10,000 Birds
AUGUST 27, 2014
I’ve written before about how the Collared Kingfisher is a million splits waiting to happen (not happened yet), and the golden whistlers of the Pacific have been split now (giving me on from Fiji, one in Australia and one in Vanuatu), but I hadn’t really expected the Wattled Honeyeater to be a split. Photo from ‘Eua, Tonga.
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).
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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.
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 ). A large, extinct relative of the (barely) extant Tooth-billed Pigeon described above was described in 2006 from remains found in Tonga ( Steadman 2006 ).
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. 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.
10,000 Birds
SEPTEMBER 23, 2015
All the way back in 2011 I wrote about the confusing taxanomic enigma that is the Collared Kingfisher , a species that ranges from the Red Sea to Tonga in a bewildering variety of forms. Subspecies sacer , ‘Eua, Tonga. Subspecies vitiensis , Fiji. Subspecies pealei , National Park of American Samoa. Bryan Harry, USNPS.
10,000 Birds
MARCH 23, 2011
The Collared Kingfisher isn’t the most widespread kingfisher in the world (a distinction that would probably go to the Common Kingfisher or the Pied Kingfisher ), but it is close, ranging from the African coast of the Red Sea through to Tonga and American Samoa. Subspecies sacer , ‘Eua, Tonga. Photo by author.
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