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Petrel Paradise

10,000 Birds

Prions are an interesting little group of procellariid, distinct from the gadfly petrels, shearwaters and fulmarine petrels, and I’ll dedicate a post to the group at some point in the future. Fairy Prions ( Pachyptila turtur ) And then there were the “true petrels&# , insofar as that group has any taxonomic meaning anymore.

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Tongatapu and ‘Eua; Birding Southern Tonga

10,000 Birds

I mentioned last week, while talking about rails and the Pacific, that Tonga is not a particularly birdy birding destination. 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.

Tonga 173