The following is the last of four blogs covering a trip John Cooper, Gary Edwards and I made to Australia and New Caledonia in July and August 1998. It is illustrated with prints I took with an old Pentax camera and subsequently digitised. Another account of the trip, including John and Gary's time around Darwin after I had come home, was published in two parts by John Cooper last year (seehttp://jfcbirdingtrips.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/southern-australia-northern-territories.html). This blog covers New Caledonia and my final visit to Barren Grounds.
Saturday
15th August (continued). We
landed at Tontouta International Airport, 45 kms N of Noumea at 23.00 where a
pleasant lady was waiting for us with our hire car. We drove to Riviere Bleu (c80 kms) and camped
at the park entrance. This was not quite
as easy as it sounds as there are very few road signs on New Caledonia. Fortunately there were not many roads either so
we had few opportunities to go wrong. I did
not sleep well with the hope of seeing Kagu playing heavily on my mind. We had
faxed Yves Letocart, the park superintendent and very knowledgeable about all things
Kagu to inform him of our visit in the hope he would be able to help us.
Sunday 16th
August. We were up at dawn,
packed away the tent and into the park at 07:00 when it opened. It soon became clear that Yves Letocart was
not expecting us, or if he was he had not left word at the entrance gate. Second blow was that the reserve closed at 17:00
and was not open on Mondays so we would not be able to camp there. We were
given directions to Yves’s house, although as we were not sure if he had
received our fax to him we decided a visit early on Sunday morning might not be
appropriate. Seeing Red-throated
Parrotfinch beside the road a couple of kms into the park was a very
encouraging start. We continued to drive
through very degraded habitat around a large artificial lake (the result of a
large dam downstream) before finally entering superb forest. We concentrated on the excellent trail by the
Grand Kaori tree (which in itself was most impressive), finding a good
selection of the New Caledonian endemics including Notu Pigeon, Southern
Shrikebill and Horned Parakeet, but no Kagu.
We decided to visit Yves early afternoon to find out where the best place
to see Kagu was, but after negotiating a very rough and in places muddy track
arrived at his house to find nobody in.
We left a note and very reluctantly drove out of the park before it
closed – it felt like a very bad dip. We
arrived at Mont Koghi just as it was getting dark and camped by the car park.
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| inside the reserve Riviere Bleu was more like a lake although we had to cross the river to reach decent habitat |
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| the bridge into the reserve proper, it was later damaged by floods but there were no problems driving across in 1998 |
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| improving habitat |
Monday 17th
August. We were up at dawn and
once the tent was packed away spent most of the morning on the main trail up
towards the summit of Mont Koghi. Few
birds were evident, not helped by a quite strong wind. Nothing was seen or heard in the ‘ferny’
sections where we’d hoped we might encounter the New Caledonian Grass
Warbler. Returning to the car park we
spent the afternoon scanning the adjacent forested slopes eventually finding
two distant Cloven-feathered Doves. A short
walk part way along the trail towards the waterfall gave much better views of
the Doves (a very smart bird) and an amazing view of a parrotfinch feeding on
berries growing directly out of the trunk of a tree. We left Mont Koghi just before dusk to return
to Riviere Bleu, stopping on the way at a supermarket to buy bread and fruit to
last us three days. We again camped at
entrance to Riviere Bleu and if possible I was even more tense.
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| Mont Koghi |
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| looking down towards Noumea |
Tuesday
18th August. We entered the park when
it opened at 07:00 and obtained a permit to camp for 2 nights. We were told that Yves would be waiting for
us on the road to the Grand Kaori tree and with a growing sense of anticipation
we set off to meet him. Our desire to
see Kagu must have been evident to Yves right from the outset and without
further ado he took us to an area nearby where he had heard Kagu earlier that
morning. Within a couple of minutes of
him playing a tape recording, two Kagus ran in, circled us curiously for some
time before eventually wandering off. A
dream realised! Yves took us to another
patch of roadside forest where a strange Crow Honeyeater immediately flew in to
investigate the tape recording of its song.
We were very fortunate to see one so easily, and it turned out this was
our only definite sighting of the species.
After an hour or so Yves left us to continue with his work (as the Park
superintendent), having first imparted much helpful information. We spent the rest of the day on the Grand
Kaori trail and walking along the road between there and Pont Germain where we set
up camp at the picnic area. There was a
good supply of drinking water and a basic toilet at the camp site but no food
is available in the park. One of a pair
of New Caledonian Crows near the camp site was fascinating, carrying a long
stick in its bill (something noted of two others seen subsequently too). Returning for a meal (of bread and tuna)
before it got dark we were delighted to have two Kagus feeding around the tents
in a plover like fashion (running then stopping and listening) for nearly half
an hour before dusk. When disturbed, or on
a couple of occasions clumsily bumped into each other, they would display to
each other for a minute or two. This
consisted of standing bolt upright in very close proximity to each other with
belly stuck out, crest raised and wings partially opened and inverted - a
ridiculous posture! The less dominant of
these two had yellow rings on each leg.
