19 Oct 2017

Exploring The Pristine Kolombangara Reserve

The dawn was just brightening as the birders departed the Spirit of Enderby for the morning birding. As the sun slowly illuminated the mountain on Kolombangara it was a great spectacle that was laid out before us, a nearly perfect volcanic peak rising to 1700 meters and a multitude of other islands surrounding.

The birders enjoyed a succesful morning with sightings of a number of the island and regional endemics. After breakfast the rest of us headed ashore and also travelled to the Kolombangara reserve to explore this nearly pristine habitat starting at 400 meters above sea level. While some choose to take it easy sitting on the deck of the reaserch center and watching the world go by, most headed into the forest where there was a multitude of interesting critters to spot, from red-legged crickets to spiders with spines and zombie insects being consumed by fungus there was something to spot around every bend on the trail.

Back at the landing we were treated to a performance of the renowned local bamboo band who play their pvc pipe musical instruments with greath rhythm and passion. During the afternoon the rain arrived and it was a hardy group of snorkellers that headed out for what turned out to be a great snorkel with pleny of fish, corals and even a black-tipped reef shark.

Then in a first for Heritage Expeditions we headed out in the zodiacs on dusk in search of bats with Tim Flannery leading the way, several species were seen while ashore and a pleasant bonus was the sighting of a Solomons Nightjar flying above the group, we then continued the search from the zodiacs with sightings of another 3 species including the Flying Fox making a total of 5 different bat species spotted during the zodiac cruise. Returning to the ship beneath a starry sky the fish were jumping around the zodiacs and the phospherescence was glowing in the water.