Birding Trip Report: Mauritius 2019

This is a birding trip report to Mauritius in July. Birding in Mauritius is not very conventional. Firstly, because there aren't many species you can see and secondly because of the strange mix of introduced and native species that inhabit the island. What little birding information there is available online tends to be from typical 'island-hopping' tours which spend a day or two on the island to sweep up all the endemics. My main motivation for writing this report is that there really isn't much information available online, especially for a family-motivated longer trip.
In July 2019, I spent two weeks on Mauritius for a family holiday. The focus was not birding, but I was keen to see as many of the endemics as I could and also a broad range of species because all of the introduced species were generally new for me.
All of the island endemics can be seen in just 2 days of birding (or even potentially in just 1) and in this time, the introduced species should take care of themselves too. This makes seeing all of the specialities on a family holiday, without much time to bird, a realistic endeavour. Unlike many other countries, it is a strange experience having just 12 or so species that you are trying to find. But it makes for a nice challenge, and the other introduced birds are often exciting for the first time visitor too.

The view from the Macchabbee Viewpoint in Black River Gorges NP

All images of wildlife taken by Rebecca Coward

The Island:

The island itself is really beautiful. Sure, there are clear signs of the terrible deforestation that has taken place over the years. In its former glory, the island must have been stunning, but this shouldn't detract from the incredible beauty that it still holds. The weather in July was lovely, and far hotter than we had expected, given that it's winter for the island.

Sites & Access:

There are some great areas that you can go to enjoy the wildlife and scenery this country has to offer:

Chamarel GeoPark: this is a famous tourist site and well worth the visit. You pay a single entry fee to enter the park and within it you can visit the impressive waterfall, the Seven-Coloured Earth and the tortoise park. The Sublime Ebony Forest (see below) is within the park but requires a further admission fee. This is a great area set in the midst of what remains of the island's forest. This is not to be missed, especially if you're staying in the more developed north of the island. The park has gift shops, food outlets and toilets and lots of tourists. But it doesn't feel unpleasantly crowded.

We didn't see any unusual birds within the park itself, but others have found Madagascar Partridge here.

Seven-Coloured Earth at Chamarel

Sublime Ebony Forest: a hidden gem. We very nearly didn't visit but were so glad we decided to pay the admission fee. Set within the Chamarel Park but with its own standalone entrance fee, a small gift shop leads up to a tarmacked track leading up the mountain. You could choose to walk up yourself but a scheduled safari-style truck makes regular trips up and down the track, dropping visitors at designated 'stops'. The safari ride is an experience in itself! Like something out of Jurassic Park.

The first stop is at a short canopy walkway, which is the main reason I so highly recommend this site. Here, on local advice, we saw Mascarene Paradise Flycatcher. A bird which I thought was only regularly found at Bras D'Eau (and we weren't going to the east of the island). I had not seen any information online suggesting that this bird could be found here and yet it turns out to be almost guaranteed. Highly convenient if you're visiting Chamarel anyway. In fact, when we told our guide driving the truck that we were looking for one, she got out and walked the trail with us to find us one herself!

At the top of mountain is a viewpoint which is worth the entrance fee in itself. The views over the western half of the island are jaw-dropping and we watched Mauritius Fruit Bats flying over the valley below us!

You can see all the way up the coastline of western Mauritius 

Ile Aux Aigrettes: we had a private tour of the island with the Mauritius Wildlife Foundation. Their work here has preserved the populations of some key Mauritian endemic wildlife which have sadly been driven to near extinction on the mainland. The species are now thriving here thanks to the absence of predation and habitat destruction. Our guide was extremely knowledgable and engaging. She found us all 3 of the key endemic birds which inhabit the island: Pink Pigeon, Mauritius Olive White-Eye and Mauritius Fody. These 3 birds, which are so tricky elsewhere, are guaranteed on a trip to the island and all 3 were seen well and in large numbers. We also saw the island's reptiles which are arguably rarer than the birds: Telfair Skink, Ornate Day Gecko and Gunther Gecko and best of all the introduced Aldabra Giant Tortoises which freely roam the island.

We were taken on a full tour of the island and learnt about its history as a British Military Base (even being shown an old canon). Even wildlife aside, this island makes for a fantastic tour and I highly recommend it. It is the only example of Mauritius Dry Coastal Forest left in the world today and a trip here feels like a trip to another world. It is here that you really feel closest to the incredible habitats that made Mauritius home to the legendary Dodo, Mauritius Blue-pigeon and Mauritius Owl. The island has toilets and a gift shop and is a short boat ride from the mainland, over a shallow lagoon.

