This year on Bird Island everything seems to be late! We visited for ten days in mid-June, having heard that Sooty Terns had not begun laying when I first arrived in Seychelles at the end of May. During our stay on the island laying was in full swing, but we also found that many Sooty … More Bird Island’s birds 2023 – Late for a very important date!
In August 2021 I wrote to Simon Gorta to request a paper that he had published on south-east Australian seabirds. In his reply he said he was about to begin a PhD project at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), on Sooty Terns, the birds I have been studying in Seychelles for many years. … More A stunning seabird wilderness
After our brief stay on Norfolk Island, we had to rise early the next morning for our 8 am departure for Phillip Island by small boat. In addition to Christine and me, we discovered that the boat was to take across a party of birdwatchers who were to spend the day on the island – … More Arrival on Phillip Island
In earlier blog posts I described some aspects of our journey to Australia in November-December last year, and our amazing rainforest experiences in southern Queensland. The main objective of travelling to Australia, however, was to assist a University of New South Wales (UNSW) PhD student, Simon Gorta, to initiate his research on a Sooty Tern … More Norfolk Island stopover
On our way down the road from Binna Burra we kept our eyes open for more Koalas. Once again Christine spotted one in roughly the same area as the one we had seen the previous day, so perhaps the same individual. We stopped at Hinze Dam, a massive structure in Advancetown that was completed in … More Rainforest adventures – 3: Lyrebird Rainforest Retreat, Springbrook National Park. 4 – 9 December 2022
From Tamborine we drove south to Lamington National Park, where we had booked in to Binna Burra Campsite for two nights. We (in reality, I!) had not adequately familiarised ourselves with the details of the campsite – I was expecting a tent with all facilities for a foreign tourist. At the end of a long … More Rainforest adventures – 2. Binna Burra, Lamington National Park 2-4 December
Soon after we had returned to mainland Australia from Norfolk Island we followed Simon Gorta’s (the PhD student we had been helping on Norfolk Island – more on this later) recommendation to spend our remaining time exploring the extensive subtropical montane rainforest in southern Queensland’s interior. We pre-booked accommodation at three high-altitude venues that appeared … More Rainforest adventures – 1. Tamborine, Tamborine National Park, 30 November – 2 December
We have recently undertaken an amazing journey. The aim was to assist a young Australian student to set up a tracking study on Sooty Terns on a remote and uninhabited island in the Norfolk Island group, in the western Pacific about 1500 kilometres east of Brisbane, eastern Australia. Ventures such as this inevitably involve long … More Familiar birds away from home
I first became aware of, and came face to face with, a “casier” during Christmas 1971. Shortly after my first arrival in Seychelles I had been invited to spend a few days on Cousin Island by the island’s scientific manager, David Lloyd. He was a former University of Aberdeen colleague who was the second person … More From Casier to Kasye – but still a work of art!
In my blog post of 22 February 2022 I described how introduced endemic birds on Denis Island had responded positively to the eradication of Common Mynas, following publication of the scientific paper describing this success story. This paper also mentioned the possibility that some seabirds might also have benefitted from the myna eradication. In late … More Further good news from Denis Island
Wild Bird Conservation 