10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 14, 2011

I’ve subsequently managed to dive in some spectacular destinations, including Turneffe Atoll in Belize, the Great Astrolabe Reef in Fiji, the kelp forests of Monterey and the wreck of the President Coolidge in Vanuatu. In fact no less a figure than Jacques Cousteau rated it in his top ten, and he was no slouch when it came to diving!

New Zealand 183

New Zealand Belize Vanuatu Fish 183

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 7, 2013

The family also reaches into India and as far east as samoa and Fiji. The New Zealand Fantail was once placed with the Grey Fantail of Australia, but are now treated as separate, because of science.

New Zealand 176

New Zealand Samoa Fiji Killing 176

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 14, 2015

I remember looking at a single skin of a Long-legged warbler from Fiji, the only known specimen or record of its particular subspecies, the sum total of all knowledge about its kind. Unsurprisingly the ones that most stick in the mind were the lost species. And most haunting was the cupboard of mounted specimens of extinct species.

Collecting 225

Collecting Solomon Islands New Zealand Fiji 225

10,000 Birds

JUNE 12, 2013

It is, instead, a member of the Petroicidae, the Australasian robins, a family mostly found in New Guinea and Australia but also reaching here in New Zealand and as far across the Pacific as Fiji. The Grey-headed Robin showing off the grey head.

Guinea 154

Guinea Fiji Australia New Zealand 154

10,000 Birds

MARCH 30, 2011

It was long expected that the fossil record would show extinct members of the genus in the islands between New Zealand/New Caledonia and the Society Islands (places like Tonga, Fiji, the Cook Islands) that had gone extinct before Europeans arrived, but no such fossils have been found.

New Zealand 147

New Zealand Fiji Parrots Tonga 147

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 11, 2014

Outside the truly ancient islands that are fragments of sunken continents; New Zealand, Fiji, New Caledonia and the like, the Islands of the Pacific are, geologically, ephemeral things. For the most part it seems that the species that were lost were not deep forks in the evolutionary tree. They rise, only to fall beneath the waves again.

Hawaii 208

Hawaii Mammals Guam Fiji 208

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 7, 2014

In 2001, Trevor Worthy described a set of bones from Fiji as a new species of very large, flightless pigeon: the Viti Levu Giant Pigeon ( Natunaornis gigoura ). Choiseul Pigeon ( Microgoura meeki ) by J.G. Viti Levu Giant Pigeon ( Natunaornis gigoura ). The bird’s skeleton bears similarities to New Guinea’s much smaller (!)

Solomon Islands 277

Solomon Islands Guinea Mauritius Humane 277

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 8, 2012

Like Snowy Owls or crossbills they are also prone to irruptions, caused by Australia’s extreme climate, that have seen birds wandering as far from Australia as Indonesia, Palau, and Fiji. And, sometimes, New Zealand.

New Zealand 181

New Zealand Pelicans Solomon Islands Palau 181

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 1, 2014

Insofar as they relate to other bird families, they are perhaps closest to the thornbills, another family that is mostly Australian but reaches as far as Thailand and Fiji. Pardalotes are actually their own family, and a family entirely endemic to Australia.

Australia 172

Australia Fiji Hunters Family 172

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

Enter the Silktail , an odd little bird found only on two islands, Taveuni and Vanua Levu, in Fiji. This is a long and roundabout way to introduce one such biogeographical oddity today. The affinities of this small dark blue bird with a white tail has been a longstanding mystery for taxonomists for a long time.

Horses 166

Horses France North America Fiji 166

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 23, 2015

Subspecies vitiensis , Fiji. The Pacific Kingfisher ( Todiramphus sacer ) is one of three species identified in the South Pacific, the other two being from the Solomon Islands and I have no images of them (The Colonist Kingfisher and Melanesian Kingfisher ). Subspecies pealei , National Park of American Samoa. Bryan Harry, USNPS.

United Arab Emirates 179

United Arab Emirates Micronesia Tonga Vanuatu 179

10,000 Birds

JUNE 15, 2011

A combination of extinctions and proximity to Fiji means that a trip to that island group would net you pretty much all the same birds plus a whole raft of others. According to the guides it is a forest bird in Fiji (and an elusive one, I never saw one in my week there in 2005) but in Tonga I saw it in the towns and country gardens.

Tonga 164

Tonga Fiji New Zealand Parrots 164

10,000 Birds

MARCH 23, 2011

Vanuatu has five subspecies, Fiji has three, and the far flung Solomon Islands have twelve. Tom Tarrant The extent of buff and rufous on Fijian birds has lead one author to place them with the Sacred Kingfishers instead of the Collared Kingfisher, even though there are none in Vanuatu (which is between New Caledonia and Fiji.

Samoa 170

Samoa Vanuatu United Arab Emirates Tonga 170