Fiji.

Day 14 - Fly Viti Levu to Auckland then to Noumea, New Caledonia.

Day 15 - Parc Riviere Bleu, New Caledonia.

Day 16 - Farino, New Caledonia.

Day 17 - Pelagic from Noumea, New Caledonia

Day 18 - Fly Noumea, New Caledonia to Sydney then bird Royal National Park.

Day 19-20 - Royal National Park then fly Sydney to London.

Australia, Fiji and New Caledonia - 21st November (Day 11)

After a sleepless night due to the humidity (mainly generated by six blokes in one room!) and the torrential rain we were up at 04:15 and went through the routine of getting ready for a day in the field with six blokes in one room and with one bathroom. We were out just after 05:00, picked up Vili and headed up to the Monasavu Dam area located towards the centre of the island of Viti Levu to the north-west of Suva at 900m. The road was paved for the first few kilometres but was largely unpaved and as we sped along in the dark we were thankful we had hired Toyota Rav 4’s with a higher ground clearance. We arrived at our destination, after a brief stop for a singing Fan-tailed Cuckoo, at around 07:30 and very quickly our main target started calling, Long-legged Warbler, we went into the forest and viewed an area of dense scrub. Vili played a recording and the bird responded well moving in quickly, a few of us had a brief glimpse of the bird before it disappeared, it then spent the next hour or so circling us and we had no further views although the bird was fairly vocal. And then the rain set in and we retired to the car. AD ventured out into the rain and continued to bird seeing a fly over Golden Dove and going back in for the warbler he had further brief views. We decided to head back to try and get a view of the warbler but the rain got heavier and although I had a glimpse of the bird we stood and got soaked to the skin with little success. Villi drove us around the dam area showing some of the stake outs for various species for tomorrow morning while the rain lashed down. We then spent a while photographing moths around the dam guard station, the lights here had attracted thousands of moths including at least seven species of hawk-moth (there are 13 on the list for Fiji), some familiar such as Convolvulus Hawk and Silver-striped Hawk while others were stunning and less familiar. We decided to cut our losses and headed back down the hill to Manuel’s House, after tipping him 50 Fijian Dollars we birded around his grounds seeing Giant Honeyeater, Fiji Shrikebill, Fiji Parrotfinch and, new birds, Golden Dove, Black-faced Shrikebill and Pink-billed Parrotfinch. We had just dried out and the threat of more rain sent us dashing for the car and heading back to our hotel.