A truly magical place and Kagu immediately joined Giant Pitta and Wilson’s
Bird of Paradise as my best birds ever.
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| Riviere Bleu, a magical place |
Wednesday
19th August. We spent all day at
Riviere Bleu walking the road from the camp site to the Grand Kaori tree and
beyond. A good days birding with most of
the New Caledonian specialities seen, my first White-bellied Sparrowhawk,
although only in flight, and several Kagu sightings. I saw two about 1km from the camp site, one
chasing the other off across the road.
Near the Grand Kaori tree a ringed individual (pale green & yellow)
did three running passes in response to a brief play of the tape before
crossing the road where it started calling very loudly. It was soon joined by a second (unringed
bird) and a duet, if two barking calls can be described as such, ensued for
several minutes while the birds were in full view less than 10m from us. They eventually wandered off into the forest
and almost immediately after three were seen on the road 100m away by John
& Gary. Two had gone by the time I’d
caught up with them although they may have been the noisy pair which had been
going in that direction. The third bird
had a pale green ring on one leg. Later,
at the camp site before dusk, the two birds that had been seen previously
appeared again, but only for 5 minutes this time.
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| me at Le Grand Kauri |
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| very impressive |
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| the incomparable Kagu |
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| one of the world's most amazing birds |
Thursday
20th August. We spent the morning at
Riviere Bleu walking the road to the Grand Kaori tree. An unringed Kagu was seen in the forest by a
small picnic table about 0.5 km from campsite then, when walking down the road
before the Kaori tree, a pair started hissing at me. I hissed back and one approached to within 4m. I took a photo of it with my pocket camera
and promptly ran out of film. Both
birds, which were unringed, wandered off but further hissing when I’d changed
the film enticed them back, one to nearly as close as before enabling a few
more photos to be taken. Somewhat surprisingly
the photos came out very well! Kagu has
got to be one of the best birds ever.
Further down the track I saw a calling New Caledonian Sparrowhawk perched
on an exposed tree top branch, a much better view. We reluctantly returned to the camp site,
packed up and left Riviere Bleu. It had
been an immensely enjoyable visit. Somewhat spoiled by Nick not having been
able to come. We drove to the west coast
near Yate seeing 12 summer plumaged Wandering Tattlers on the shore. We continued parallel to the coast to Goro
but few places seemed to allow access to the beach, although we all saw a
sparrowhawk in patchy forest beside the road.
We drove back to Noumea Airport in fading light, seeing a superb sunset on
the way, and camped in the back of the car park ready for an early check-in.
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| leaving Riviere Bleu with sadness, it had done us really proud |
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| the coast near Yate |
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| New Caledonia sunset |
Friday 21st
August. We returned hire car to a
different and much less pleasant lady at 06:00.
She insisted the voucher we’d presented was not valid as it was in
Nick’s name and wanted payment again. We
refused and eventually, and with very bad grace, a written statement to the
effect that we’d had the car booked and paid for by Nick in England seemed to
satisfy. We flew with Aircalin to Sydney
arriving just after 10.30. John and Gary
departed for a harbour tour ahead of a flight to Darwin (for a further 6
days). I hired a car and drove straight
to Barren Grounds were I walked the ‘ground parrot’ trail with increasing
frustration for over four hours. Superb weather, 3 Yellow-tailed Black
Cockatoos and an Eastern Bristlebird provided little consolation! I decided to try nearby Budderoo, as much for
a change of scenery as with any great expectations, but amazingly flushed a
Ground Parrot and a Lewin’s Rail within five minutes of getting there! It clouded over at dusk and I drove back to
Royal National Park, sleeping in the car at Bonnievale.
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| departing Noumea airport |
Saturday
22nd August. I was up at dawn and spent
an hour at Bonnievale seeing little, followed by a brief walk on Curra Moors,
which was exceptionally wet. I returned
to Sydney Airport, dropped off the car and departed at 13:00.
What seemed like
several days later I finally arrived home. I had seen 122 new birds (98 in Australia and 24 in New Caledonia) and almost
300 species. It had been a very enjoyable
trip and John Cooper and Gary Edwards excellent companions, although Nick Preston
having had to pull out at the last minute rather left a gap and he wasn’t far
from my thoughts. We were privileged to
spend time in the field with Margaret Cameron, Mike Carter, Yves Letocart, Phil
Maher, Gordon McCarthy, Dr P Milburn, Des Quinn and Lindsey Smith. Tony Palliser offered much advice on all
aspects of the trip and Murray Lord provided helpful information regarding
sites around Sydney, we regretted not being able to meet up with either of them. Richard Thomas’s The complete Guide to finding the Birds of Australia was invaluable
as was his unpublished New Caledonia Trip Report and various advice and
information he provided. Dave Cooper
loaned us several bird tapes, some of which proved to be very useful. Other useful information, without which we
would have struggled to find several species, was received from Lawrie Conole,
Stuart Dashper, Terry Gould, Roger Hicks, Jack Krohn, Peter Menkhorst, Michael
Norris, Dick Norton, Don Roberson & Trevor Quested. Thanks to all.
[blogged January 2016]
