A trip to The Cook Islands

My long awaited trip to The Cook Islands finally happened in early December. I was visiting our BirdLife Partner NGO in the Cooks to write a fundraising plan for them. A timely trip as their money runs out in March and they need help.

The Cook Island is a scattering of 15 islands - divided into the northern and southern groups - over a vast area of Polynesia. With a total population of just 15,000 people, about 70% live on the main island of Rarotonga. There’s a lot of water and not many people in it. I stayed on Rarotonga which is a circular island which takes just 40 minutes to drive round. It has tall mountainous peaks in the middle, and is buffered from the deep sea by a reef, lagoon and ring of white sandy beaches all the way around.

During my free time I snuck in a couple of snorkelling trips and a visit to a nature reserve to see the famous Rarotongan Flycatcher. Once the rarest bird on the planet totalling just 27 birds, it’s now up to 500 and doing well thanks to conservation efforts (and some funding from BirdLife).

A highlight of the trip was meeting James. At 6”4’ with a long beard and dreadlocks twisted into a bunch, he was a scary looking Viking of a man with a very interesting story to tell (see image!). For six months every year James lives on the remote atoll of Suwarrow with just coconut crabs and birds for company. His job is to act as immigration control for any yachts that visit Suwarrow, and he lives on rainwater he collects and the fish he catches. A true castaway and really gentle, friendly guy – despite his looks!

Just before I set off from Fiji, I heard the news that we should have funding to remove rats from Suwarrow to help protect the thousands of seabirds that breed on the island. With the help of James, BirdLife staff will be back next year to undertake the operation and to help our Partner there protect it for the future.

On my way back to Fiji I had a weekend in Auckland. Saturday was spent exploring the big smoke and having a city fix. I visited a fabulous aquarium, wondered through the park and did some shopping. In the evening I met up with Hannah and Bert – friends from Suva who were also in the city for work.

On Sunday I jumped on a ferry to Tiritiri Matangi Island in Auckland Harbour. The island is a bird sanctuary where they have removed all the rats and mice and introduced some of New Zealand rare birds. It was amazing. There were astonishing birds singing and flying about everywhere, and within the first hour of wondering the tracks I’d seen most species I’d gone to see. I also saw some very familiar birds like Blackbird, Yellowhammer and Goldfinch which had been introduced...