19 Apr 2014

Ogea Levu Treasure

Ogea Levu, the southernmost of the Lau group, is one of Fiji’s most beautiful yet inaccessible islands. Yesterday we made a visit in the hope of seeing the virtually unknown Ogea Monarch found only on Ogea Levu and neighbouring Ogea Driki.

We arrived ashore at 0900 and completed the sevusevu ceremony with the village elders. Our local guides then took us down a well maintained trail through the forest. We were somewhat concerned that bird activity would be low as the heat of the day was already upon us. To our delight however, birds were in abundance and they were also active and tame throughout the morning and into the heat of the afternoon. We were soon surrounded by Wattled Honeyeaters, White-throated Whistlers, Fiji Shrikebills, Vanikoro Flycatchers and others.

Eventually we found our first Ogea Monarch (shown above), acting shy high in the canopy. After a few tense minutes wait, a pair appeared just metres away from us and spent several minutes capturing insects at almost arms reach away from us! We subsequently found the monarchs to be common along the trail with approximately 12 birds observed by the group during the morning’s birding. Hundreds of photographs were obtained along with sound recordings.

After our great success in the forest we joined the locals for a village ceremony which turned into a spontaneous kava party with much kava drinking, singing, dancing and laughing. It was hard to pull ourselves away and return to the ship at the end of a perfect day in this island paradise.