The Deskbound Birder: Australia, Fiji and New Caledonia

Thursday, 24 December 2015

Australia, Fiji and New Caledonia - 25th November (Day 15)

It was an early start today, the alarm went off at 03:30 and we were on the road to the Parc Riviere Bleue, a 1 hour 15 minute journey through the suburbs of Noumea and up a winding mountain road through native scrub to the park entrance. We birded around the park entrance while awaiting our guide, Jean-mark to arrive, we connected with Melanesian Cuckoo-shrike, New Caledonian Friarbird, Pacific Emerald Dove and Coconut Lorikeet. Jean-Mark arrived on time at 06:30 and we proceeded into the park in his vehicle. We stopped just inside the forest and started birding, Jean-Mark blasting out various calls, seemingly at full ear-splitting volume on his Fox-pro, a theme of the day. First birds were Striated Starling, New Caledonian Myzomela and Streaked Fantail and then as we strolled back to the car I lagged behind and heard a deep hissing from the near forest, a movement, and then my first Kagu snuck between logs and undergrowth, appearing alien, other worldly, a bird seen in books but hardly real. I could hardly believe that I was watching such a stunning bird. The group beckoned me, they had another Kagu, this one was very close and almost in the open. Jean-Mark scratched at the leaf litter with his feet and the Kagu came in, right in to us. We spent the next hour or so watching this grey apparition down to one metre, I was totally spellbound, surely one of the most fantastic birds on the planet and amazing that such a vulnerable, almost flightless, bird has survived all the ravages of the human world. Yet the Kagu has been on the brink of extinction, at one stage down to 654 birds in 1991 but the interventions of conservationists at the park has increased the total population to around 850 birds. The ring on one of the most confiding of birds a reminder of the importance of human intervention in such critical circumstances of species extinction.

After tearing ourselves away our next stop produced initially a Yellow-bellied Robin, an then another amazing bird, the aptly named Goliath Imperial Pigeon, this monster flew over our heads before alighting in a trackside tree giving good views of its sombre yet red flushed plumage – pigeons get bad press but they are fantastic birds, colonists, diverse and often colourful. Then some calling parakeets, Horned Parakeet, after some strategic sneaking through the forests we obtained fair views of these scarce birds. We then went off road trying to find the elusive Crow Honeyeater with no success but for good views of Streaked Fantail and New Caledonian Whistler.

Our next stop was for a bird that I had wanted to see almost as much as Kagu, a bird I had seen a picture of maybe 30 years ago and had wanted to see since, a name in birding terms that was synonymous with New Caledonia. A deep call booming from the forest and Jean-Mark deployed his Roland Mini-cube, an oxymoron surely, this speaker was huge, it boomed out the deep booming bass notes of the bird, and it flew in, we pushed into the forest and John-Mark quickly located it. There in all its green splendour was a fantastic Cloven-feathered Dove. The stand out features, an intense yellow vent, a peculiar vertical white throat stripe, a white lower breast band and on the rear an recurring pattern of grey feather bases and green terminal halves. The domination of green and yellow, while rather lurid, was remarkably camouflaged amid the dappled green and yellow of the tree canopy. The bird flew, a remarkable, loud whistle emanating from its wings.

Kagu - Parc Riviere Bleue, New Caledonia

Confiding Kagu - Parc Riviere Bleue, New Caledonia

Entrance Sign for Parc Riviere Bleue, New Caledonia

Coconut Lorikeet - Parc Riviere Bleue, New Caledonia

Sacred Kingfisher of race canacorum - Parc Riviere Bleue, New Caledonia

Dark-brown Honeyeater - Parc Riviere Bleue, New Caledonia

Yellow-bellied Robin - Parc Riviere Bleue, New Caledonia

Goliath Imperial Pigeon, the largest arboreal pigeon in the world - Parc Riviere Bleue, New Caledonia

Horned Parakeet - Parc Riviere Bleue, New Caledonia

Streaked Fantail - Parc Riviere Bleue, New Caledonia

New Caledonian Whistler - Parc Riviere Bleue, New Caledonia

Cloven-feathered Dove - Parc Riviere Bleue, New Caledonia

Jean-Mark and his dove attracting boom box

Further birding produced New Caledonian Cuckoo-shrike, New Caledonian Myzomela, great views of Red-throated Parakeet and then a pic-nic of cheese and onion sandwiches, apples and oranges. We then birded a track for around two km, Southern Shrikebill, Barred Honeyeater, South Melanesian Cuckoo-shrike, Long-tailed Triller and then another intriguing bird, the tool using New Caledonian Crow, the only bird in the world known to use a tool. A group of four birds showed well with twigs in mouth poking and prodding flaking bark and beetle holes, they would grip the twig under the foot before calling thereby avoiding dropping the twig. These birds are able to craft different tools for different tasks, and are able to select and manipulate a tool dependent on the task at hand – okay, this is usually a tool to extract a grub from dead wood but nonetheless this is a remarkable feat. Clearly these were intelligent birds peering back at us as Jean-Mark deafened us with further calls of Crow Honeyeater and the like. Some interesting information on New Caledonian Crow tool use can be seen here.

Red-throated Parakeet- Parc Riviere Bleue, New Caledonia

New Caledonian Cuckooshrike - Parc Riviere Bleue, New Caledonia

Southern Shrikebill - Parc Riviere Bleue, New Caledonia

New Caledonian Crow - Parc Riviere Bleue, New Caledonia

New Caledonian Crow, both of these birds were using their tools to probe the twigs

they are standing on - Parc Riviere Bleue, New Caledonia

The rest of the day was more or less taken up with the delight (chore) of finding Crow Honeyeater. This was to prove a fruitless task but we did enjoy views of many of the birds we had seen before including a final encounter with a confiding Kagu as we left the park.

Kagu selfie - Parc Riviere Bleue, New Caledonia

At dusk, AD once again expertly navigated us back through Noumeau and we relaxed happy with the days birding on New Caledonia, an outing that had been reduced by the previous days cancelled flight.