 Leguat mentioned that pigeons only bred on islets off Rodrigues , due to predation from rats on the mainland . This may be the reason why Tafforet only observed the Rodrigues starling on an islet . By Tafforet 's visit in 1726 , the bird must have either been absent or very rare on mainland Rodrigues . Rats could have arrived in 1601 , when a Dutch fleet surveyed Rodrigues . The islets would have been the last refuge for the bird , until the rats colonised them , too . The Rodrigues starling was extinct by the time French scientist Alexandre Guy Pingré visited Rodrigues during the French 1761 Transit of Venus expedition . 