Black River Gorges NP: this is one of the few remnants of true Mauritian forest and the views are superb. We walked the Macchabee Trail from Le Pétrin Visitor Centre with a guide from the Mauritius Wildlife Foundation. Note this is a reasonably flat 5km trail out to the viewpoint and 5km back the same way, through pristine habitat. Rose's knowledge of the area and its birdlife was fantastic and on the walk we saw Mauritius Bulbul, Echo Parakeet, Mascarene Swiftlet, White-tailed Tropicbirds breeding in the gorge and a fleeting Mauritius Cuckooshrike along with extras like Common Waxbill. Birding here is tough (there are very few species in general) and sometimes it feels like hard work for little reward, but the former 4 species should be seen without much difficulty - we saw many of each - knowing the calls of the Bulbul and Parakeet will help. Crab-eating Macaques performed well several times during the walk, including a young one. The latter, however, is trickier and definitely a case of luck. Pink Pigeon, Mauritius Fody and Olive White-Eye all occur here and have been seen by others, but we only saw these species on Ile Aux Aigrettes.
With a lot of effort perhaps all of these three key endemics could be found in the more natural setting of the Black River Gorges area, and other trip reports have had success in the past, but with the species continuing to decline this is becoming an increasingly difficult task.
It is worth noting that free-flying Pink Pigeons are reared in front of the visitor centre here - I have no idea about the status of these birds but they are probably not "tickable" and can cause undue excitement - as I found when one flew over the car on arrival!

Cap Malhereux: a good sea-watching site and convenient if you are staying in the north of the island. See "Sea Birds" for more information and Dr Hottola's report, here, for access details and his sightings.

Grand Bassin: a tourist site for its large Hindu temples and shrines. Handily, this is also a very reliable site for Mascarene Martin and tame Macaques. The Martins can be seen hawking from the base of the statues themselves!

Accommodation:

We stayed at LUX* Grand Gaube in the north of the island. It had wide views over the islets to the north but sadly the lagoon is too wide here for any proper sea watching from the hotel. 

We loved the hotel. Food was always plentiful and varied at any time of day– we never once felt we had to have the same thing twice or like we were in any way limited by what was on offer, only our appetites! Nothing is too much for the staff and no detail is missed in creating the perfect holiday experience, including the curved design of the hotel buildings around the back of the bay, which blocks the prevailing easterly wind to give the hotel its very own hotter microclimate. 

The good thing about Mauritian birds (aside from the rare endemics) is they tend to be very showy. We saw a good range of birds around the hotel, far more than I was expecting, and most of them were new for me. I think this would be typical of any resort hotel on the island, as none of these species were range-restricted.

The full hotel list was:

White-tailed Tropicbird

Red-tailed Tropicbird

Striated Heron

Whimbrel

Feral Pigeon

Madagascar Turtle Dove

Spotted Dove

Zebra Dove

Ring Necked Parakeet

Mascarene Swiftlet

Mauritius Grey White Eye

Common Myna

Red Whiskered Bulbul

House Sparrow

Village Weaver

Red (Madagascar) Fody

Common Waxbill

Scaly Breasted Munia

Yellow Fronted Canary

Getting Around:
We hired a car and found it an easy country to get around in. The roads are good, the traffic is minimal outside of towns and the island is a convenient size so that you can get pretty much anywhere in under 2 hours. On the day that we spent travelling the south of the island ,we didn't find the hour and a half journey there too difficult. We only hired a car for one week of the two week holiday and found this was enough to feel like you've done the island justice.

Useful Reports:

http://www.birdtours.co.uk/tripreports/mauritius/maur3/maur-oct-02.htm
http://www.surfbirds.com/mb/trips/mauritius-campbell-0713.pdf
http://www.birdlist.co.uk/Mauritius-bird-trip-report-2013.shtml
https://www.camacdonald.com/birding/africamauritius&reunion(hottalatripreport).htm
http://www.birdtours.co.uk/tripreports/mauritius/mauritius-7/mauritius-nov-08.htm

The Birds:

The great thing about Mauritius is that it is so under-watched and under-recorded that really anything can turn up! There's a very real chance of visiting for two weeks and finding a rare bird for the island - especially if you're sea watching.

Mauritius birds can be split roughly into 3 categories - endemics/native, sea/coast and introduced: 

Endemics:

The best strategy is to focus any birding time that you have on seeing the endemics. 

I did very well and saw 10 of the 11 Mascarene/Mauritian Endemics available on the mainland, missing only Mauritius Kestrel.

