Taveuni in Fiji: Silktail & Orange Dove

 

Taveuni Silktail 

A 6-day stay on the delightful island of Taveuni in Fiji was the first cab off the rank for our recent overseas tour. I’d been to Fiji before but not to Taveuni, famed for two extraordinary birds: the enigmatic Taveuni Silktail (this, the Natewa Silktail from a neighbouring island, and the Pygmy Drongo from New Guinea, are the sole members of the family Lamproliidae); and the gorgeous Orange Dove. We flew from Brisbane to Nadi, where Fiji Parrotfinch and Fiji Wattled Honeyeater were among birds near the hotel the next morning.

Fiji Parrotfinch

Fiji Wattled Honeyeater

We took the short flight the following morning to Taveuni and stayed at the Maravu Taveuni Lodge. Not much around the lodge other the ubiquitous Pacific Kingfisher .

Pacific Kingfisher

I arranged to be picked up very early the next morning by the driver Ajay Narayan for a half-day on Des Voueux Peak – the go-to site for regional specialties and an hour’s drive to the south. I could have hired a guide as well but Ajay knew where to go and I had no problem knocking off all the targets other than Shy Ground-Dove, which is very difficult in Fiji. First was Maroon Shining-Parrot, which was vocal in some numbers in secondary forest at the base of the mountain in poor light. Collared Lory was also common.

Ajay

We drove to the locked gate at the top of the road. There’s no point in birding beyond the gate. In its vicinity I saw a female Azure-crested Flycatcher and an Island Thrush roadside. The thrush proved to be fairly common and I saw a male flycatcher later but didn’t manage an image of the species.

Island Thrush

There is a famous trail about 200m south of the gate that goes into the forest. About 500m down the trail I found a pair of Taveuni Silktails. They are extaordinary birds - a mix of bird-of-paradise and flycatcher with dazzling metallic blue colouring, elaborate displays and constant movements. On the way back I found an even more co-operative pair of silktails.

Also on this track I spotted a female Orange Dove: its mate would have to wait. I heard and then saw a skulking female Black-faced Shrikebill in the undergrowth. Fiji Shrikebill was more co-operative and I saw several.

Fiji Shrikebill

Orange Dove (female)

Barking Imperial-Pigeon and Many-coloured Fruit-Dove were calling commonly. In the forest several Fiji Steaked Fantails were encountered and Fiji Bush-Warbler was common.

Fiji Bush-Warbler

Fiji Streaked Fantail

Fiji Wattled Honeyeater was also common. A few hundred metres down the mountain we stopped where Ajay had recently spotted the somewhat rare Yellow-billed Honeyeater. The bird was seen well but I managed just one poor image. A brightly endowed male Fiji Whistler was also spotted along with a few Fiji Parrotfinches.

Yellow-billed Honeyeater

Further on we final scored nice if somewhat distant views of a couple of male Orange Doves. This bird is a stunner; words can’t describe it. A couple of Polynesian Trillers were also about in the area.

Orange Dove (male)

We called in to check out a large colony of Fiji Flying-Foxes on the coast on the way back to the hotel.

Fiji Flying-Fox

Several pairs of Vanikoro Flycatcher were about the hotel.

Vanikoro Flycatcher

The next day we did a shorter drive with Ajay around the island’s north coast to the village of Lavena. Along here we had better views of Maroon-chested Parrot and Barking Imperial-Pigeon, while Fiji Goshawk perched on the wires.

Barking Imperial-Pigeon

Maroon Shining-Parrot

Fiji Goshawk

SPECIES (TAVEUNI ONLY): Fiji Goshawk (1), Red Junglefowl (6), White-faced Heron (6), Lesser Frigatebird (2), Many-coloured Fruit-Dove (12), Orange Dove (3 seen, others heard), Barking Imperial-Pigeon (10)), Collared Lory (20), Maroon Shining-Parrot (15), Pacific Kingfisher (20), White-rumped Swiftlet (30), Taveuni Silktail (4), Fiji Streaked Fantail (8), Azure-crested Flycatcher (2), Fiji Bush-Warbler (8), Polynesian Triller (2), Fiji Whistler (1), Island Thrush (7), Black-throated Shrikebill (1), Fiji Shrikebill (5), Vanikoro Flycatcher (6), Layard’s White-eye (8), Orange-breasted Myzomela (6), Yellow-billed Honeyeater (1), Fiji Wattled Honeyeater (10), Fiji Woodswallow (1), Pacific Swallow (5), Polynesian Starling (4), Fiji Parrotfinch (8), Australian Magpie (6). 29 species, 6 lifers

Night Parrot: Death by Barbed Wire

The Night Parrot found by Shorty Cupitt

Robert (“Shorty”) Cupitt remembers well the warm September day in 2006 when he was doing maintenance work around stock routes and fences in the vicinity of Diamantina National Park in western Queensland. He found a small dead parrot on the ground that looked unfamiliar. It turned out to be a Night Parrot - just the second confirmed record of this enigmatic species recorded over the previous century. The parrot was below a barbed wire fence. “There were feathers from the bird stuck on the top strand of barbed wire,” Cupitt tells me. “It was decapitated, killed by flying and hitting the fence.”

