Mauritius Day 2: Macchabee Forest Ridge, 13 November 2005.

(For Day 1 go to Ile aux Aigrettes)

South-east coast of Mauritius

Weather: light cloud in the morning, very warm and clear later.

Mauritius is part of the Mascarene Islands, an archipelago formed some 8 -10 million years ago in a series of undersea volcanic eruptions as the African plate drifted over the Réunion hotspot. When the first Europeans landed on the then almost uninhabited island in 1598, Mauritius was a wildlife paradise. Blanketed in lowland ebony forest, with thicker, taller wet forest covering the slopes of the many steep gorges and hillsides, the island had numerous endemic forest birds and plants. A stunningly beautiful place, it was recognised worldwide as an archetypal “Paradise” - so wonderful it apparently caused Mark Twain to write that “God first created Mauritius, then Heaven”.

If that’s true, God must have become mightily pissed-off as successive waves of colonisers arrived (the Portugese first, then the Dutch, French, and British) and tore Mauritius’s unique eco-systems apart. Within 100 years of its discovery the island’s rich wildlife was plunged into crisis - hunted in staggering numbers, their habitats removed, their nests and chicks destroyed by introduced and unnatural predators like macaques, dogs, cats, and rats. Come forward to the present day and many of the endemic birds are either extinct or have been through catastrophic decline.

The litany of lost endemic birds is depressing - from the world’s most well-known metaphor for permanent loss, the flightless Dodo, to the Mauritius Broad-billed Parrot, Grey Parrot, Mauritian Duck, and Red Rail. For so many species to have evolved on an island just 2,040 km² in area in the first place is proof of how hard natural selection impacts on life - for so many to have died out is proof of how hard Man impacts on natural selection…

Macchabee Forest Ridge:

Following the previous day’s wonderful birding on Ile aux Aigrettes and the fantastic views I got of Pink Pigeons I was still on a high when I got into a taxi early in the morning to go to the Petrin Visitor Centre at the acclaimed Black River Gorges National Park - the last area of original rainforest left on this remote island. The location of some of the rarest forests in the world according to reports on the net, Black River Gorges National Park is home to more than 150 species of plants and is also the only place in the world to see wild Echo Parakeets, and one of just a handful of sites on Mauritius - and therefore the planet - where wild Pink Pigeons and Mauritius Kestrels can be found…

Proclaimed in 1994 and covering just 6 574 hectares, this critically-important park comprises 3.5% of Mauritius’s landmass. Interwoven with well-marked trails, there are a number of ways of approaching this area - and I decided to spend my time walking the Macchabee Forest Ridge. This - I’d been advised - would offer views of some of the best scenery anywhere on Mauritius, and (a rather important and) give me a good chance of catching up with most of the endemics I wanted to see. (I’ve no doubt, incidentally, that birders on a “trip of a lifetime” to Mauritius probably wouldn’t have spent all day in the area in the way that I did, as I didn’t get to Bassin Blanc or to the endemics breeding centre at Grand River Noire, but I wanted to really try to get a feel for the area rather than rush from one site to another.)

I arrived at Petrin good and early (seeing my only Grey Francolin of the trip on the road on the way up) - and it was shut. No problem, said the driver…he was right, there wasn’t. I mentioned on the post I did on the previous day at Ile aux Aigrettes that the eco-tourism infra-structure on this remarkable island is surprisingly - well, undeveloped might be a way of describing it. I did arrive at the visitor centre pretty early, but I was a little surprised to find the place locked up but to be just waved in to the car-park by an elderly guard woken up by my taxi-driver. There seemed to be no locked gates into the Reserve, no barrier to pedestrians, no security basically - “so what”, you might say, but the woodland here is home to the only wild Echo Parakeets in the world. Given what the lunatic fringe in the aviculturalist world will pay for a parrot, especially a rare one, you do have to wonder if this needs looking at? Perhaps it’s an unfounded and unfair worry, but it did make me think…

Anyhow, worries aside, what I wanted was to access the forest (and the birds). The way in, to the left of the visitor centre (as you stand facing it) is a broad dirt road running between two fences. I didn’t see any signs explaining where it goes - I may have missed them - but the track/road is very obvious (rutted by four-wheel drive vehicles) and this is the access track to the Macchabee Ridge.