I have listed all the endemic species and given advice on finding each one:

Mascarene Swiftlet: this is probably the easiest endemic. Seen on every day of the holiday, often hawking over the hotel pool. You should have no trouble seeing these without any effort.
Mascarene Martin: very local but if you know where to go they should be easy. I saw them easily at Grand Bassin after seeing this site suggested in other reports. It is a site many families would visit anyway. They must occur elsewhere but I have not heard of any other reliable sites.
Mauritius Grey White-Eye: similar to Mascarene Swiftlet, this is the other endemic which is still widespread and easy to see all over the island. Seen on many days, including at the hotel. They often travel in large feeding groups.
Mauritius Olive White-Eye: it is thought that fewer than 100 pairs exist in the world today. Supposedly still possible at Pétrin and many consider the best site on the mainland to be the nearby Bassin Blanc. In any case, they are incredibly rare and luck is needed to see them on the mainland.
However, they are essentially guaranteed on Ile Aux Aigrettes where I saw several pairs. Truly, these are one of my favourite birds. Such tiny birds with a lot of character. A trip to Ile Aux Aigrettes provides unforgettable views of this special species.

Pink Pigeon: should be the easiest of the 3 "Ile Aux Aigrettes species" to get on the mainland and can be found in Black River Gorges NP on the Macchabbee Trail and "Pigeon wood". We didn't see them here but we got many good views on Ile Aux Aigrettes.
Mauritius Fody: many on Ile Aux Aigrettes. The birds here are not shy and gave views down to around a metre! Can apparently still be found in Black River Gorges NP. A good trip report for finding this, and the previous 3 species on the mainland, can be found here.

Mauritius Kestrel: as far as I could tell, this species can now only reliably be found in Vallée de Ferney, where they are reasonably guaranteed. We did not visit Vallée de Ferney, and after asking our guides, it seems we had only a tiny chance elsewhere. The commanding views from the Macchabbee Viewpoint perhaps offered the only hope of seeing this species away from the valley.
Mauritius Cuckooshrike: a fleeting view of one in flight along the Macchabbee Trail in Black River Gorges NP was the only sighting. It seems they can be either easy to see here or disappointingly elusive. For us, it was the latter. In any case, this trail provides the only real opportunity that I know of to find these birds in Mauritius.
Echo Parakeet: loud and easy to see along the Macchabbee Trail. We got many good views and studied the differences between these and Ring-Necked Parakeet, the main confusion species. With a combination of call and plumage details, this was not actually a very difficult separation.

Mauritius Bulbul: unobtrusive but seen several times along the Macchabbee Trail - once you know their call, they are easier to spot. Some people have found these to be scarce here, so perhaps it is similar to the Cuckooshrike. Others have found them at Bassin Blanc and elsewhere in Black River Gorges.
Mascarene Paradise Flycatcher: prior to the trip, I believed this would be a species we would miss. I thought, like Mauritius Kestrel, it could only reliably be found in one site - Bras D'Eau. However, on our walk in Black River Gorges, our guide Rose mentioned that they could be found in the Sublime Ebony Forest in the Chamarel park, where we were headed that afternoon. Sure enough, we saw a bird along the canopy walkway here despite strong winds! This is a reliable site and both the reception staff and guides here knew about the birds and were able to direct us to where to find them. Yet I had found no other reports online of this site before the holiday!

Introduced & Others:

The range of introduced species should take care of themselves. All the individual species that I saw are discussed below in the full species list.
I found some of these species very exciting as I have never seen them before.
I understand that to many visiting birders the idea of seeing an introduced Madagascar Fody in Mauritius, for example, seems somewhat "plastic". But these species are all now self-sustaining and thriving, and if taken at face value they don't feel introduced. Their exotic colours fit seamlessly into Mauritius' tropical landscape.

Sea Birds:

Mauritius is surrounded by coastal lagoon. While this is great for swimming and snorkelling safely, it means that the open sea is a long way away and often not visible for sea watching. There are only a few points around the coast where the lagoon edge is sufficiently close to offer good sea watching opportunities.
First of all, the good news for me was that Tropicbirds, the sea birds I was most keen to see, don't count and are easily seen around the entire coast, well within the lagoon edge. White-tailed were even seen nesting inland.
Proper sea watching however requires a slightly different tactic. I based my efforts mostly off the fantastic trip report here by Dr Hottola. I will not try to repeat his essential advice.
But I will try to add my own experience - sea birding in Mauritius is no easy feat. As Dr Hottola says, a scope is pretty much essential and even with one it is not easy. I spent an hour or so one evening watching from Cap Malhereux and found that there were hundreds of sea birds moving - but the distance meant that identifying them with my limited experience was a different issue all together.  Birds flew low over the water far out to see and it is difficult to get a good view as they keep being lost behind the waves.
I found that Wedge-tailed Shearwaters were the most common bird by far and saw hundreds of these. I also saw Sooty Tern. Best of all though, I found that Masked Booby was reasonably easy too! This was a major target, and I saw several. They tend to fly much higher up in front of the islets which meant better views that weren't so silhouetted.
Morning and evening are the best times to sea watch when large numbers of seabirds are moving. It can be very quiet at other times.
Birds were flying around the islets to the north of Mauritius - Gunner's Quoin and Gabriel Island - where they breed, and perhaps a boat trip in the evening towards these islands would put you in the middle of the feeding flocks for better views. Since my visit the Mauritius Wildlife Foundation now offers a half day boat trip to the northern isles to view sea birds. Had this been available when I visited, I would have definitely done this.
Birders have also had success on daytime trips to and from these islands, which run commercially. This was not something we ended up doing but I imagine it could have been very successful.
I briefly considered chartering a longer pelagic boat out to the further islands, namely Round Island, where Trinidad Petrel breeds. This is a complicated taxonomy but Trindade Petrel that breeds here on Round Island is considered by some to be worthy of separate species status - Round Island Petrel. Many other exciting seabirds including Barau's Petrel, Audubon's Shearwater and Subantarctic Skua could be seen from a boat trip out to Round Island and for the intrepid birder this could be very rewarding. Due to the rough seas in July, we did not consider this, but many other birders have done so.

