Birding in French Polynesia VI
6 January 2026
Over the next 28 days, I will be spending my time birding on Tahiti and Mo'orea, two islands in the Windward Islands, an archipelago belonging to French Polynesia, an overseas territory of France. Birds in italics indicate lifers. Today we spent our first full day on Moorea.
Tuesday Jan 6 2026 - Day 6
Today, we woke up to a beautiful sunrise, before getting ready and making our way up to the Belvedere, a viewpoint which looks over Cook's Bay and Opunohu Bay with the towering Mt Rotui in between. When we arrived, we were one of the first ones there, and got the place (mostly) to ourselves. In the car park, we were surprised to hear so many Silvereyes, making themselves known by their high-pitched calls.
Silvereye
I also heard, in the distance, a very exciting bird - the Grey-green Fruit Dove. This bird is endemic to French Polynesia and is only found in the rainforests and jungles of Tahiti and Moorea, in the Windward islands. We started the three coconuts trail, to trace the bird to its location. We heard many more Silvereyes, and even found the nest of one, in a low bush by the path, on our trek.
Silvereye nest with chicks
We heard a bit more of the Grey-green Fruit Dove, but didn't find it. We did see a nice Red-browed Firetail, also known as the Red-browed Finch. We then arrived at another viewpoint, where we saw a distant White-tailed Tropicbird. We then started to go back to the car park, since the path was beginning to get quite muddy.
Red-browed Firetail
Back at the Belvedere, the sun had come out, and the view was point-black superb. We saw some Blue Moon Butterflies here, some RJ, and some Red-vented Bulbuls.
View from the Belvedere
We then went for a walk to another viewpoint. On the way, I heard another Grey-green Fruit Dove, and we saw some more WT-Tropicbirds. At the top, we enjoyed the view and had a great time on the swing, before I saw a Grey-Green Fruit Dove fly over the trees. I grabbed the camera, but I was too slow. Instead, I focused my attention back on the tropicbirds, until, suddenly, another Grey-green Fruit Dove flew past, sadly, having switched to manual focus, I got a really blurry picture as it flew over the trees.
Grey-green Fruit Dove
Then, we went back down, and the heavens opened, and it started to rain. We rushed down as quickly as we could, with the rain stopping by the time we got to the car park. Afterwards, we got a tip about a really nice beach nearby, where we decided to go to next, after a bit of lunch. We went to eat at A l'Heure du Sud, a charming little food kiosk, where we got a couple paninis.
It then started to rain, so, instead of going directly to the beach, we drove around to enjoy the scenery, even though it was in the rain. We saw the gift shop at the Tiki village, and went to see Fare Edith (my mum's name). Now at the beach, we had some fun swimming before going to the coral reefs to see some tropical fish. I was really happy to see a Picasso Triggerfish, since it was a really beautiful species, with an interesting name. We also saw a Three-spot Dascyllus.
On the way back home, we stopped at the UC Berkeley Gump Station, on the West side of Cook's Bay. We didn't have much time here, so we simply took a selfie in front of the research lab and called it a day.