The broad track heads down between some uninspiring habitats - an exotic pine plantation on the left, and what looks like an almost bare field (in fact a protected regeneration area) on the right - for about 800m before a sign (see the top of this report) pointing down towards the Macchabee viewpoint is reached. Unless you’re really into Red-vented Bulbuls and Madagascar Fodys (pretty birds, but surely not why anyone comes to this particular forest) it’s really not worth spending anytime here at all…and if like me you’ve never been here before then the lack of signage and the lack of anything but introduced birds for the first 30 minutes of your visit to Black River Gorges will be fairly discouraging: but walk on - there’s gold in them thar hills…

A couple of hundred metres on from the sign to the viewpoint things begin to change. Once some native vegetation is reached the birding quickly starts to get a lot more interesting. My first “near-endemics” of the day quickly followed - a couple of Mascarene Swiftets flicking up and down the track. It took me a while (unfortunately, as I only managed to get one photograph) to realise that they were repeatedly going back to one specific tree and seeming to swoop up to a hanging clump of lichen (?), fluttering very briefly next to it before dropping away and back round. I’ve not seen this behaviour before from a swiflet, though the excellent “Swifts: A Guide to the Swifts and Treeswifts of the World” (Chantler and Driessens, 2000) states that this species nests all the year round and that the nest is “made from lichen filaments bound together with saliva”: perhaps this was therefore ‘collecting’ behaviour - if any swiftlet expert should happen to read this I’d be grateful for some insight.

Mascarene Swiftlet Collocalia francia

A little further on I was soon getting excellent views of my first island endemics of the day: Mauritius Grey White-eyes - a charming but very aberrant white-eye in that it has no white eye-rings, no greens or yellows in the plumage, and has the unusual behaviour of cocking its tail and flashing its white rump when alarmed. In fact a chattering party of them give the disorientating impression of looking more like Australian thornbills or North American Bushtits than African white-eyes. They’re definitely intriguing birds. I’ve posted a full gallery here

Mauritius Grey White-eye Zosterops mauritianus

Eventually the trees started to thin out and the first tantalising views of the Gorges started to appear. As I came round a corner I reached a small open area on the edge of a ridge where a few trees had been cleared, and I found myself suddenly looking out across a wide expanse of dense forest and deep chasms. It was a remarkable view, straight out of ‘pre-European arrival’ history. It was wonderfully still, slightly hazy, but sparkling with every shade of green in the spectrum.

Far off in the distance I saw two White-tailed Tropicbirds sailing through the air like white kites. It was a transforming moment. Mauritius suddenly “made sense”. This was why it had been compared with paradise. Had there been flocks of Mauritius Kestrels circling around in it, it would have been even better of course, but - trust me - this is a wonderful place to find yourself in whether there are any birds or not. Coming after the rather gloomy pines and the boring road up into the hills, it was as refreshing as a cold shower on a hot day…It’s scenery like this that must have so entranced the first Europeans to visit Mauritius: what a crying shame that they set about destroying so much of it with such vigour…

I won’t go on, the photographs below probably set the historic perspective better than I can in a paragraph (and who wants more than a paragraph of me banging on about how fantastic it must have been to see Mauritius before it was trashed?)

The track/road wanders along the ridge here for approximately 4km until it reaches the Macchabee viewpoint. It’s an extraordinary walk - and just about 100m from where I first set eyes on the Gorges I rounded another bend and found I was looking at two Echo Parakeets sat in the bare branches of a dead tree. Vivid green, plump and short-tailed compared with a Ring-necked Parakeet, these beautiful birds sat and preened for a minute or two before dropping off their perches and hurtling away over the forest leaving this particular birder hugely excited. No disrespect to Red-whiskered Bulbuls, but it was exactly for a moment like this that I’d come to this particular forest…

