01 February 2005
Welcome to the new page of our website.
This page is all about what's happening
on the island and how the various conservation projects are progressing.
If you would like us
to advise you when we have an update of the news page or a new web page
please email us at:
thelodge@birdislandseychelles.com
Special Discounts available
for return guests and also for first time visitors for reservations made via the
website.
Visit our
prices page or
contact us directly.
Please note that we have NOT Increased our rates for this year. This
means that for the 5th consecutive year we have not increased our rates
(Unlike the majority of properties in Seychelles)
New this Month to the
website:
Complete change of
Gallery pictures.
We would like to thank all our guests who
have sent us pictures which they have taken whilst they have been on
holiday on the island. These pictures have all been given to us
unconditionally to use as we wish and we hope that our various contributors enjoy seeing
their photos.
New projects begun on
Common Noddy Terns and White Terns (always referred to in Seychelles as
Fairy Terns) See details below. As these projects progress we hope to
develop individual web pages, which will be put together with our other
conservation bird projects. -
Sooty Terns and
White-tailed Tropic Birds.
Several staff are taking part in this as well as the usual small team.
We are delighted that so many of of staff are taking an active part in
our conservation work. They do this in addition to their normal work on
a voluntary basis.
Turtles
On the island our
Turtle season runs from July to June and so we are now at beginning of
our 10th season of turtle monitoring.
Our first Hawksbill
emerged to lay on 26th September 2004.
Turtle Statistics since July 2004
Green
Turtles:
Since July we have had 16 nests.
Hawksbill Turtles:
177 nests
01 February 2005:
193 nests in total
Total Number of beachings (including
those which did not result in a nest): 284
Estimated Turtle hatching dates: (Based
on an average 58 days incubation) -
hatching can vary depending the temperature and
rainfall.
Green Turtles - estimated hatching
dates
March: 01, 12, 14 26
Hawksbill Turtles -
estimated hatching dates
February: 01, 03, 04, 05,
06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23,
24, 25, 26, 27, 28
March: 01, 03, 04, 05, 07, 08, 10, 11,12, 16, 17, 20, 22, 23, 24,
25, 28
Hatching
Success:
31 January 2005
Nests seen Hatching:
44
Hatchlings Live:
5493
(Average live per nest = 124.8)
Nests which hatched
earlier than expected
(hatchlings not seen):
12
Nests completely eaten by crabs: 2
Nests Relocated:
40 (in
danger of being eroded away by the sea.)
Nests lost as a result of
erosion: 9
 Back
to Turtle Project
Birds
Fairy Terns:
Over the years since the
eradication of rats the Fairy Tern population has increased enormously.
these pretty birds are very vulnerable to predators. Rats would steal
both the eggs and the young chick, making nesting success very low and
the population growth very slow. Their main predator now is the Mynah
Bird which also steals their eggs. We have an ongoing eradication
programme to keep the Mynah Bird population down.
We have now put in place a monitoring programme to measure nesting
success. We have selected the area where the chalets and lodge complex
are, including the staff village, this represents an area of about 15
acres. We did a count on 02 February and had the following results:
Fairy Terns incubating eggs: 50
Fairy Terns with chicks: 9
Chicks alone: 14
By making regular observations we can monitor nesting success and also
find which is the peak breeding season.
Common Noddy Terns:
We have also put in place a monitoring programme for Noddy Terns. On
Bird Island and most of the islands in Seychelles, Noddy terns normally
nested on the ground. However, due to space restrictions once the
islands became coconut plantations, in the early 1900's their numbers
were reduced, and the remaining birds were forced to nest above ground
in trees and coconut tree crowns. As the number of coconut trees were
reduced on Bird Island the Noddies, nesting spaces again became reduced
so they started nesting on the ground in the area around the chalets and
supporting infrastructure. This began in the late 1980's and early
'90's. To begin with their success was very low, the main problem was
again rats. Since the eradication of rats the ground nesting population
has increased greatly.
On 01 February we did a count of Noddy Terns in the same area as we did
the Fairy Tern count.
Noddy Terns incubating eggs: 354
Noddy Terns with chicks: 132
Chicks alone: 16
Included in this count are almost 200 adult nesting birds which Robbie
has ringed he has also worked out which are pairs and which nest they
occupy and marked the nest. When the chicks are about to fledge he will
then give them a coloured ring as well as a metal one. The coloured ring
will represent the nesting period December to March 2005, the next batch
in June - September will also be monitored in a similar way and those
chicks will receive a different coloured ring. In this way we will be
able to find out at what age our Common Noddies start to breed, their
breeding success and how often they breed. This is quite a long term
project. It was begun in part by Susi Stabinger in the early '90's as a
PhD study to monitor the success of ground v. tree nesting Noddies. Her
results have yet to be published. However we do have birds which she
ringed still around the same area.
Tropic Birds:
The current number of established nesting sites is
57. These nesting sites are scattered all over the island, with the main
concentration around the chalets. To date we have ringed 52 adults and
38 chicks.
Back
to Tropic Bird project
Migrants/Vagrants:
The
Stone Curlew, (first spotted by Robbie) is still around and we
are hoping to hear soon that it has been confirmed as a first for Seychelles.
Great excitement Robbie saw some kind of eagle taking off with a small
bird in its claws. This was first seen late January and we are almost
certain it is a Booted Eagle. A record form has been filled in
and is on its way to the Seychelles Bird's Records Committee for their
scrutiny.
Migrant Count - Since last News Update: The count this time
is slightly different. On Sunday 30th January we were asked to do our
annual count of waders/waterbirds. This is for the African
wader/waterbird census ad it is carried out in many African countries on
the last weekend in January. We did this between 16.00 and 17.00. We
divided the island into 5 sections and with help from the staff we
covered all areas of the island to which we have access.
We counted as
follows:
50 Grey Plovers,
21 Greater Sandplovers, 5 Lesser Sandplovers, 3 Crab Plovers, 49 Whimbrels,
6 Sanderlings,
3 Common Ringed Plovers, 335 Turnstones, 1 Oriental Pratincole, 3
Moorhens, 1 Common Sandpiper, 1 Stone Curlew, 3 Greenshanks, 37
Curlew Sandpipers, 1 Snipe sp., 3 Eurasian Curlews.
In addition to
this Robbie's weekly count with the maximum number of birds seen on any
day since the last update on 3rd January is below:
136 Frigatebirds, 43 Grey Plovers, 26 Lesser Sandplovers, 21 Greater
Sandplovers,
5 Crab Plovers, 37 Whimbrels, 187 Turnstones, 6 Sanderlings,
42 Curlew Sandpipers, 1 Pacific Golden Plover, 1 Common Ringed Plover, 2 Curlews,
3
Greenshanks,12 Crested Terns, 42 Bridled Terns, 310 Saunders Little
Terns, 2 Brown Booby, 3 Moorhens, 1 Common Sandpiper,
1 Stone Curlew, 3 White
Wagtails, 2 Terek Sandpipers, 1
Oriental Pratincole, 1 Snipe sp. 1 Common Cuckoo, 1 Booted Eagle
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