John has been birding since the late 1960’s as a teen, mostly in Hampshire. He co-edited Birds of Hampshire published in 1993 and wrote Rare Birds of Hampshire published in 2022. He was County Recorder from 1993 to 2010. He became interested in world birding from the 1980’s and began to travel extensively after taking early retirement from teaching in 2008. He has now seen just under 9,000 species!
John’s talk describes a five-week long expedition he took part in in September-October 2019. Starting in Tahiti, the capital of French Polynesia, he flew to Mangereva then sailed east to Pitcairn, Henderson and Oeno Islands on a converted cargo ship. They then returned west towards the Tuamoto Islands and then on to Mangareva. While the ship sailed 1000 km north to the Marquesas Islands, they returned to Tahiti for a couple of days before flying out to the Marquesas to rejoin the ship. They then visited six different islands before sailing back to Tahiti via some of the Society Islands. Having finished the tour of the British Overseas Territory and French Polynesia, they flew to Rarotonga to spend a few days in the Cook Islands before returning home through Auckland where they saw some 70 endemic land and seabirds during the trip – the my talk will feature photos of most of them.