FRENCH POLYNESIA – including the Society Islands, Marquesas & Tuamotus, with Australs extension

PRICE INFORMATION

Birdquest Inclusions: Our tour prices include transportation, accommodations, meals and entrance fees.

We also include all tipping for local guides, drivers and accommodation/restaurant staff when ashore.

Deposit: 10% of the total tour price. Our office will let you know what deposit amount is due, in order to confirm your booking, following receipt of your online booking form.

An additional payment of 40% of the total tour price will be required 15 months prior to departure.

Kindly note that for this special tour, the tour invoices will be sent out approximately six months before the tour start date, for payment of the balance due within 14 days.

Important: The dates of this special expedition may vary by up to two weeks in either direction, and the price will remain very provisional for the time being (it is unlikely to be confirmed until around a year before the expedition).  We can accept provisional bookings without any deposit for the time being. Once the dates and price are confirmed, we will notify all those holding provisional places, and any remaining places will be confirmed on a first-come, first-served basis.

If you are prepared to pay the 10% deposit before the exact dates and tour price are confirmed, you are welcome to do so in order to secure a certain place on the expedition. In this instance, the conditions are that you cannot withdraw without loss of deposit unless the tour dates change by more than two weeks in either direction or the confirmed tour price in Euros increases by over 10% as compared to the provisional price.

TO BOOK THIS TOUR: Click here (you will need the tour dates)

Please note that twin accommodation is not available on this tour. There are only two options: couples may share a double bed/berth; everyone else must take single occupancy.

This tour is priced in Euros. Amounts shown in other currencies are indicative.

FRENCH POLYNESIA BIRDING TOUR: DETAILED ITINERARY

French Polynesia: Day 1  Our tour begins in the evening at our hotel in Papeete on the island of Tahiti in the Society Islands, where we will spend three nights.

French Polynesia: Days 2-3  With the help of a local guide, we will explore one of Tahiti’s deep forested valleys. Here we will find the endemic Tahiti Monarch, now critically endangered with perhaps only about 40 individuals surviving, and we will also be able to visit a colony of endemic Tahiti Swiftlets, watching the adults whizzing along a narrow, rocky defile as they return to, or leave, their nests. Two other endemics we should find today are the attractive Grey-green Fruit-Dove and the noisy Tahiti Kingfisher.

During another excursion we will explore the mountainous interior of Tahiti in search of the endemic Tahiti Reed Warbler, which favours tall bamboo thickets. We are also likely to encounter Pacific Black Duck, Pacific Swallow (the nominate race here is dark and very different to most other populations) and the introduced Swamp Harrier and Red-browed Firetail.

Many introduced birds are present on Tahiti, including Zebra Dove, Red-vented Bulbul, Common Myna, Silvereye, Common Waxbill, Chestnut-breasted Mannikin and Crimson-backed Tanager.

French Polynesia: Days 4-18

During this period we will explore the Marquesas Islands and the Tuamotu Islands.

MARQUESAS ISLANDS

Nuku Hiva is the largest of the Marquesas and is situated nearly 1500 kilometres from Tahiti, a greater distance than that between London and Rome!)

En route, we should enjoy some fine aerial views of the Tuamotus.

The airport, for want of suitable flat land elsewhere, was constructed in the far northwest of the island, at the opposite end of the island from the two main villages, so we will cross this rugged and spectacular island before we reach Taiohae, where we will be staying overnight.

This very scenic island has many high rocky peaks, rising to 1224m at the summit of Mount Tekao, and sheer coastal cliffs that rise to over 500m in places. We will visit the best part of the island for finding the endemic Nuku Hiva Imperial Pigeon. This huge dark and rather lethargic pigeon has a broad, flat, white-feathered protuberance projecting above its bill, giving it a decidedly strange appearance, and its weird, rather unpigeon-like calls simply add to the mystique of this very rare bird that now numbers only about 300 individuals (shared between Nuku Hiva and Ua Huka, where the species has been reintroduced). We should be able to find some sitting in some large fig trees and obtain splendid views of this unusual species.

