Month: September 2019

Bird Island, Seychelles – a unique experience of living among seabirds

September 30, 2019

With heavy hearts Christine and I have now left Bird Island after a prolonged seabird-watching experience. It has been an exciting year on an extraordinary island. We arrived in June in time to observe the Sooty Terns’ arrival and egg laying, watched their feeding movements, and saw chicks hatch. After a break we returned in … More Bird Island, Seychelles – a unique experience of living among seabirds

SeyCCAT project: our tagged juvenile Sooty Terns head for the open ocean

September 27, 2019

Between 27 and 30 August we deployed satellite tags on 15 juvenile Sooty Terns in order to follow their movements after fledging and discover where their parents took them as the fledglings learned to feed themselves. When attached the tags to birds that weighed a minimum of 180 grams, judging that chicks of this weight … More SeyCCAT project: our tagged juvenile Sooty Terns head for the open ocean

Two remarkable coincidences in Japanese/Anglo/Seychelles relationships

September 5, 2019

In 1994 I arrived on Bird Island ring Sooty Terns and to search for birds that I had ringed in 1993 as part of a long-term programme of ringing aimed at investigating the survival of adults and juveniles. This was to provide information that would help to estimate the number of eggs that could be … More Two remarkable coincidences in Japanese/Anglo/Seychelles relationships

Ringing and recapture of Bird Island’s Sooty Terns remains important in unraveling their lives

September 5, 2019

Since 2011 we have been using different kinds of electronic tracking device to investigate the movements and behaviour of Bird Island’s Sooty Terns, greatly increasing our knowledge of the birds’ use of the surrounding ocean. Prior to that much of our knowledge of Sooty Tern survival, longevity, movements between islands and daily activities in the … More Ringing and recapture of Bird Island’s Sooty Terns remains important in unraveling their lives

Prolonged nesting of Lesser Noddies?

September 3, 2019

Lesser Noddies breed on small islands that are free of introduced predators in Seychelles, including Bird Island. They nest in trees, building substantial cup-shaped nests of leaves and seaweed that they cement together with their droppings, and into which they deposit their single egg. Their breeding season thus commences with much activity on the ground … More Prolonged nesting of Lesser Noddies?