Night Parrot

In a 2008 paper in Australian Field Ornithology that published the historic finding, Cupitt issued a clear warning: “It highlights the danger posed to birds, including rare or threatened species, by the many kilometres of barbed wire traversing the landscape.” Cupitt’s find led to the bird being photographed for the first time by John Young in 2013, and the creation of the 56,000ha Pullen Pullen Reserve encompassing critical Night Parrot habitat by Bush Heritage Australia in 2016. 

Pullen Pullen

As I noted in an article in the latest edition of The Weekend Australian, another Night Parrot was killed after striking a barbed wire boundary fence on Pullen Pullen in 2019. With the region’s parrot population estimated at a total of 10-20 birds, that is a significant loss. Says Cupitt: “It’s barbed wire all the way along some of those boundary fences, including the top strand.” A barbed wire fence separates the 3-4 known roosting Night Parrot sites of the Pullen Pullen parrot population from each other and from feeding grounds they fly to each night. Until this week, BHA had little to say about the fatality (more on that later).

Pullen Pullen boundary fence

Outside Pullen Pullen, small numbers of parrots have been located in Western Australia. Last year, a Night Parrot was retrieved by traditional owners after being found injured, hanging by its wing from a barbed wire fence; it died soon after. The Night Parrot is critically endangered: we now know of three individuals killed by barbed wire fences, and the death toll is certain to be higher. 

Prepared specimen of recently killed Night Parrot in WA: WA Museum

In 2016, then Night Parrot Recovery Team Allan Burbidge head warned of the consequences of a plan by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy to build a predator-proof fenced enclosure in Diamantina National Park, more than 20km from Pullen Pullen. Said Burbidge: “It seems likely that a predator-proof fence within night parrot habitat might pose a threat to a bird that flies 15 km or so each night. For a population with perilously low numbers, the effect could be highly significant.” The plan was scuttled. Yet the recovery team has had nothing to say about the Pullen Pullen fencing.

Diamantina National Park

BHA has run white electric tape along the top of some fences in a bid to deter parrots from striking them. In a statement published on the BHA website this week - following The Weekend Australian story - Pullen Pullen ecologist Nick Leseberg offers further details about the 2019 victim. Says Leseberg: “This section of the fence hadn’t been flagged, as we didn’t think it was an area where the Night Parrots would be traversing. By this time we’d removed tens of kilometres of unnecessary fence, including the entire southern boundary with Diamantina National Park, but this really brought home the risk these fences pose. We’d love to remove all of them, but the reality is this is pastoral country and we need fences to keep cattle out of Pullen Pullen.” 

Leseberg and his colleagues have done some fine research work on Pullen Pullen. They are not helped by the peculiar perspective that BHA has of public relations. The organisation has taken a leaf out of the Donald Trump playbook by ignoring journalists it doesn’t fancy - like me. BHA told me bluntly it would not be responding to anything I put to them. BHA’s silence becoming part of the story in the national broadsheet newspaper speaks volumes.

It also speaks to a cultural problem that has been evident since BHA’s acquisition of Pullen Pullen. The wider birding community is often regarded with a degree of contempt. Twitchers are collectively considered a potential threat to the species. Those outside BHA’s inner sanctum of scientists are unwelcome. BHA said this in a revealing statement last October: “In 2013, in the remote corners of western Queensland on Maiawali Country where spinifex grows in abundance – the perfect habitat for the bird – the Night Parrot was rediscovered by scientists.” It was in fact rediscovered in 2006 by Shorty Cupitt, and photographed in 2013 by John Young; neither are scientists. 

Feral cat

BHA refused to respond to questions I put to them about current population estimates; the consequences for the population of successive years of good summer rains; and the impacts of population booms of feral cats and long-haired rats in the area. Those issues are to some extent now belatedly addressed in this week’s statement. Leseberg confirms that the bountiful years of wet weather were a plus: “The floodplains were really benefiting from the exclusion of cattle and there were as many Night Parrots on Pullen Pullen and (neighbouring property) Mt Windsor as I had ever seen. There were four known sites with birds, and potentially two others where we heard birds on a couple of occasions. I think there could have been as many as twelve or fourteen birds across the two properties.” 