We will also have our first encounters with three more endemics: White-capped Fruit-Dove, Marquesan Swiftlet and Northern Marquesan Reed Warbler, all of which are common. Our first Little White Terns, a near-endemic species, will be seen flying high overhead or perching in roadside trees, sometimes alongside Black Noddies. Along the rugged volcanic coastline we will keep a lookout for the pretty Blue Noddy.

The first place we hope to visit (weather and sea conditions permitting) will be a remote, uninhabited and very rarely visited islet to the north of Nuku Hiva, one of the last two strongholds of the beautiful Marquesan Ground Dove.

Next we will visit the island of Ua Huka, which still holds the beautiful endemic Ultramarine Lorikeet. This endangered species is now extinct on the other inhabited islands in the Marquesas, but remains fairly common here. We will also want to see the endemic Iphis Monarch (now also restricted to Ua Huka).

Afterwards, we will travel to the sparsely inhabited island of Tahuata, which lies to the south of the western end of the much more populous Hiva Oa. This is very likely the last surviving haunt of the smart Marquesan Kingfisher, which has probably now died out on Hiva Oa. With some persistence we should get great views of this very rare bird. Southern Marquesan Reed Warbler is common here.

On our way southwards to the remote island of Fatu Hiva we will (weather and sea conditions permitting) make a landing on uninhabited Mohotani, last haunt of the Marquesan Monarch.

The journey to remote Fatu Hiva is good for pelagic seabirds, and either on this run or others we should encounter Tahiti, Phoenix and Herald and Bulwer’s Petrels, Wedge-tailed Shearwater and the impressively large and well-marked Polynesian Storm-Petrel.

Fatu Hiva is a rugged and very beautiful island with much remaining forest on the steep mountainsides. It is known for its dramatic Baie des Vierges (Bay of Virgins), famous for the phallic rock formations that led the early whalers to name the place Baie des Verges (Bay of Penises) before some outraged missionaries re-christened it! Here we will walk up a partly cultivated valley and check out some forest patches for the rare and now, following the introduction of Black Rats, critically endangered Fatuhiva Monarch (numbering only about 50 individuals).

TUAMOTU ISLANDS

At the huge Rangiroa Atoll, we will be looking for the lovely, near-endemic Blue Lorikeet in particular, as well as the beautiful endemic Atoll Fruit Dove and endemic Tuamotu Reed Warbler. We will also try to seek out the critically endangered endemic Polynesian Ground-Dove, although it may now be close to extinction at Rangiroa.

At a remote atoll we will go ashore to encounter the truly endearing little Tuamotu Sandpiper. These birds have had a disastrous history, having been wiped out by rats everywhere they have got ashore in the Tuamotus, but on a few rat-free atolls these very time- and trusting little birds still survive.

The smart Spectacled Petrel is another bird typical of the Tuamotu lagoons.

The island of Niau is unusual in the Tuamotus in that its rather small lagoon is cut off from the sea (although there are underground connections). Here we will track down the rare Tuamotu Kingfisher, which nowadays is thought to only occur here (it is now thought to be extinct on Mangareva, in the far eastern Tuamotus). Even here the bird is uncommon (the most recent survey found 51 individuals!), so it may take us some time to locate a pair, perhaps at their nest hole in one of the coconut palms. As with so many birds in the Tuamotus, they can be incredibly tame, posing for their photographs just a metre or two away.

The remote, hilly island of Makatea (a raised coral reef) is still inhabited, even though its phosphate mining industry has closed down, but is rarely visited as it lacks an airport and has no regular ferry service. We will be landing here to see the Makatea Fruit-Dove, restricted to this one island, and the now endangered Polynesian Imperial Pigeon, a species that has vanished from much of its original range.

French Polynesia: Day 19

Our tour ends today at Papeete on the island of Tahiti.