Looking north from Cap Malheureux towards Gunner's Quoin

Itinerary:
The following is a two-day itinerary which I think would encompass most of the island's highlights and birdlife and would ensure seeing all endemics:
Day 1: walk the Macchabee Trail at Black River Gorges NP (early morning recommended) - Grand Bassin - Chamarel Park for the waterfall and Seven-Coloured Earth - Sublime Ebony Forest - sea-watching at La Roche Qui Pleure (outside chance of Réunion Petrel!)
Day 2: Ile Aux Aigrettes - Vallée de Ferney (timed with the kestrel feeding) - Boat Trip off the North Coast

We did the Macchabee Trail, Grand Bassin, Chamarel Park and Sublime Ebony Forest in a day. It was fast-paced but not too rushed and we would have been done in time to catch the evening sea bird movement at La Roche Qui Pleure.

Full Bird List: (endemics starred*, discussed above)

Gray Francolin - seen mainly while driving across the island - flying up out of sugar cane fields. Heard calling also on Ile Aux Aigrettes
Wedge-tailed Shearwater - Cap Malheureux
White-tailed Tropicbird - pleasingly common. Seen well at the hotel and around the coast, also in Black River Gorges along the Macchabbee Trail.

Red-tailed Tropicbird - not quite as common as White-tailed and restricted to the coast. Mainly seen only on the northern coast as they breed on Gunner's Quoin and other northerly islets, not on the mainland itself. Seen several times over the hotel.
Masked Booby - Cap Malheureux

Striated Heron - common on rocky coasts. Many at the hotel were active at night and we enjoyed watching them from the pontoon, fishing in rock pools in the dark.

Whimbrel - two flew over the hotel

Feral Pigeon - common in urban areas
Pink Pigeon*

Madagascar Turtle Dove - widespread in small numbers

Spotted Dove - the least common of the introduced doves. But seen in several locations including the hotel and Casela wildlife park

Zebra Dove - common and surprisingly tame

Echo Parakeet*

Ring Necked Parakeet - only one seen, at the hotel.

Mascarene Swiftlet*
Mauritius Cuckooshrike*
Mascarene Paradise Flycatcher*
House Crow - regularly seen in more urban areas, but largely restricted to the north of the island
Mascarene Martin*
Mauritius Olive White-Eye*

Mauritius Grey White Eye*

Common Myna - common. There were loud roosts in the banyan trees behind our hotel room each night. The novelty wore off very quickly!

Red Whiskered Bulbul - common and widespread

Mauritius Bulbul*

House Sparrow - as common as everywhere in the world!

Village Weaver - seen in many locations, enjoyed watching them attend their nests from the hotel room balcony.

Red (Madagascar) Fody - widespread in small numbers. Note many can show characteristics of Mauritius Fody! Away from Black River Gorges and Ile Aux Aigrettes it is unlikely to be the latter. Red Fody has very variable amounts of red.
Mauritius Fody*

Common Waxbill - regularly seen including at Pétrin, Casela and the hotel

Scaly Breasted Munia - regularly seen including at Casela and the hotel

Yellow Fronted Canary - seen very often at our hotel in the north, but not seen often away from here. Perhaps one of the scarcer introduced species.

32 species.

Mammals & Reptiles:
Crab-Eating Macaque: introduced in the 16th Century. Seen in the natural setting of Black River Gorges and a few tame individuals were being fed by tourists at Grand Basisn.

Mauritius Fruit Bat: a couple were seen leaving their roosts from the car during early morning drives but best seen from the viewpoint Sublime Ebony Forest where they fly over the valley below you. If you think you've seen a large bird of prey - it's probably a fruit bat!
Gunther Gecko: exceptionally rare but doing well on Ile Aux Aigrettes. Very hard to spot but found by our guide on Ile Aux Aigrettes

Telfair Skink: found by our guide on Ile Aux Aigrettes
Ornate Day Gecko: found by our guide on Ile Aux Aigrettes
Aldabra Giant Tortoise: many seen on Ile Aux Aigrettes where they have been introduced and freely roam