gryllosblog   Gryllo's (aka Ian Lewis') blog. All things to do with travel, wildlife especially birds, history, architecture and anything else that interests me.

For my final post about the South Pacific trip we go to the small island of Kandavu which lies just southeast of Nadi.

Due to wonderful ways of the airlines getting there wasn’t straight forwards. We left Taveuni in the late afternoon of the 18th and flew not to Nadi as we had hoped, but to Suva where we changed planes before flying on to the capital. Now remember when we flew from Suva to Taveuni we had to go out of our way and fly via Nadi, now we had to go out of our way again. There was no onwards flight to Kandavu that day so we had to overnight in Nadi and then fly to Kandavu late morning of the 19th.

There are few roads on Kandavu and we were transferred from the airport to the resort on a small boat and had to wade ashore.

With little to do at Nadi before we flew to Kandavu I spent time photographing those introduced species that plague the Pacific islands like this Common Myna.

The lodge on Kandavu was right beside the sea. Our time there was limited to one afternoon and most of a morning and there were five endemic birds to find ….

… and Kandavu’s endemic Iguana

The Kandavu Honeyeater (above) was easy to find, the endemic Shining Parrot was seen in flight but the Kandavu Fantail and White-throated Whistler only gave brief views.

.. but the last good bird of the trip was this lovely Velvet Dove, the last of quartet of beautiful doves on Fiji.

The ‘green flash’ that can sometimes be seen as the last rays of the sun shine through the upper layers of the sea.

Well that concludes the South Pacific trip. From Kandavu we flew to Nadi in the late morning of the 20th, my flight to Melbourne was in the late afternoon and I had a long and tiring wait there until 0240 on the 21st. Next stop was Kuala Lumpar and then Dubai. I arrived at Heathrow at 1840 on the 21st and was home by 2300. Adding the eleven hours time difference it was a 47 hour journey from resort to home! I think I experienced worse jet lad after that journey then I ever have done before, in spite of having flown back from the Pacific on several occasions. This was not helped by a nasty chest infection that I picked up on route.

It had been an interesting trip, just 121 species seen (same as a one day winter bird race in Dorset!) but 64 of them were life birds and many of those real stunners. It was a shame I couldn’t get to see the Vanuatu montane endemics but that would require a full on expedition and may have been beyond my physical capabilities or get to the two remaining Fijian endemics, Pink-billed Parrotfinch and Long-legged Warbler but this trip didn’t include them.