31 December
2005
Welcome to the news 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)
Another year has gone by and the website has had more
than 24000 unique visitors which is more than double the amount we had
the previous year and we hope that the increase will continue.
Forum:
Many of our regular guests signed up for the forum which
was launched late last year. All was going well, but unfortunately in
September 2005, the server in America which was hosting it had a massive
breakdown and many of their clients lost valuable data including Bird
Island. Fortunately for us and our website and the way it is set up we
have duplicate files, but the forum was totally on line and so was lost.
We were able to upload the whole website again but the forum was beyond
our control.
We are currently working on replacing it, but
unfortunately it means that all guests who had registered will have to
register again and anything that they had posted has been lost. We got
no apology from the hosting company for the loss of data, only a promise
of a free months contract, which certainly doesn't replace our lost
data!
Turtles
It would have been very unusual
this month if a guest staying at least two nights has missed seeing a
turtle. Some where even lucky enough to see bay turtle hatchlings as
well as nests which were laid in late October have no started to hatch.
Our first turtle nests have begun to hatch
and turtles are laying every day and the first nests laid in October
have already hatching.
In November Dr Jeanne Mortimer came to the
island to bury temperature loggers in the beach around the island. At
each location loggers were buried at a depth of 50cm approximately the
depth of the a Hawksbill nest. They were strategically placed to
represent three types of incubation habitats: the open beach, the
edge of the vegetation and deep inside in the vegetation. The reason for
doing this is to see how incubation temperatures vary depending on
habitat. The temperature determines the sex ratio of the offspring
produced. This work follows similar research done during the past eight
years on Bird Island.
Turtle Statistics
for the season
16 July 2005 to 15 July 2006
The
first Green Turtle of the
season laid on 20th July 2005.
The first Hawksbill laid on 27th September 2005
New turtles tagged :
15
Green
Turtles: Total number of emergences:
18
Total
number of nests: 10
Hawksbill Turtles:
Total number of emergences:
187
Total number of nests:
112
31 December 2005: Nests in total: 122
Total Number of emergences (including
those which did not result in a nest):
205
Estimated hatching dates: (Based
on an average 58 days incubation)
,
Jan: 03, 05, 06, 08, 09, 11, 14,
18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 29,31
February: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09,10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17,
18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24,
Hatching
Success as at 31 December 2005
Total Nests hatched:
17
Nests seen Hatching:
9
Hatchlings Live:
1006
Nests which hatched
earlier than expected
(hatchlings not seen):
8
Nests completely eaten by crabs:
1
Nests Relocated:
25 (in
danger of being eroded away by the sea.)
Nests lost as a result of
erosion: 0
 Back
to Turtle Project
Birds
Tropic Birds:
The current number of established nesting sites is
79. These nesting sites are scattered all over the island, with the main
concentration around the chalets. To date we have ringed 119 adults and
65 chicks.
This project was begun in July 2002 and we are able
to see which pairs use which nesting sites and when, they do not tend to
move sites as a rule. As yet none of the chicks ringed since 2002 have
nested yet.
Currently there are 3
Tropic Birds incubating eggs and 9 chicks of varying ages
Back
to Tropic Bird project
Common
Noddy Terns
 The
Common Noddies are very busy at present picking up nesting materials and
squabbling over nesting sites. From Robbie's observations it would
appear that the Noddies who nest from December to April, happily share
sites with the Noddies who nest during the SE season. Already many are
incubating their eggs. The eggs take around 28 days to hatch. Already
some of the earliest laid eggs have hatched and the parents are
carefully guarding their chicks.
Migrants/Vagrants:
Migrant Count - Since last News Update:
This is Robbie's weekly count with the maximum number of birds seen on
any day since the last update on 31st October is below:
The very high numbers for the migrant waders were the
result of an overall island count done on the afternoon of 03 December
by Georges, Margaret and Lizanne.
Unidentified gull December 2005
December
145 Frigatebirds,
57 Grey Plovers, 21 Lesser Sandplovers, 18 Greater
Sandplovers,
8 Crab Plovers, 60 Whimbrels, 341 Turnstones, 19 Sanderlings, 65 Curlew Sandpipers,
1 Golden Plover, 1 Ringed Plover, 1 Bar-tailed Godwit, 5
Greenshanks, 16 Crested Terns, 48 Bridled Terns, 31 Saunders Little
Terns, 1 Common Sandpiper,
1
Oriental Pratincole, 2 Common Pratincoles, 2 Red-footed
Booby, 1 Grey Heron, 2 Eurasian Curlews, 9 Moorhens, 1 Brown Booby,
1 Yellow Wagtail, 1
White Wagtail, 1 Corncrake, 1 Stone
Curlew, throated 2 Tree Pipit, 5 Amur Falcons, 1 Eurasian
Bittern, 1 Wood Sandpiper, 1 Blue-cheeked Bee-eater, 1 Little Swift, 2
Sand Martins, 1 Barn Swallow, 1 Gull sp. 1 Snipe sp.
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