Farino
Wow, thanks so much everyone, it’s great to know its worthwhile reporting our trip.
Better clear up the 3 legged issue for the sleuths among you who ought to be on records committees. The third leg belongs to the other
Kagu which is actually positioned directly behind the visible bird! There is even a pic somewhere of a 3-legged 2-billed bird, the extreme rare
Rhynochetos birostritripes.
To answer the returning question, we’re aiming at trying to be back in Bristol while it’s still summer next year, and before all the festivals are over. We have 3 month Aussie visas, so we hope to travel quickly from Brisbane to Darwin and somehow cover the Top End and north and south Western Australia in that time, but it depends on what happens when we land. We then plan to go to Indonesia (Chlidonias is currently our frontline reconnaissance division), and hopefully visit some of Wallacea and Borneo, including Malaysian Borneo. Our anticipated problems here include wet season, which might force us north into SE Asia quicker than we want, and the size of the stupid field guide! We then plan to head up through Malaysia, Thailand, and Laos back into China, then visit Mongolia and take the train back to Europe through Russia again in the summer this time. Might do a bit of birding as we go. That’s what we hope anyway.
Pour chercher la Fauvette Calédonienne
After the
Kagu:king: appeared in the morning of the 15th the rest of the day was mostly spent searching for
Cloven-feathered Dove and
Crow Honeyeater in the rainforest, but we had no luck with either. The birding was good however, and birds included a
NC Crow, 2
Red-crowned Parakeets, a
NC Flycatcher, a
White-bellied Goshawk, a few
Striated Starlings, Horned Parakeets, NC Whistlers and
NC Cuckoo-Shrikes, Metallic Pigeons, Barred Honeyeaters, NC Myzomelas, lots of
Yellow-bellied Robins, NC Friarbirds and
Glossy Swiftlets, Rainbow Lorikeets, Southern Shrikebill, Fan-tailed Gerygones, Green-backed White-eyes and
Red-throated Parrotfinches.
Next morning still no sign of the two hoped for extra endemics, and it started to rain. The shuttle bus then appeared and had been sent specially to pick us up because the park was closed due to bad weather until at least Saturday! We were taken to Pont Perignon and started walking in the rain back to HQ. Hitching might be good in NC, but trying it on a dirt road in a park when it’s not open is pushing it. We walked 7kn in the rain before the shuttle bus driver passed us in her car and drove us past HQ to the main road. We stood in the rain trying to hitch back to Noumea for a bit, gave up and walked to Les Bois du Sud where we camped. It rained all night and we were drenched. Next morning we put on our wet clothes and walked to the main road and hitched back to Noumea. It rained all day. In Noumea we bought more supplies before catching an 11.30 bus to La Foa. We started to walk towards the Farino turnoff, thumbing in the rain, and someone stopped who wasn’t going to Farino but took us there anyway. This was very nice of her because by now we didn’t just look like we’d been on the road all this time, we smelled like it too.
When we turned up at the Refuge de Farino the owner seemed surprised that we wanted to camp in her flooded field by the river. We had access to a tiny kitchen area. It had walls. It had a roof. It was dry. It was Heaven.
Next morning our luck changed dramatically. It stopped raining and while we were having breakfast outside the kitchen area 3
Cloven-feathered Doves appeared in the garden. It was great to catch up with this unusual looking and rather flashy dove, which appeared to be not uncommmon around Farino by voice.
We then followed a combination of directions from 2 trip reports to get the 8km from the Refuge to the well known
New Caledonian Grassbird site, and were surprised to find that the site is now within a new park called Parc des Grandes Fougères, which is signposted from most of the way back to La Foa. The park has designated areas for mountain biking, conservation, and hunting, and comes complete with an HQ building with parkies to take the small entrance fee and give you a glossy trail leaflet, well signed trails, picnic spots with lawns and benches (presumably to attract :king:
Kagu):king:, and opening times (it’s closed on Tuesdays). Interestingly the parkie, who knew about some of the local birds, was unaware that
NC Grassbirds existed. Hopefully whoever is involved in park improvements knows about them, as the well known spot for them is not within the “good forest” bit.
People’s
grassbird experiences at this site vary from “relatively (?) easily seen at Farino” to “we heard no response to the tape”. As far as I can make out, the hotspot is a few hundred metres down the left hand fork from the parking area. Here the track passes for c200m through very dense low scrub and long grass, on a slope sparsely covered with pines, with encroaching rainforest on the downslope side. I spent a total of 7 hours in this “zone”, 3 in late afternoon and 4 from dawn the next day. There’s plenty of good birds here as distractions, which is handy because if you want a good view of a
NC Grassbird you could be here a very long time. To add to the fun is the respectable variety of sharp calls that
Dark Brown Honeyeaters and
NC Myzomelas are capable of making while hiding invisibly in low cover at this site, some of which are not unlike the
grassbird’s. In 7 hours the only time I got a bit of
NC Grassbird in focus in the bins was at 8.30am when one was calling from tall grass right next to the track, on the downslope side, right by the sharp hairpin in the middle of the zone. The bird was infuriatingly close, and it was a nightmare trying to focus through the grass. Eventually I got its tail in focus, which of New Caledonian birds could only belong to this species! It then steadily moved away down the slope calling occasionally for the next 10 minutes, while remaining completely invisible at all times. It called briefly again about half an hour later, when a
NC Crow landed near to where I’d last heard it. Apart from that, I had a couple of brief glimpses at around 4.30 the previous day in the same part of the zone, including the little sod flying very low over the track and diving into the base of a clump of long grass before tzekking invisibly away.
If I had to write a school report of this bird it would be something like “Fauvette could be more co-operative”, but in the staff room I’d say “Fauvette? Nasty piece of work. Deliberately mischievious. They should never have abolished plucking.”
Other birds at Farino included a few
Kagu:gh::king:B
heard at dawn, an
Eastern Barn Owl flushed at HQ just before dawn after walking the 8km in the dark,
Horned and
Red-crowned Parakeets, NC and
Rufous Whistlers, Striated Starlings, NC Flycatcher, White-bellied and
Brown Goshawks, White-breasted Woodswallow, Melanesian Cuckoo-Shrike, Metallic and
NC Imperial Pigeons and
Emerald Dove. NC Crows were especially common.
Be nice to hear some other
NC Grassbird experiences.
So now we’re back at the wonderful Auberge de Jeunesse in Noumea having missed just one of the regularly seen endemics,
Crow Honeyeater. Off to Lifou tomorrow if the boat's running.
more pics: 1 and 2 Cloven-feathered Dove
3 NC Crow with tool
4 NC Imperial Pigeon
5 Melanesian Cuckoo-Shrike
1398
CLOVEN-FEATHERED DOVE
1399
NEW CALEDONIAN GRASSBIRD