One of the world’s rarest parrots, and once one of the world’s most endangered birds, the Echo Parakeet had been to the brink and back again. That it still exists is testament to what can be achieved by dedicated conservationists. Just 15 years ago in 1990 its total population had been reduced to about 12 birds - but hard work by Carl Jones and his team (at the Mauritius Wildlife Foundation) has now raised its numbers to over 100…hardly abundant, but hopefully now at least safe…

Female Echo Parakeets Psitticula echo, Black River Gorges National Park

I’ll readily admit that I’m not an expert on Echo Parakeets, so what follows is adapted from an excellent website on the birds of Mauritius: In the 1700s and early 1800s, the Echo Parakeet was apparently very common on Mauritius. Between the 1870s and 1900s, the population was noted to be gradually falling, and, by the 1950s, it was considered very close to extinction. Surveys in the early 1970s estimated the population at 50 to 60 birds and reported very limited nesting success. The size of the population on Reunion is unknown, but the parakeet was probably extinct there before 1800.

A number of factors have been implicated in the decline of the Echo Parakeet on Mauritius. The single most critical factor is habitat loss; clearance in 1971 to 1974 of half of the upland dwarf forest at Les Mares on Plaine Champagne for plantation forestry was probably responsible for the drastic decline of the species. Nest predation by monkeys was also thought to have been a factor, but even when this problem was controlled, the bird’s reproductive success remained poor. Competition for nest sites from introduced birds such as the Ring-necked Parakeet Psittacula krameri and the Indian Mynah Acridotheres tristis is thought to be a problem, but to what extent is unknown. Food shortages at the end of winter are attributed to the gradual degradation of native forest and to competition for and destruction of fruit by black rats and monkeys. In 1974 remaining native forest habitat received almost complete protection when the Macabe-Bel Ombre Nature Reserve was created by linking a number of smaller reserves.
(Adapted from www.birds.mu/Endemic/EchoParakeet)

Pink Pigeons one day, and Echo Parakeets the next: stunning birding!

For about fifteen minutes I was quite happy not to see another bird all day, but I’m afraid - as always - the desire to see MORE kicked in: that and the realisation that it was only about 09:00am and that the day still had plenty to offer - particularly if I could find a way to get into the forest itself.

There are very few opportunities along the ridge here to actually get into the forest, where - surely - a whole host of endemics would be waiting. On your left (as you walk down towards the viewpoint) the path is either open and drops steeply off into the Gorges or bounded by short scrub full of the ubiquitous Red-whiskered Bulbuls. On the right is forest, but access is denied by a constantly thick “hedge” that is impossible to get through. It’s hardly surprising given how rare and critically-important this habitat is that casual visitors are not encouraged to wander at will - but, as anyone who values the experience of seeing native habitat up close would probably feel, it’s a touch frustrating nonetheless. However just as I was resigned to being shut out for good, I discovered that about 500m short of the viewpoint itself (so about 3.5km from Petrin) there is a narrow and clearly delineated path on the right hand side going into the trees. Presumably cut by biologists or researchers it’s well worth following. The path is not signed, but is “marked” by a large boulder and is at the bottom of a large dip in the main track (should you find yourself on Mauritius looking for it!).

As soon as you dip into the shade of the trees along this narrow track you get the feeling that you’ve really entered “old” Mauritius. There is a mix of old trees and younger ones, and the temptation is to branch off a little and have a good look around - but considering that there are plants on this island that survive in just one or two isolated clumps the risk of damaging such a sensitive habitat is far too high to justify doing that at all. Besides which there are slighly more open sections that give a broader view - and it was in one of those sections that a Mauritius Kestrel suddenly appeared, swooping up onto a branch about 30m away. A heart-stopping moment…

At one point in the 1970’s, the Mauritius Kestrel was the most endangered bird of prey in the world with a reported four surviving birds in the wild. It is still the rarest falcon in the world, but an intense conservation and captive breeding program (created by the Wildlife Preservation Trust in collaboration with the Mauritius government and consisting of feeding of wild birds, providing nestboxes, multiple clutching, egg pulling, artificial incubation, hand rearing and release of captive-bred and captive-reared birds by hacking, fostering, and predator control) has brought numbers back up to the several hundreds. These captive-bred birds have been successfully introduced to non-native habitats. Due to its outstanding successes, the release program ended in 1994, but conservationists have been consistently monitoring this area in hopes to reach the carrying capacity of the island, estimated to be 500-600 kestrels. (Adapted from www.birds.mu/Endemic/Kestrel.)

