June 2018 – Wild Bird Conservation

A perplexing problem of plastic in Bird Island’s Sooty Tern colony

June 23, 2018

There can be few who are unaware of the ubiquitous problems faced by the world’s oceans as more and more tonnes of plastic contaminants enter them. A wide variety of plastic bottles, sheeting, fishing waste (buoys, line, fish aggregating devices [see my blog of 13 June 2017]) polystyrene packaging, flip-flops and other shoes, wash up … More A perplexing problem of plastic in Bird Island’s Sooty Tern colony

Happy birthday!

June 19, 2018

Welcome to Bird Island! This morning, 19 June, we found our first Sooty Tern chicks in the colony – three of them among the several hundreds of thousand eggs still to hatch. Sooty Terns incubate their eggs for 28 days, meaning that these eggs must have been laid on 22 May. We had been told … More Happy birthday!

Batay torti – slowly does it!

June 17, 2018

During the evening of 15 June, we sat on Bird Island’s west beach to watch the sunset and hopefully catch the first glimpse of the new moon. Both missions were successful – as the sky darkened the latter revealed itself as the tiniest sliver of a crescent. The sky was full of birds – Brown … More Batay torti – slowly does it!

Return of an old friend

June 16, 2018

Part of our work on Bird Island involves walking slowly through the Sooty Tern colony looking for birds that we have ringed in the past, some as long ago as 1972. It is not an easy task. It involves long periods of intense concentration and patience while being subjected to attacks to our heads and … More Return of an old friend

Another unexpected visitor to Bird Island

June 14, 2018

Bird Island is renowned for the number of non-resident birds that appear in its approximately 100 hectares of land. This might be because Bird is the northernmost island of Seychelles, and thus possibly the first land seen by birds arriving from the north. Additionally, smaller birds are probably more visible in Bird Island’s generally open … More Another unexpected visitor to Bird Island

We return to Bird Island to find further erosion

June 13, 2018

After several days of preparation on Mahe, on 9 June Christine and I flew to Bird Island. We had heard that Sooty Terns had begun laying on 25 May. This is unusually early for the start of their nesting season, which does not normally begin until June. We are here to continue our studies of … More We return to Bird Island to find further erosion

British Airways returns to Seychelles

June 10, 2018

In December 1971, only five months after the opening of Seychelles’ International Airport, a British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) VC10, then the flagship aircraft of their fleet, delivered me safely to my first footstep on Seychelles soil. It had been a long flight, more cramped than in current larger aircraft, and necessitated a refuelling stopover … More British Airways returns to Seychelles