Polynesian Birds

During our expedition to several Polynesian islands, we saw very few local land birds. In fact, the islands' natural history and human history has been very hard on land birds -- in contrast to other island groups like the Galapagos and the Hawaiian Islands. On one island, Makatea, we saw three endemic birds including this Polynesian Imperial Pigeon. This species once lived on a few other Polynesian islands, but is now extinct everywhere but Makatea, so we were thrilled to get this photo of it. (Note this word for Wordy Wednesday: a bird is endemic if it is found only in one native place, like this one.)



This is the Tuamotu Reed Warbler, which also now survives only on the island of Makatea. A third endemic species is a type of fruit dove, which we saw but were unable to photograph.

Two more bird photos:

The fairy tern, above, is an oceanic species that lives in many parts of the Pacific. They are quite beautiful when they perch in the trees, as well as when they are flying. This one was on Makatea very near the beautiful fresh-water grotto where we swam through a deep cave.



We saw many Lesser Frigatebirds, which are also found throughout the Pacific region. This one was on the island of Fakarava. All of these photos are from Len's Flickr set. If you click on one of them, you can see the rest of the birding and snorkeling photos from our recent trip. 

All photos Copyright 2019, Mae and Len Sander.