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Published: September 4th 2010
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Saturday was all blue and sunny so I went to the Parc Zoologique et Forestier (that's the Noumea Zoo and Botanic Gardens) to see about getting photos of the endemic birds kept there (the wild ones being just a little too uncooperative in this regard). Wikipedia claims the zoo to have over 700 animals of over 130 species, most of which are birds (the exceptions being reptiles, a few monkeys and some farm animals). The zoo is situated in the northern part of Noumea, on top of a hill which gives good views out over the surrounding countryside and ocean. Its not terribly far to walk there from the centre of town I guess but I would have surely got lost, so I took the Noumea Explorer bus which does a circuit of Noumea for the benefit of tourists. It costs about NZ$23 or so for a day ticket but its the cheapest option. The zoo itself only costs about NZ$13 to get into. It is divided into a native area to the left of the entrance and an exotic area to the right, with a small botanic gardens separating them; there are however quite a few random exotics scattered through
the native section as well. On entry I was told that each half of the zoo would take about one and a half hours to visit, but I ended up spending three and a half hours just in the native area and five hours in the zoo overall, much longer than I had anticipated.
The native area of the zoo is called "Vallee des endemiques", where you can "discover the terrestrial biodiversity of New Caledonia and the exceptional richness of the fauna" - or something like that: my French is not excellent! The enthusiasm of the sign is quite warranted however because many of the endemic birds of this island are displayed here. This part of the zoo has quite a confusion of paths, making it necessary to keep doubling back and continuously consulting the map to ensure nothing is missed. Notable endemic birds at the zoo include the horned parakeets, imperial pigeon, cloven-feathered dove, the crow, and of course the kagu. The Noumea Zoo is very actively involved in a breeding programme for kagu, from which offspring are released into the wild. There are roughly 1000 wild kagu, over half of which inhabit the Riviere Bleue national park.
Ouvea horned parakeet (Eunymphicus uvaeensis)
a very endangered parrot found only on the tiny island of Ouvea just to the east of New Caledonia. I didn't get to Ouvea on this trip so I was happy to see this parrot at the zoo (probably the only one in captivity) They are threatened mainly by dogs. As I can't speak French and relatively few New Caledonians admit to speaking English, I couldn't ask anyone at the zoo about the breeding programme but one of the signs said that since 1978 they have bred over 100 kagu (and also that the bird has only had legal protection since 1977!!). One bird I was hoping they would have was the crow honeyeater; at Riviere Bleue there was a signboard with photos of the native birds, one of which was of an obviously-captive crow honeyeater that presumably was at the Noumea Zoo. Seeing the wild ones were a bit too sneaky for me to have got photos of I was hopeful of getting photos at the zoo but there were unfortunately none when I visited. The aviaries in the native section are mostly pretty uninspiring, sometimes quite unattractive and sparsely furnished but others were very well planted, they were
usually of an adequate size (some were what I would call quite large, but conversely others seemed very small), but none are what I would consider exceptional. Several aviaries were made of heavy green mesh which was not a good construction choice as it
horned parakeet (Eunymphicus cornutus)
closely related to the Ouvea parakeet (which was formerly considered as a subspecies). You can see the marked differences in colouration between the two species here. made photography impossible and even simple viewing very difficult. The signage was very good though, in three languages.
The exotic section is really sort of odd with a heavy emphasis on African birds (presumably all imported from France) but with everything just sort of scattered here and there about the place with no real cohesion. I'm guessing the handful of monkeys are there more to attract the locals, while the endemic birds on the other side of the zoo are mainly for the foreigners while hopefully also educating the locals who visit to see the monkeys! Overall its a very nice little zoo that I did enjoy a lot, and if you're a bird person then the native section is heaven.
While looking at the various caged animals, a purple gallinule ran across the path by one of the lakes. These are common birds throughout the Old World -- in New Caledonia they are called
poule sultane which I suppose can be translated as "the chicken who thinks he's a sultan". The gallinule reminded me that whilst at the zoo I was also supposed to be trying to find the local subspecies of nankeen night heron which live
wild here. So I tilted my head upwards and sure enough there was a heron perched in a eucalyptus tree above me. There turned out to be a lot of the herons nesting in the bamboo stands by the water's edge.
The next day, on Sunday, I took a day-trip to Mt. Koghis just outside of Noumea to have a last crack at finding the two common endemic birds that had so far completely eluded me, the New Caledonia cuckoo-shrike and the white-bellied goshawk. Once again the bus doesn't really go where you want it to: you get dropped off on the highway half an hour outside of Noumea, then walk/hitch for 8km to the top of the mountain whilst trying to avoid the obligatory vicious dogs. The forest up there is very nice but there were few birds around and I did not find the two I wanted so I had to leave New Caledonia the next day with them lacking from my tally. I did however see a new reptile, the southern whiptail skink
Tropidoscincus variabilis.
So, summing up New Caledonia: mostly nice weather, nice birds, very unpleasant dog population, inconvenient public transport. It is an
white-bellied goshawk (Accipiter haplochrous)
one of the endemic birds I did not see in the wild. This one is at the Noumea Zoo expensive place but I was surprised how little money I spent (relatively speaking). Because I was in a tent most of the time and eating only supermarket food I ended up spending less than NZ$600 over 14 days. Some would argue that sleeping in a tent and eating supermarket food doesn't sound like a very good holiday but I would beg to differ. Those people are entitled to their opinion, even if its the wrong one. Overall New Caledonia was my least favourite place I have been. I'm not entirely sure why that is -- I figure the dogs played a big part but I don't think that's all. What I find interesting is that everyone else who has been there that I have talked to since returning home has also said that New Caledonia is, at best, "average" as a destination. Maybe its just a New Zealand thing.
Funny observation number four: in French lovebirds are called "inseparables"!!!
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Chelsea
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Thank you!
Doing research on native fauna of New Caledonia for an Illustration project and this photo is absolutely invaluable to me. Thank you so much for sharing!