Where are the photographs, I can hear one or two of you asking? All I managed to get is the record shot to the left. Unfortunately this particular member of one of the rarest birds of prey species in the world was perched almost exactly in a line between me and the sun: the track was too narrow to change my position, and moving would have scared it off anyway. You’ll just have to take my word that for 30 seconds I was staring at a tiny raptor in great rapture! And 30 seconds was all I got, because as suddenly as it had appeared it leapt off its perch and hurtled away for (what I fondly imagined) was a snack on one of the hundreds of Red-whiskered Bulbuls that I’d been hoping were Mauritius Olive Bulbuls all morning…

I didn’t manage to find any of the few remaining Olive Bulbuls (or the now very rare Mauritius Olive White-eye, another highly threatened endemic for which a breeding programme is being developed), but I did manage to get reasonable views of a male Mauritius Cuckoo-shrike as it made its way through some dense canopy above me. In fact once this bird started calling - a vaguely Wryneck Jynx torquilla-like “Qee-qee-qee” - I realised that I’d been hearing them quite regularly. I probably heard three or four during the day - which is encouraging given the small area of the forest I actually birded.

I have to admit by the early afternoon I was beginning to fade, but there were still birds to see - and I thought that perhaps the viewpoint would give me an opportunity to get better views of another Kestrel, or at least more Echo Parakeets flying by. At that point I hadn’t even considered that the purpose of a viewpoint (to anyone other than a birder) is to give a great view - but I was soon reminded, because the view from the top of the ridge is absolutely superb. From a flat area of short turf there is an uninterrupted vista of land, sea, and sky - a dazzling mix of green and blue as the hills drop away directly in front of you and your gaze sweeps over the forest, through the Gorges, across the island and out to sea. It’s a sight I’ll never forget…and, yes, if you wait for a while you’ll almost certainly see (as I did) Echo Parakeets launching themselves out over the canyons and trees with loud squawks, and possibly (though I didn’t) a Mauritius Kestrel darting up above the canopy as it hunts…

There are moments when I feel truly privileged to be a birder, to be more than just a tourist casually admiring a view without any thought of the habitats or the wildlife contained within it, and this was certainly one of them…I know some people reading my reports sigh deeply when I threaten to come over all poetic, but this was a really wonderful place to be…just great…

View from Macchabee Viewpoint

After an hour or so of sitting and admiring (okay, catching my breath and giving my aching feet a rest) I’d also seen a few more Mascarene Swiftlets and my only three Mascarene Martins - a large, chunky and easily identifiable species - of the trip. With clouds gathering on the horizon, and a 4km walk back to the visitor centre (plus another path I’d seen and wanted to explore), I decided that enough was enough and headed back the way I’d come.

If I say that I saw relatively little except more (or the same) Echo Parakeets, Grey White-eyes, and more Swiftlets (photo right) that probably sounds like I’m complaining: not at all. I’d just had two remarkable days and if I hadn’t seen another bird all day I’d have been happy…

However, as I arrived back at the signpost to Petrin a little quicker then I’d expected - 4kms really aren’t that much really - I decided to try my luck along the track in the opposite direction. The trees looked a little more open, and a few birds were flicking across the path (more Red-vented Bulbuls in fact, though I didn’t realise it at the time) and what I recognised by now as another calling Cuckoo-shrike. As I reached the end of the trees to turn back again I caught a glimpse of something moving clumsily through the mid-stratum about 10metres away - and suddenly out popped a reddish-brown bird that at first I couldn’t recognise at all. (I’m not trying to imply that I normally can recognise every bird I ever see by the way, but when you’re birding a small island with just a handful of species on it, chances are that you should have a reasonable idea of what you’re seeing…)

I held my breath and rather than turn round and disappear back into the undergrowth the bird just sat on a thin branch looking at me, while I looked at it. Then the penny dropped. It was of course a female Mauritius Cuckoo-shrike - surely one of the rarest passerines in the world, just sat in the open looking at me. Frankly, I found it amazing: to have been so close to have going back to the car, but to have made one last effort before I slumped completely, and to be rewarded with this kind of a view…when the luck is with you, it really is with you (mind you as someone once said, ‘I do contribute some of my good fortune to hard work’!)

