Highlands and lowlands …

Our next port of call will be Vanuatu once known as the New Hebrides. Here in this rarely birded archipelago we will explore two islands, Santo and Efate although the bulk of our birding will be on the large and mountainous of island of Santo the location of the archipleago’s capital Luganville. Vanuatu is a sleepy, rarely birded little known hideaway that supports a nap-hand of interesting endemics some of which are clearly related to those we encountered on New Caldeonia and which we will encounter further along on this remarkable tour. The mountains on Santo are extremely wet and rugged and inhospitable and although they do support four endemics, unless a new road provides access to the uplands we will concentrate our efforts in the lowlands! Here we will search for such species as: Vanuatu Scrubfowl, the endemic Tanna Fruit Dove, Pacific Imperial Pigeon, Mackinlay’s Cuckoo-Dove, Shining Bronze-Cuckoo, Uniform Swiftlet, Chestnut-bellied Kingfisher, Melanesian Golden Whistler, the very attractive endemic Buff-bellied Monarch (which belongs to a genus endemic to Vanuatu) and Vanuatu White-eye. During our short sojourn on Efate we will look for anything we may have missed in addition to searching for Blue-faced and, if we are very lucky the spectacular Royal parrotfinch.

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