The good times led to a big increase in cat numbers. BHA tripled the number of planned cat control trips. Trips would typically be for two weeks, with each trip removing 50 cats by mid-2023. Says Leseberg: “It wasn’t all bad news though. The stomachs of the cats were examined to determine what they were eating, and we were only finding rats, nothing else.” By the end of 2023, rat numbers were dwindling and although cat numbers remained high, there was evidence they were losing condition with fewer pregnant females. Referring to the bird’s present status, he adds: “We’re still detecting them across three to four sites, but at some of those sites the detections are not as regular. We don’t know if these mean there are fewer birds, or if they are moving around more.”

Long-haired Rat

It would be interesting to know if the long-haired rat plague had its own impacts, although that issue is not addressed in this week’s statement. Rats are voracious predators of eggs and nesting birds. Might that be a factor in the latest population shift that Leseberg refers to? Instead of regarding questions like that as threatening or inappropriate or whatever, BHA could be doing the bird a service with a little more inclusiveness and dialogue.

Pullen Pullen

Southport Seamounts Pelagic, February 2024

 

Band-rumped Storm-Petrel

Highlights of the 3-night, 2-day Southport Seamounts trip organised by Paul Walbridge from February 9-12 included Band-rumped Storm-Petrel; a Collared Petrel; good numbers of Gould’s Petrel, Black-winged Petrel and White-necked Petrel; and huge numbers of Grey-faced Petrel. After leaving early Friday evening aboard the cosy Grinner II we ended up mid-morning at 27.3735S, 155.0996E, 100 nautical miles offshore in 228 fathoms on the Queensland Seamount - roughly in a line east of Pt Lookout, North Stradbroke Island. We remained in this general area over the weekend, with some time spent motoring back from drifting. Conditions varied little over our time out wide: strong winds 18-25 knots SE gusting to 30 knots with a 2.5m swell and choppy seas. A tad uncomfortable but good conditions for seabirds.

Grey-faced Petrel feeding frenzy

Paul’s full report is forthcoming. Suffice here to sum up some highlights. A Band-rumped Storm-Petrel  flew in early afternoon on Saturday and appeared to be much attracted to toy floating storm-petrels that Jacob Crisp had put together. It showed well, hanging around the back of the boat for 20 minutes or so.

Band-rumped Storm-Petrel

Band-rumped Storm-Petrel

Jacob got onto a decent pale phase Collared Petrel which I saw briefly but his were the only images, and nobody else saw the bird unfortunately. I had seen the species previously in the eastern Coral Sea. It's a rarely encountered taxa with a few records in south-east Queensland. A couple of dark Gould’s-type petrels also looked like contenders for a while. Gould’s Petrels were frequently about the boat and it was a delight to see so many.

Gould's Petrel

Gould's Petrel

Gould's Petrel

Black-winged Petrels were in fewer number than Gould’s but more inclined to offer nice, close fly-bys.

Black-winged Petrel

Black-winged Petrel

Black-winged Petrel

Like most seabirds over the weekend, there was a substantial appetite for the berley. Grey-faced Petrels were particularly voracious. This was the most common species by far, with over 50-100 birds often in the vicinity of the boat. Large numbers continued to be about even after sunset.

Grey-faced Petrel

Grey-faced Petrel

Grey-faced Petrel

White-necked Petrel performed beautifully, with at least 8 birds logged including 2 together. This is a cracker of a seabird that never disappoints.

White-necked Petrel

White-necked Petrel

White-necked Petrel

Kermadec Petrel was in reasonable numbers with dark, pale and intermediate phases on show.

Kermadec Petrel (dark phase)l

Kermadec Petrel (light phase)

Kermadec Petrel (intermediate phase)

Tahiti Petrel was the second most common species, with small numbers of birds about the boat throughout the weekend.

Tahiti Petrel

Tahiti Petrel

White-bellied Storm-Petrel put in a brief appearance on a few occasions, but there was no sign of the hoped-for New Caledonian Storm-Petrel.

White-bellied Storm-Petrel

White-bellied Storm-Petrel

Wedge-tailed Shearwater was relatively common but just a handful of Flesh-footed Shearwaters appeared.

Flesh-footed Shearwater

White-tailed Tropicbird was seen twice flying high. A single Red-tailed Tropicbird was near the boat at dusk.

White-tailed Tropicbird

A Red-footed Booby roosted on the boat on Saturday night and joined by a second bird in the morning.

Red-footed Booby

Adult and immature Sooty Terns were frequent visitors to the berley trail.

Sooty Tern

A few Brown Noddies were seen along with a single Black Noddy.

Brown Noddy

SPECIES LIST: Tahiti Petrel, Grey-faced Petrel, Kermadec Petrel, White-necked Petrel, Collared Petrel, Gould’s Petrel, Wedge-tailed Shearwater, Flesh-footed Shearwater, White-bellied Storm-Petrel, Band-rumped Storm-Petrel, Red-tailed Tropicbird, White-tailed Tropicbird, Red-footed Booby. Brown Noddy, Black Noody, Sooty Tern. 16 species