Lunch with a Kagu

And, so, we had to move off Sunrise, rent a car and start a new land life. We spent 8 nights in a Noumea Youth Hostel which was on hill and which had a beautiful view overlooking the city of Noumea and her many bays and harbors. From there we went to Noumea's museums, cultural centers and the aquarium. Our favorite outing was to the Parc de Riviere Bleue where we had lunch with a cagou/kagu. We sat down for a picnic lunch next to a sign that said, "Sentier a Cagous" (Trail to the Kagus) when up walks a kagu. We think he was interested mostly in our chocolate cookies. Contrary to what the bird book and pamphlets say, kagus are most definitely not shy. We took lots of great photos, said our goodbyes, got back on our bikes and down the road came to a trail to the Giant Kauri tree another site known to have the kagu. We saw more kagus and the very rare Crow Honeyeater, an endemic like the kagu. From there we took a long route home seeing the Chutes de Madeline in the far south of Grande Terre seeing a lake like Lake Mead behind a dam, the source of the power to run a huge nickel processing plant between Yate and Goro. The main road was closed and we ended up on roads that made Last Chance Canyon's washed out trails look good. These "roads" had potholes the size of our little car. We took another road trip there 2 days later and visited the dam, some mining ruins, read all the points of interest signs and spent productive time birding.
3 Kagu
1 Crow Honeyeater
Many New Caledonian Crow which is renown for its use of tools, mainly holding sticks in its bill to dig insects out of tree trunks.
1 White-bellied Goshawk.
Horned Parakeet

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