An Extraordinary Day…

I arrived on Denis early on the afternoon of Monday 24th and on leaving the airport area and heading towards the hotel I immediately became aware of a new and unusual bird call – a high-pitched staccato trill. Looking up I saw several bright green birds stunting and swooping in the air, Bee-eaters were flying everywhere! In truth this was not such a surprise as I had been contacted a few days before by Adrian Skerrett of the Seychelles Birds Record Committee (SBRC - see link in sidebar). Adrian had informed me that several islands in the archipelago had reported an influx of bee-eaters in the preceding days and wanted to know what the status on Denis was. What was surprising was the shear number of them. Every prominent perch on every tree and bush along the path seemed to hold one of these beautiful green creatures and the air in every clearing and break in the canopy was alive with the birds darting and swooping in pursuit of their insect prey. I stopped to watch a bird on its perch, every few seconds it swooped off hawking for an insect before veering round to return once more to its previous vantage point – such activity was repeated on practically every prominent branch along my route.

This in itself was remarkable enough but once at the hotel the resident manager Paul Horner advised me that there were some 50 or more falcons on the island as well!!! To be honest I was rather sceptical that there could possibly so many birds of prey on the island at one time and thought it likely there were maybe half-a-dozen or so birds of prey that in their circling might give the impression of being more numerous. I rapidly revised this opinion on walking down the runway, however, falcons were everywhere it was astonishing and they were equally abundant down the east coast in the area called Belle Etoile - I have never seen anything like it before and 50 birds appeared a fair estimate of their number.

The combination of these occurrences changed the whole ambience of the island and imbued a certain sense of awe to the whole scene. It reminded me of the feeling I used to get during my first year in Seychelles when every few days I would encounter something new, exotic and remarkable – it was an extraordinary day.

Species.

The bee-eater was of the blue-cheeked variety – Blue-cheeked bee-eater (Merops persicus) - which occurs from northern Egypt through the Middle East to Pakistan and India, and overwinters in Africa. It furthermore lived up to its name on Denis cleaning out the hives at the apiary and according to the hotel gardeners decimating the wasp population too!

Birds of Prey, like certain waders, due to the similarity of various species can be rather difficult to identify and this is certainly not my field of expertise – but the falcons were predominantly Amur Falcons (Falco amurensis) as the adult male has very distinctive plumage and once having seen that it made it easier to zero in on the plumage characteristics of the female. The Amur falcon breeds in northeast Asia and migrates to southeast Africa.
There was however at least one other species present with birds being noticeably larger _ I was unable to get a good look at these birds but Catherina and others also saw them and believe they may have been Eurasian hobbies (Falco subbuteo). As I said several species are quite similar and we will be sending photos to the SBRC to try and pin down identifications.

Numbers.

On an island like Denis, quite large and heavily forested, it is very hard to estimate how many land birds there may be. On Monday when I arrived however, the bee-eaters were the most abundant bird in the air in clearings and on walking around the island later, as part of my normal duties, they were also present in considerable numbers round the coast and in particular the east coast and my estimate would have been several hundred (i.e. 3-500 birds). On Tuesday the numbers were significantly reduced and yet that evening there were more than a hundred of the birds hawking over the runway alone! The decline continued over the next two days with a marked reduction each day but even so on my departure around midday on Thursday there must still have been between at least 50 bee-eaters on the island. Furthermore I am told by Catherina and other island residents that the first birds were noted on the afternoon of Wednesday 19th and that by the day of my arrival numbers had already significantly reduced from the peak of Saturday. Putting these observations together would suggest that there were at least 500 bee-eaters on the island over the weekend.

With regard to the Falcons I think 40-50 is a good estimate with the birds concentrated in and around the runway and also down the Belle Etoile (east) coast. I have never seen so many birds of prey together at one time and it was a truly amazing sight! On Tuesday morning Catherina and Paul Horner undertook a count along the runway and encountered 23 birds of prey in just one transect! Numbers declined noticeably from Tuesday to Thursday. The birds were best seen perched along and hunting over the runway. They could hover - almost harrier-like - when facing into the wind and would swoop down onto the runway to take insects and lizards – but also birds! I received several reports of the falcons taking bee-eaters and also a turtle dove. I latterly also saw for myself thanks to the help of an estate staff member a female falcon feeding on a bee-eater.
With regard to the larger bird of prey species, I think there were only 2 or 3 on the island.