Originally, I planned to post separate articles with birds of Fiji images depending on their size and type. A few months back I posted the first article with images of small to medium-sized birds here in Fiji and followed a few weeks later with another one dedicated to the beautiful doves here. Instead of following with a post on the larger birds, I decided to compile all birds I managed (and will manage) to photograph so far in this post. And because everything sticks a little better in our heads with a catchy name, I am going to call this project “Project manumanu vuka“, which means “Bird” in Fijian.
As I wrote before, according to Wikipedia the avifauna of Fiji “includes a total of 178 species, of which 31 are endemic, and 13 have been introduced by humans”. This sounds like a lot, and indeed it is but we have to start somewhere regardless.
As I am living and working in Fiji and generally love birding, I came up with the (probably impossible) plan to photograph each and every one of the birds found here in Fiji – whether just as occasional visitors or as resident breeding birds. I figured the easiest way to display them in alphabetic order. The expectations for myself are that the shown images must be of good quality, visually pleasing, and facilitate the identification of the respective bird(s).
This will be an ongoing project and I will update this as I am able to shoot new birds. Luckily, I do get to travel a fair bit throughout Fiji due to my work assignments and fingers crossed will be able to photograph birds that can only be found on a certain island or islands.
Alphabetical List of Birds
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Just stumbled on this while trying to ID some weird bird in my Lami garden. Haven’t found my bird, but enjoyed these photos very much. Hard enough to get a clear photo of many birds, but even harder to get these showing so much character. Hope you will be adding more.
Hi Helen, thanks for your comment! Do you have a cell phone image of your bird in te garden? If so, send over 🙂
Bula! I’ve really enjoyed looking through these beautiful photos. We lived in Fiji for 3 years from 1978 and I always used to watch and record the birds seen from our balcony in the Suva area. Sadly those records are long since lost and I’ve been trying to recall which birds I used to see on a regular basis. I know we had 2 species of honeyeater, the orange-breasted and the wattled but the latter is confusing me somewhat. My black and white field guide (written by Robin Mercer and published in 1966) refers to the wattled honeyeater as Foulehaio carunculata, whereas you refer to it as Foulehaio procerior – I wonder which it was I used to see? Any ideas?? Vinaka vinaka Clare
Hi Clare, thank you for your comment! Must have been quite different back then in Fiji 🙂 Yes, I understand the confusion, I was just recently made aware that the Fiji Wattled Honeyeater has been split into three – the Western Wattled Honeyeater (Foulehaio procerior) is on Viti Levu, the Eastern Wattled Honeyeater (Foulehaio procerior) on Kadavu and the other smaller eastern Fijian islands and American Samoa and Tonga, and the Northern Wattled Honeyeater (Foulehaio taviunensis) on Vanua Levu and Taveuni. (More info here: Andersen et al. (2014): A molecular phylogeny of Pacific honeyeaters (Aves: Meliphagidae) reveals extensive paraphyly and an isolated Polynesian radiation. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 71:308–315) . Hope this helps! All the best from Suva, Tom
I just realised you are a marine biologist, my father is a retired marine biologist, he used to teach at USP! We just celebrated his 90th birthday, joined by several other marine biologists 🙂
[…] life. For a list of species, I have been able to photograph over the p[ast years, head over to my Manumanu Vuka Project post. Here on Turtle Island, I was especially happy to find a flock of male and female many-coloured […]
[…] ones, of the Kadavu Honeyeater (which I hadn’t photographed before and which is now in my Manumanu Vuka collection) as well as, to my surprise, the black-shouldered lapwing! I totally did not expect that bird here, […]
[…] has really deepened over the last few years in Fiji. About two or three years ago, I launched the manumanu vuka project, an attempt to photograph every bird species in Fiji – breeding and visiting. I managed to […]
Thank you so much for this comprehensive (and beautiful!) guide. I was able to identify the birds that visit our balcony at a resort in Momi Bay – Pacific Swallows!
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Tom Vierus is an award-winning photographer, filmmaker, and marine biologist based in Suva, Fiji Islands. This blog is dedicated to his assignments and to sharing some behind-the-scenes footage.
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