Almost everything we buy has plastic in it, and/or is protected by plastic wrapping. At the end of its “useful” life we discard vast quantities of it, often in plastic bags, into our plastic recycling bins, to be transported to waste treatment plants in vehicles with plastic seats, bumpers and other components. Some of this … More Plastics and Sooty Terns: decoration or danger?
Accounts of Bird Island by some of the earliest European visitors suggested that Masked and Brown Boobies were breeding. Masked Boobies continued to do so until the 1930s but human appetites and alteration of the island’s vegetation doubtless contributed to their disappearance. Both species nested on the ground, rendering them highly vulnerable to human predation, … More Red-footed Boobies nest for the first time on Bird Island
In my recent blog about our discovery of Wedge-tailed Shearwaters occupying burrows on Mahe, I mentioned that White-tailed Tropicbirds were the only seabird that had survived in numbers as a breeding species on the larger granitic islands of Seychelles. They had survived despite a large and still increasing human population and the commensal predators that … More Is there a connection between White-tailed Tropicbirds and the popularity of fast food?
Seychelles was first settled by westerners in the late 18th century. Previous exploratory visits by French ships had established that Mahe had abundant timber for home and boat building, and fresh water for drinking would provide vital resources for establishing a permanent base. Giant Tortoises would provide food for residents and passing ships. Crocodiles were … More Are Wedge-tailed Shearwaters breeding on Seychelles’ main island, Mahe?
In my blog of 16 July, I described some work that we had started in an attempt to explain how small fragments of plastic, mainly blue and green, appeared on the ground in the Sooty Tern colony on Bird Island. Joanna Suares, the island’s conservation officer, continued the weekly monitoring of the fixed quadrats in … More An update on plastics in Bird Island’s Sooty Tern colony
Late September saw a major influx of migrant birds to Bird Island. As expected from previous experience, shorebirds predominated among these early arrivals. Most breed at high latitudes and those that arrive in Seychelles probably nest in northern Asia. There, climatic conditions force them to have a short breeding season, after which they migrate south … More September on Bird Island: migrant arrival in full swing
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
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
The likely future impacts of the climate change that we are already experiencing are top news items around the globe. Next week the United Nations is hosting a Climate Action Summit in New York. This is part of an initiative to address five of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals that are aimed to convert ambition … More Climate Action – Seychelles
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
Wild Bird Conservation 