Colo-i-Suva, into the forest

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Before leaving for the forest park known as Colo-i-Suva, half an hour outside Suva, Robyn and I went for a little wander around the grounds of the Fiji Museum near the hotel. The Museum wasn't open because it was Sunday and nothing is open on Sunday in Fiji, but we thought that the fruit bats from the day before may have their roost in the gardens. They didn't, at least not as far as we could find, but we came across an Indian gardener who was determined to chat. He informed us of many facets of Suva life, from bewaring of conmen and thieves to how it is very cold in winter and very hot in summer. As we eventually got away from him he used the seldom-heard expression of farewell, "OK bye then. Can I have something for my lunch?".

At Colo-i-Suva we stayed at Raintree Lodge, which is where all the birders stay. It is very nice. There are masked shining parrots and barking pigeons in the gardens there, as well as giant millipedes in the trees, hanging off the trunks like big black sausages. Poisonous sausages. Next to the restaurant is a 110ft deep former quarry filled with water. Swarms of Tilapia cichlids crowd the shoreline waiting for titbits tossed their way.

We headed off into the forest as soon as we could. The trail we took yielded very few birds apart for barking pigeons. Their call is a very deep "whoop whoop" sound, rather like a very big dog barking in the distance, but it doesn't sound as much like a dog barking as I thought it would. Robyn was entertained by ant-lions in their pitfall traps, and we also found some big freshwater prawns with long skinny arms in the pool of a waterfall. We returned along the forest's main entry road and found a lot more birds than in the forest itself, including a pair of Pacific robins feeding a nest full of chicks. Pacific robins look like Australia's scarlet robins, all black and red and white, and they are equally as small. To eyes familiar with the oversized New Zealand robin, the Pacific robin looks miniscule! Golden doves were calling everywhere, and these really did sound like a small dog yapping, but we couldn't see any of them. There are three closely-related doves in Fiji that all birders want to see. The golden dove is the colour of spun gold; the orange or flame dove is the colour of a bright orange flame; the whistling dove is the colour of...I mean, it whistles. I was hoping I would find them all, but I also knew my luck was pretty bad. Only the golden dove was found here (the orange and whistling doves on other islands) but I couldn't track any down today.

Mimosa plants were growing all along the sides of the road. Mimosa is commonly called the shy plant or sensitive plant. It is a low-growing weed that collapses when touched. If the leaves are touched they fold down in line with the stem. If the stem is touched the whole plant appears to disappear into the ground before your eyes. It's a defence against grazing animals. Robyn had hours of fun playing with them while I birded.

Bottled water at Raintree turned out to be $6 a bottle (around $2.50 in town) so I went for a walk back down the road to see if I could find anywhere that sold water cheaper. I didn't find any shops, but I did find where all the local rubbish was dumped (off the side of the road into the forest about seven minutes walk away). Nice.

Animal of the day: masked shining parrot and scarlet robin
Robyn's animal of the day: it started out as the giant millipedes, then changed to the Tilapia, then became the ant-lions, then "the little faces in the holes" (tiger beetle larvae), then to freshwater prawns, and finally...um, the Mimosa plant...

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Photos

masked shining parrot (Prosopeia personata)
this one is in captivity obviously, at the Kula Eco-park