The emblem of New Caledonia is the now rare cagou, an endemic flightless bird. During Vulcan Spirit’s brief stop-over the crew decided to try to seek it out in the wild so a car was hired and the entire crew set off in search of the elusive cagou in the Riviere Bleue regional park in the far south of the main island, Grande Terre.

Cagou Rhynochetos jubatus live in forests, and are entirely carnivorous searching out food on the forest floor. Here is their environment:

 

 

This area has been extensively logged and most of the habitat severely degraded but old-growth forest still exists at the valley heads and on some higher slopes, and now that a large area has protected status as a park things are improving. The Riviere Bleue is managed for cagou and numbers here are increasing again slowly. The total population is unknown, but is thought to be under 1000 birds with about 400 living in the park.

 

Amazingly, the hunt was successful. The crew hired bicycles (no cars allowed) in miserable weather with rain on and off. Where there was a sign saying “Sentier cagou (cagou path) 15min” the team dismounted and were astonished to find wild cagou wandering around the forest floor near the path. Some even posed for photographs. One was even found standing right next to a large display panel telling you in French all about cagou. So here are some cagou pictures: 

 

 

 

The quality of these photos is not great but they had to be taken in natural light in a forest so they’re the best we could do.

 

The origin of these birds is obscure. It’s closest known relative is the South American sunbittern, but it may also be related to NZ’s extinct adzebills (NC was once part of ancient Zealandia and is fauna & flora show some substantial similarities with NZ), so they may have been in NC since it left Gondwana some 80m years ago. Or not. They have well developed wings but can no longer fly because they lack the necessary musculature. There was once a larger lowland species but it didn’t survive the arrival of humans.

 

Here is the visiting half of the crew of VS en route back to the car at the end of the successful hunt (note the red soil; this part of NC is composed of oceanic crust with a very high metal content, especially :