Wallis and Futuna Islands
Wallis and Futuna is a French island collectivity in the South Pacific, situated between Tuvalu to the northwest, Fiji to the southwest, Tonga to the southeast, Samoa to the east, and Tokelau to the northeast. Mata Utu is its capital and largest city. The territory’s land area is only a little more than 142 km2 (c.55 square miles). It had a small and declining population of about 11,000 people. The territory is made up of three main volcanic tropical islands and a number of tiny islets. (Economic opportunities being scarce many people have gone to New Caledonia, where they have the right to settle as French citizens.) It is divided into two island groups that lie about 260 km (160 miles) apart: the Wallis Islands (also known as Uvea) in the northeast; and the Hoorn Islands (also known as the Futuna Islands) in the southwest, including Futuna Island proper and the mostly uninhabited Alofi Island.
Wallis and Futuna is located about two-thirds of the way from Hawaii to New Zealand. The territory includes the island of Wallis (the most populated), the island of Futuna, the uninhabited island of Alofi and 20 uninhabited islets, totalling 274 km with 129 km of coastline. The highest point in the territory is Mont Singavi (on the island of Futuna) at 2,510 feet.
Wallis Island – ©Anna Vinet CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
The islands have a hot, rainy season from November to April and a cool, dry season from May to October. The average rainfall is between 98 and 118 inches annually, and the average humidity 80% and the average temperature 26 to 27 ºC.
Birding Wallis and Futuna
Only five percent of the islands’ land area is arable land; permanent crops cover another 20%, but only small portions of the original forests remain, largely as a result of the continued use of wood as the main fuel source, which is a serious problem; as a consequence of cutting down the forests, the mountainous terrain of Futuna is particularly prone to erosion. There are no permanent settlements on Alofi because of the lack of natural fresh water resources.
Sérénité – Plage d’Alofi – ©Anna Vinet CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
The main vegetation types found in Wallis and Futuna are wetlands such as mangroves and swamp forests, coastal strand vegetation, coastal forests, littoral forests, lowland rainforests, montane rainforests and cloud forests, and human-altered vegetation like secondary forests and cultivation.
There are no land mammals in Wallis and Futuna apart from livestock, but there are five marine mammals of the order Cetacea; two beaked whales, two dolphins and a pygmy killer whale.
62 species of birds have been recorded from Wallis and Futuna, out of which five have been introduced by humans. No species are endemic to the collectivity, but there are endemic subspecies of the collared kingfisher, Polynesian Triller, Fiji Shrikebill, and Polynesian Starling. The Shy Ground Dove has been extirpated, while Blue-crowned Lorikeet is locally extinct on Uvea. A now-extinct imperial pigeon, Ducula david, was described from sub-fossil remains on the islands and is thought to have been widespread before the arrival of humans.
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Wikipedia
GNU Free Documentation License
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallis_and_Futuna
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Number of bird species: 62
(As at December 2024)
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Avibase
PDF ChecklistThis checklist includes all bird species found in Wallis and Futuna Islands , based on the best information available at this time. It is based on a wide variety of sources that I collated over many years. I am pleased to offer these checklists as a service to birdwatchers. If you find any error, please do not hesitate to report them. -
Wikipedia
Annotated ListThere are 62 species of birds that have been recorded from Wallis and Futuna. -
eBird
PDF ChecklistThis checklist is generated with data from eBird (ebird.org), a global database of bird sightings from birders like you. If you enjoy this checklist, please consider contributing your sightings to eBird. It is 100% free to take part, and your observations will help support birders, researchers, and conservationists worldwide.
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A Guide to the Birds of Fiji and Western Polynesia
| (including American Samoa, Niue, Samoa, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Wallis & Futuna) | by Dick Watling | Dick Watling | 2004 | Paperback | 272 pages, 16 colour plates, figures, tables, maps | Out of Print | ISBN: 9789829030047 Buy this book from NHBS.com
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2017 [11 November] - Brian Gibbons
PDF ReportWe started our adventure on Viti Levu, Fiji at the Westin Denarau resort, which is a set in a tropical garden paradise where we found our first Fijian endemics. Fiji Parrotfinch was quite charming and common. Western Wattled-Honeyeater, Fiji Woodswallow, and the ubiquitous and sometimes feisty mynas all reside around the resort. After a tour of the Garden of the Sleeping Giant and Viseisei Village, we embarked the Caledonian Sky, our fine home in the South Pacific for the next two weeks, as we island-hopped through this beautiful slice of the world.