The Deskbound Birder: Australia, Fiji and New Caledonia

Tuesday 15 December 2015

Australia, Fiji and New Caledonia - 19th November (Day 9)

We were back at the Navara Road this AM (06:30-11:00) with no real targets but for Kandavu Honeyeater, which we saw poorly yesterday, the majority of the target birds had already been seen. So it was a casual morning as the Honeyeater was soon seen. We birded a 3km length of forest seeing much the same as yesterday and enjoying good views of Whistling Dove, Many-coloured Fruit-dove, Metallic Pigeon, Barking Pigeon, Fiji Parrotfinch, Kandavu Fantail and Fiji Goshawk. A pair of Swamp Harrier showed fairly well over the forest and were seen to display on occasion. Our pick up was at 11:00 and the birding slowed and the time seemed to drag, the birding eventually degenerated into banter and we were all fairly relieved to see the truck to take us back to the lodge. The middle of the day was spent lounging around eating a large lunch and having a siesta.

Kandavu Honeyeater - Briana, Kadavu

Kandavu Fantail - Namara Road, Kadavu

Fiji White-eye - Namara Road, Kadavu

Swamp Harrier - Namara Road, Kadavu

In the afternoon we headed out on a boat from the Matana Beach Resort (15:30-19:30) a short boat ride along the coast from Biana. We went a relatively short way out to sea to the reef edge and spent form around 15:30 to 18:00 drifting around some chum we had laid. There were many Brown Booby, Red-footed Booby, Lesser Frigatebird, Greater Crested Tern and Bridled Tern but little else. The chum certainly didn't seem to attract anything in but we probably were not sufficiently far offshore. These birds were attracted by a feeding party of Blue-finned Tuna which we seen leaping from the water as they chased bait fish. We finished the evening with some snorkelling on the reef and a cold beer as we watched the sun go down.