One of the things that we really wanted to do during our trip is to see a Tahiti Monarch, a very rare endemic bird restricted to just three valley on Tahiti. Unfortunately all of them are difficult to access because they are either private or there is no easy access. Luckily one private part is leased or something like that by the local bird association so you can ask for a tour. Less fortunately they tell us that there is no available tour during our two days on the island.
And then just after we arrive they contact us if we still want to visit during our second day on Tahiti. And yes we want so on we go to meet at Mahana Park early in the morning. We first meet the other participants and do some light birdwatching before the guide comes and then it is time for the short drive to Captage Papahue where we have to see the Monarch.
After parking and signing all waivers it is time to explore the beautiful Papehue Valley with our guide. Who is quite knowledgeable and involved in rescuing the Monarch. He explains that the biggest issue is that non-native vegetation is encroaching into the native forest preferred by the Monarch. And he shows how they work on reducing the number of invasive plants especially the beautifully looking African Tulip Trees. With plots used for control versus treated ones and a lot of other scientifically approaches.
The hike starts beautifully next to a river which has even a waterfall almost right at the start. It looks like an artificial one but still it seems beautiful. And we also see our first endemic, only a glimpse really of a Tahiti Swiftlet.
The guide is quite engaging and has lots of stories and that makes the time go faster as we make our way on the easy and beautiful trail.
The forest we pass through initially is non-native and there are few birds here. The native ones are not used to it and the introduced ones are not native to it either. Quite weird to pass through a forest with almost no birds.
And then the trail becomes harder as we have to cross across the stream a couple times, in the end we decide to keep the water shoes on and hope not to slip with them as we now feel almost like jungle explorers.
Most of the water crossings are actually not difficult but can be deep and the rocks can be slippery. Luckily we escape as we make our way now into the native forest.
As we reach the area where the monarchs are more likely the trail also becomes more difficult as we scramble on rocks near the creek on a barely maintained but fun trail.
And then we see movement and assume it is a monarch, the first bird we see from the swiftlet at the beginning. But no, it actually is a Tahiti Society Kingfisher and we point it to everyone, the guide is impressed mentioning that he never saw one so low and close, cool! And then another bird appears and lo and behold, another kingfisher. We are showered in kingfishers but no monarchs. But we stand still a bit more and suddenly something small and dark makes its way towards us, finally the rare endemic Tahiti Monarch!!
How rare? It is estimated that between 25 to 100 individuals remain however the trend is increasing with the help of the local ornithological society. And from this low number we actually see two of them with a juvenile appearing soon after the male and being quite friendly and curious about us. In fact it plays around us for a good 15 minutes, we never expected to see it so close and so playful.
The guide then mentions that if we want we can continue to the cave further up that holds a large colony of Tahiti Swiftlets and the whole group votes to go. Not sure who would have voted no if they came here to see the Monarch specifically. This route is even more challenging especially due to the slippery rocks but slowly we make our approach to the side canyon which is really impressive by itself.
But then suddenly seeing the Tahiti Swiftlets flying above us in great numbers is otherworldly. In fact it can make you quite careless with two of our group almost falling into the creek when crossing a particularly troublesome rock.
In fact that is where we make the decision to return, we have seen the swiftlets and not sure if continuing would bring a lot of benefit but will increase the fall risk significantly.
Returning everyone is excited about seeing the Monarch and the Swiftlets and then suddenly we meet with another group that is going up to cut trees. Our guide explains that the owners of the land agree with protecting the Monarchs but they still cut trees, fortunately only the invasive ones. Still it is quite precarious with the association not having money to buy the land outright and therefore being quite careful about providing access to the Monarch as they do not own the land. We then return to the car and drive back to the beach where we say good bye to the rest of the group while we decide to try to snorkel, maybe we can see some interesting fishes even here?
