Bird Bulletin 3

News from our neighbours: I had the opportunity to communicate with Jo Savy on our nearest neighbour Bird Island last week and was able to follow up on a couple of the issues I have posted on recently.

• Jo confirmed the presence of a Barn Owl on Bird (see post of Monday 4th August) but feels that it is an occasional visitor rather than resident. This further increases the likelihood that this bird or others are visiting Denis also, so we must increase our vigilance in this regard.
• I also asked whether they had any Blue Pigeons (see post of Sunday 10th August) and Jo answered in a similar vein, saying they have indeed on occasion sighted an individual blue pigeon on Bird, but that they do not consider it to be a permanent resident but rather an occasional visitor from Denis. It’s 4 or 5 years since I last visited Bird but from what I recall of the vegetation there, it would appear suitable for blue pigeons. Surely it must only be a matter of time until the species establishes a population on this most northerly outlier of the Seychelles archipelago and thereby completes a remarkable recovery story.

Sooty Tern Project: I have received preliminary results on the Sooty Tern project from Vicki and Tori following their return to UK at the end of July. During their observation periods they observed 24 landings including one of 2 birds simultaneously. Their findings are very clear cut with 22 of said 24 landings (i.e. 92%) occurring within a single combination of stimuli – i.e. a combination of models, sounds and vegetation type. These very clear results will allow us to much better target our management of the area next season. During their last few days on the island Vicki and Tori altered the layout of the models in line with their findings to see if this would better attract birds at the end of the season. Unfortunately, I was supposed to follow up with observations during August but breaking my arm has put paid to that and I have yet to visit Denis during this month. Catherina however has opportunistically taken observations when she passes the area during her SMR survey work and reports having seen five birds together on the ground on the 30th July with another 10 or so circling only a couple of metres in the air above them. This is very encouraging and with fine tuning coupled with an area which will be much more suitably vegetated in general next year gives us good reason to believe that the project can be successful within the next 2 to 3 years – let’s hope so!

Good ideas catch on fast and this project has attracted attention. I understand a second island will be attempting this project next year. So we look forward to a brighter future for the sooty tern in the central archipelago in the coming years.