Anyway, the result of this close encounter was a gallery of photographs and a smile a mile wide. Some of the photos are posted below of course, and there are more at Cuckoo-shrike.

Female Mauritius Cuckoo-shrike Coracina typica

And that was the way two marvelous days ended. Mauritius is an incredible place to go - but the threats to the remaining wildlife are real and ever-present: my thanks go to a group of people I’ve never met and never will meet - the expert staff (past and present) who have worked so hard to drag the Pink Pigeon, the Echo Parakeet, and the Mauritius Kestrel back from the brink, and done their absolute best to ensure such priceless species remain in the wild where they belong. Perhaps the efforts made here will instill hope and inspire other governments and organizations to support programs that save endangered species. If you ever get the chance to go to Mauritius, please remember that work and support the Mauritius Wildlife Foundation. Cheers…

(Clockwise from top left) African Common (Guttural) Toad Bufo gutturalis (fairly common in the forest interior); Red-whiskered Bulbul Pycnonotus jocosus; two unidentified species of butterfly.

Should you wish to help MWF in its conservation work you are welcome to make a donation:

• Send a Cheque or postal order, made payable to The Mauritian Wildlife Foundation, Grannum
  Road, Vacoas, Mauritius,

OR

• Send a direct credit, Beneficiary Bank: The Mauritius Commercial Bank Ltd.- Port Louis – Mauritius
  Swift BIC: MCBLMUMU / Account Number: 010204792 / Account Currency: MUR OR

Mauritian Wildlife Foundation
Lone Raffray – Fund Raising Coordinator
Grannum Road
Vacoas
Mauritius
Tel: 697-6097 Fax: 697-6512
Email: mwffund@intnet.mu

Please include your full name and contacts including e-mail address, with all donations. Thanks in advance - Mauritian Wildlife Foundation.

 

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Trip List (12 and 13 Nov) [(I)=introduced]:
English and scientific names mainly from “Birds of the Indian Ocean Islands”, Sinclair I. and Langrand O., Struik, 2003:
White-tailed Tropicbird Phaethon lepturus 5, Green-backed Heron Butorides striatus 4-5, MAURITIUS KESTREL Falco punctatus 1, Grey Francolin Francolinus pondicerianus (I) 1, Turnstone Arenaria interpres 1, Spotted Dove Streptopelia chinensis (I) 5+, Zebra Dove Geopelia striata (I) 20+, Madagascar Turtle Dove Streptopelia madagascariensis (I?) c)10, PINK PIGEON Nesoenas mayeri c)10, ECHO PARAKEET Psitticula echo 6-7, Mascarene Swiftlet Collocalia francia c)10, Mascarene Martin Phedina borbonica 3, Red-whiskered Bulbul Pycnonotus jocosus (I) ++, MAURITIUS GREY WHITE-EYE Zosterops mauritianus c)30, MAURITIUS CUCKOO SHRIKE Coracina typica 3, Common Mynah Acridotheres tristis (I) +, House Crow Corvus splendens (I) 2, Madagascar Fody Foudia madagascariensis (I) +, MAURITIUS FODY Foudia rubra 2, House Sparrow Passer domesticus (I) 30+, Village Weaver Ploceus cucullatus (I) 20+ (one colony), Common Waxbill Estrilda astrild (I) c)10

 

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All photographs copyright Charlie Moores, 13 November 2005

 

For more information:
African Conservation/Mauritius
BirdLife: Pink Pigeon
Mauritian History
Wikipedia: Dodo
BBC: DNA yields Dodo family secrets
BBC: Scientists find “mass dodo grave”