Atiu and Takutea, The Cook Islands
Brisk morning winds promised an exciting landing on Atiu, in the southern cluster of the Cook Islands. Undaunted, we boarded our Zodiacs and rode the waves until a sharp turn to starboard brought us into a small protected harbor, where island maidens sounded a traditional greeting on the shell of the triton trumpet. We divided into groups for our chosen activities: the around-the-island tour, birding with Bird Man George (who really does know his birds!), a scramble with Mike Greenfelder into caves of the makatea (raised coral limestone) to see nesting Atiu swiftlets, found only on this island, and a visit to a coffee plantation and the studio of a textile artist. Most groups stopped to pay homage at the site where James Cook, on his third and final voyage of exploration in the Pacific, landed on Atiu Island on April 3, 1777. Much of the itinerary of the National Geographic Endeavour in the South Pacific has followed in the wake of the great navigator. Our various tours around Atiu ended with an exuberant dance presentation and a fine feast of local foods.
A short distance from Atiu is the unoccupied makatea of Takutea – unoccupied by people, but not by seabirds! Our Zodiacs carried us right onto the fringing reef flat, and we waded ashore. The sky was full of birds – red-tailed tropicbirds, boobies, frigatebirds, and noddies. After viewing nesting tropicbirds under the trees and shrubs of the upper beach, we set out through an abandoned coconut plantation to find nesting red-footed boobies and great frigatebirds. Red-footed are the only boobies to nest in trees, and they were easily accessible to our binoculars and camera lenses. Lurking in the background and often nesting in the same trees were great frigatebirds, ever willing to snatch an unattended booby chick. The only defense of the boobies is to sit tight. Our return along the beach brought us past a group of bristle-thighed curlews, a large shorebird with a very long, down-curved bill. These long-distance migrants nest way up north in the mountain tundra of western Alaska; this being the summer breeding season in the north, we were seeing non-breeding birds that did not make the long migration. And on this high note, we concluded our visit to the Cook Islands and turned our bow towards French Polynesia and Bora Bora.
Brisk morning winds promised an exciting landing on Atiu, in the southern cluster of the Cook Islands. Undaunted, we boarded our Zodiacs and rode the waves until a sharp turn to starboard brought us into a small protected harbor, where island maidens sounded a traditional greeting on the shell of the triton trumpet. We divided into groups for our chosen activities: the around-the-island tour, birding with Bird Man George (who really does know his birds!), a scramble with Mike Greenfelder into caves of the makatea (raised coral limestone) to see nesting Atiu swiftlets, found only on this island, and a visit to a coffee plantation and the studio of a textile artist. Most groups stopped to pay homage at the site where James Cook, on his third and final voyage of exploration in the Pacific, landed on Atiu Island on April 3, 1777. Much of the itinerary of the National Geographic Endeavour in the South Pacific has followed in the wake of the great navigator. Our various tours around Atiu ended with an exuberant dance presentation and a fine feast of local foods.
A short distance from Atiu is the unoccupied makatea of Takutea – unoccupied by people, but not by seabirds! Our Zodiacs carried us right onto the fringing reef flat, and we waded ashore. The sky was full of birds – red-tailed tropicbirds, boobies, frigatebirds, and noddies. After viewing nesting tropicbirds under the trees and shrubs of the upper beach, we set out through an abandoned coconut plantation to find nesting red-footed boobies and great frigatebirds. Red-footed are the only boobies to nest in trees, and they were easily accessible to our binoculars and camera lenses. Lurking in the background and often nesting in the same trees were great frigatebirds, ever willing to snatch an unattended booby chick. The only defense of the boobies is to sit tight. Our return along the beach brought us past a group of bristle-thighed curlews, a large shorebird with a very long, down-curved bill. These long-distance migrants nest way up north in the mountain tundra of western Alaska; this being the summer breeding season in the north, we were seeing non-breeding birds that did not make the long migration. And on this high note, we concluded our visit to the Cook Islands and turned our bow towards French Polynesia and Bora Bora.
