Coral Coast Pine Forest
This site was a wonderful surprise. With the assistance of the provincial office staff, I was guided to a coastal site in an abandoned village turned graveyard. The large mango trees must have had bats previously as the leaves on top of the trees were missing but they were not using it as a roosting site anymore. As we kept walking and looking in the neighbouring settlement we heard the best sound - distant chatter of a Pacific Flying Fox camp. It was approaching sunset and so the bats were starting to move around. We found the house which has a large pine forest in the backyard! This is home to over 300 (most likely an underestimate but I couldn’t access all of the forest) P.tonganus!! I have only seen 3 other sites like this here in Fiji which are not overly disturbed by the presence of people.
It is the start of the wet season here and so it is becoming increasingly difficult to get samples on a clear night. There was a slight drizzle last night which also meant it kept it nice and cool so the samples weren’t hot and dry when we started collecting at sunrise this morning. I had some great helpers with me for this site - Jay, Gin, Ginny and Sala. They live in the neighbouring village/settlement.
We are off to find a other site today while awaiting approval to visit an eco park which possibly keeps bats in cages for display!
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