100 posts – one thing leads to another

This post marks a landmark for the Denis Island Environmental Update blog – it being the hundredth post since I started the blog in July 2008. The blog was established primarily to provide information to hotel clients many of whom return periodically to the island and expressed an interest in being able to follow up on our projects on the island during the time in between their visits.

It did occur to me when starting out that whilst I would initially have plenty to write about it would be difficult after a while to find new and different matters to cover. In fact the opposite has been the case, every visit to the island seems to provide numerous new topics to report on and it is not lack of subject matter but rather lack of time to write them that effectively limits the number of articles I am able to post. Frequently I leave the island with a list of 6 or 7 new topics for potential posts but many fall by the wayside as they are replaced by new options from a subsequent visit before I get the time to actually write them up.

A perfect example of subject overload happened during my visit a week ago. I noted on arrival a sudden and widespread commencement of nest building by the island’s Brown noddy colony (see post of 31st May). I spent some time photographing the birds nest-building in the coconut trees at the entrance to the main hotel complex. Following this I decided to go and try and photo the birds gathering nest material on the beach crest. As I approached the beach however I noted a white tern alighting on a branch next to its chick with a beak full of fish so I was then distracted by this and occupied by attempts to get a photograph that captured the moment of food transfer from adult to chick. I failed to do this but decided to wait for the return of the adult and try again. After a few minutes a white tern did indeed fly into view bearing fish but this was a different adult flying to another chick higher up in the same tree. Whilst trying to feed the chick a small fish was dropped and fell to the ground. This nutritious morsel was immediately picked up by a moorhen which in turn ran off in the direction of a scaevola bush. I suspected that it also had young to feed and I now set off to try and capture that image. The moorhen did indeed have two chicks hiding in the bush and it thereafter sectioned up the fish to feed to its young – paying me no attention whilst I remained still nearby. I stood partly behind the scaevola bush so as not to make the birds feel threatened whilst I photographed the feeding. It was whilst standing there that I noticed that the flowers of the bush were alive with large numbers of a fly with very distinctive red-eyes – so having never previously observed such an aggregation I photographed these insects so as to enable their identification at a later date.

After this I returned to my original plan of going to the beach crest to photo noddies collecting nesting material. I positioned myself on a beach chair and waited for the right opportunity. I was soon photographing several noddies busy gathering casuarina fronds on the beach when I noticed a ghost crab approaching me along the beach. These animals are normally very wary and difficult to photo but as I was stationary on the seat the crab appeared not to notice me and continued to approach so I took the opportunity to photo it also. As it passed along side me I turned in the chair to try and get a better shot but this movement alerted it to my presence and it immediately sought refuge down the nearest crab burrow. I kept my camera trained on the burrow entrance however as I was confident that this burrow belonged to another crab which meant the new arrival would rapidly be forced out by the resident. Sure enough the crab soon appeared at the entrance but seeing me shot back down. This happened a couple more times and I waited, confident that the crab would soon have to emerge and I would have another opportunity to photo it up close. What happened next however really did surprise me and was the first time I had ever observed such behaviour. The crab did indeed re-emerge but this time clasping the resident crab, which was a bit smaller, in its pincers. It then proceeded to castaway the smaller crab and return back into the burrow which it had obviously found so much to its liking that forcible eviction of the owner was the next logical step!!!

I then just walked 30 metres down the beach and encountered 15 Greater crested terns – the highest count I have ever recorded on Denis – better yet they very kindly contrived to position themselves such that I could fit them all in the frame of a single photo thereby providing proof of the new record!

So through the simple idea of taking a photo to complement a post on Brown noddy nest-building one thing had led to another over a period of 30 minutes or so to encounter five other potential articles… so what to write about next?