Rare Birds on Rarotonga

It’s not often you get to see an endangered species, let alone one that comes out and stares back at you. Still less often do you see one increasing in numbers before your very eyes, but that’s what happened when I went to look for the Rarotonga Flycatcher.

The national bird of the Cook Islands, those South Pacific idylls of white beaches and palm-fringed atolls, would now be extinct if not for the Takitumu Conservation Project. These 380 acres of forest in the south of the main island, Rarotonga, are the only place in the world where the kakerori, to give it its local name, survives. When a survey was done in 1989 they discovered only 29 birds still alive, making it critically endangered.

‘So how many are there today?’ I ask Ian Karika, the Project Manager who also leads tours of the reserve when he can persuade visitors to stir themselves from those silver sands. ‘179,’ Ian tells me with some pride, but is immediately corrected by one of his workers. ‘181,’ says Ed Saul, ‘I found a couple more just now.’

The perky little flycatcher is therefore now off the critical list though still endangered, and the whole project is a tribute to the generosity of these Polynesian people. Ian Karika’s family, and two others, gave up their land, which was being used for timber felling and coconut growing, when they learned that it was the only place on Rarotonga where the flycatcher was clinging on.

‘There was talk,’ Ian says, ‘of introducing the bird onto other islands where it might have a better chance of survival, but the people of Rarotonga saw it as their bird, and were reluctant to do that. The landowners were a bit wary when we approached them about giving over their land, but when they learned that they would be involved in running the project themselves they were happy to sacrifice their farming land to make sure this little bird had a chance of survival.’

But what are the chances of seeing one? ‘No problem,’ Ian assures me, as we walk into the shady woods. ‘They’re very curious birds, and when we’re doing our surveys, if we want to make sure we’ve found the birds, we just make a lot of noise. They come right out to see what’s going on.’

Part of the reason for the bird’s survival is that in the Conservation Area they have re-introduced some of Rarotonga’s native trees, to let the forest get back to its natural state. There are native ferns too, which Ian points out to me, huge plants the size of a Triffid. Ian and his workers also keep out the bird’s predators, mainly rats that came to the island off ships in the 19th century. Then Ian takes me to one side and lowers his voice, sharing a forest secret with me.

‘See those two plants? They’re kava plants. You can make alcohol from them, which is popular in Fiji and elsewhere in the South Pacific but not so much on Rarotonga. Mind you, we only show them to foreign visitors as if the local people knew where they were they’d be up here after ’em.’

Ian stops on the track, and tells me to look at a group of trees about twenty yards away. ‘There’s a pair nesting over there. Got your binoculars?’ At our arrival the birds come out, obviously taking a great interest in us. The kakerori are light orange birds, and remind me of our inquisitive robin, coming to take a look whenever you go into the garden. They flit around in the branches, and I scarcely need the binoculars.

We see several more pairs on our walk through the woods, and end up back at the small information centre, where we meet up with Ed Saul again. ‘Look at this one,’ Ed tells me, nodding to another kakerori sitting in a tree right by the path. ‘This one likes rocks. It’s behaviour I’ve never seen before.’ With that, Ed picks up a rock and throws it along the road, and the bird races after it like a dog after a ball.

‘It’s a feisty little bird,’ says Ian. ‘The ones that survive do well. The average life expectancy here is about 12 years, which is very high if you consider that a similar bird in Europe would only live for maybe five years. We have a few birds here that are twenty years old and still breeding.’

As Ian drops me back at my guesthouse after a picnic lunch, and I contemplate an afternoon on the beach with a few cold beers, I can see why the flycatcher wants to live so long. I could manage another 12 years on Rarotonga myself.