10,000 Birds

JUNE 15, 2011

I mentioned last week, while talking about rails and the Pacific, that Tonga is not a particularly birdy birding destination. Tonga is still a fun place to visit, particularly if you’re a poor PhD student anxious to escape the Austral winter. But I had reservations about what I might see, particularly in urban areas.

Tonga 164

Tonga Fiji New Zealand Parrots 164

10,000 Birds

JUNE 8, 2011

I certainly did when I visited the two southern islands of Tonga a few years ago. The two endemic species found in Tonga are not found in these islands, and the other species present are also found on more traditional destinations of Fiji and Samoa. Southern Tonga had its own flightless Gallirallus rail (an undescribed species).

Tonga 166

Tonga New Zealand Samoa Fiji 166

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 7, 2014

Not, as Linneaus thought, an ostrich, nor even, as later scientists concluded, a distant cousin of pigeons deserving of family rank, it was an honest-to-goodness pigeon, deeply embedded within the family Columbidae. The Dodo ( Raphus cucullatus ) — that towering icon of modern anthropogenic extinctions — was a pigeon.

Solomon Islands 277

Solomon Islands Guinea Mauritius Humane 277