Birdwalk at Ebony Forest

Fabulous day at Ebony Forest doing a birdwatching trip. We left the hotel before breakfast as it was a long trek, we thought there would be more traffic so because we were going to arrive earlier then expected we stopped at the Black River Gorge view point car park to have a pastry. Paul about choked on his when he saw on the post in front of the car and gecko!! Lol this was one of the species we were wanting to see today in the forest and there it was, in a car park on an electrical post 🤣. We spent a good 20 mins watching dozens of these little critters running and jumping into the tree next to it, then headed to Ebony Forest for our trip to hopefully see the Mauritian Pink Pigeon. There were several people in the group all eager to see the pigeon, before the trek it was the mandatory talk and walk through the museum. We did learn it took 1000 years for the Ebony tree to grow to its full size and that they are at risk of extinction in mauritius 🇲🇺.. anyways onto the trip we went, it was quite a steep hike, the mauritian kestrel had not yet arrived in the nesting spot so we weren't able to see it, we did see the Fody, Weavers, Bulbuls and then the Pink Pigeon, so pretty! We saw the Echo parrots fly over too, the reserve has dozens of Aldabra Tortoises roaming around and it was surprising to see them climbing the steep verges to get some food. Halfway through the trip we decided to break from the tour and walk back down to the centre, it was mega hot and we were shattered. On the way down we saw the Olive White Eye bird and the Flycatcher bird and again dozens of geckos and lizards, we also saw our first amphibian of the holiday, a small toad, couldn't get a picture though but will identify from books when we're home. All in all a fabulous trip, well worth it and will sefo be back next year to do the full tour (on a jeep lol) . After the trip it was a long drive back, keep trip to Debonairs pizza 😋 and to the gold.shop lol of course i had to have a gold dodo 🦤.Read more