34 A F R I C A G E O G R A P H I C • A P R I l 2 0 0 835w w w. A F R I C A G E O G R A P H I C . C O m

Cheryl-Samantha Owen travels to the ends of the earth, and finds herself in the magical world of Bird Island. Rescued from environmental purgatory by a 40-year restoration plan, this tiny cay in the Seychelles archipelago has a thriving (not to mention incredibly noisy) colony of sooty terns, as well as several other animal attractions.

of terns,tides turtles&

In that golden hour before sunset, which only the tropics set alight with this much warmth and colour, I leave the rustic comfort of my chalet and walk barefoot across the

island. Hopscotching along the sandy path in an attempt to avoid the prickly casuarina seeds that lie along its length, I notice that their parent trees are all that separates the inland from the idyl-lic white beach beyond. Here, on Bird Island, no concrete walls or sprawling buildings blockade the tide, forcing the sand to re-route unnaturally and alter-ing the original coastal vegetation. A flurry of grey feathers interrupts my reverie and, scurrying along, I remind myself to take the beach route on my return and steer clear of this particular brown noddy that is taking its chick-guarding post so seriously.

At this time of year (in the middle of the south-east monsoon), even if you were blindfolded and wore earplugs, the tern colony would be unmissable. Nothing, not even the cacophony, pre-pared me for what spilled out at the

end of a long narrow path through the coastal scrub. More than 1.5 million sooty terns Sterna fuscata sat, hovered, circled, soared and flew. This highly pelagic seabird avoids landing on water as it is unable to swim, and returns to Bird Island en masse each year from May to September to breed and fledge its chicks.

In what must surely be nature’s most spectacular bird symphony, the sounds crescendoed with the setting sun until I felt as though I was sitting amidst a giant orchestra performing one of Tchaikovsky’s loudest masterpieces. Had I been on the island in March and April, when the terns start to gather in increasingly large numbers before land-ing and establishing their individual territories, I would have seen a swirling mass of hundreds of thousands of birds, patterning the sky with long, out-stretched wings.

At the end of the breeding season, the sky changes again, becoming speckled with fledglings testing their new wings in erratic sorties over the

36 A F R I C A G E O G R A P H I C • m A R C H 2 0 0 9

water. Like learner pilots, they stick close to the wings of their parents, dip-ping to the ocean to collect seaweed and darting over shoals of fish bub-bling near the surface.

Bird Island is the most northerly of the Seychelles archipelago and is a young coral cay, little more than a sandbank, that

probably emerged between 2 000 to 4 000 years ago following a drop in sea levels. Covering less than 688 square metres, the island perches on the north-ern rim of the Seychelles Bank and a one-kilometre snorkel out to sea reveals the dramatic edge of the bank itself. Here, the bottom of the sea changes abruptly from light to dark as the floor plummets from 12 metres to impenet-rable black depths. The island’s nearest neighbour, Mahé, is 111 kilometres away and, from a bird’s-eye view, this golden orb is barely a smudge in the Western Indian Ocean.

In 1776, a passing ship reported that the island was ‘covered with birds

OPPOSITE However, the lack of small trees in the Linyanti woodlands is a concern for biodiversity. Seedlings like this camel thorn acacia are found,

BELOW However, the lack of small trees in the Linyanti woodlands is a concern for biodiversity. Seedlings like this camel thorn acacia are found kds.

37w w w. A F R I C A G E O G R A P H I C . C O m

N

U 0 100

metres

- Frigatebirds Fregata ariel .minor- Sooty tern Sterna fuscata- Brown/common and lesser noddies tern Anous stolidus and .tenuirostris- White-tailed tropicbird Phaeton lepturus

KEY

I N D I A N O C E A N

BIRD ISLAND

from a bird's eye view, this golden orb is barely a smudge in the Western Indian Ocean

_

39w w w. A F R I C A G E O G R A P H I C . C O m

innumerable’, suggesting that early vis-itors to the island had a similar experi-ence to mine. In the 200 or so years that followed, however, circumstances did not always favour the island’s feath-ered residents.

Lust for guano, used as a fertiliser in the sugar-cane fields of Mauritius, stripped 17 000 tonnes of this white gold between 1896 and 1906, leaving the island bare. A coconut plantation was then established, together with cash crops such as papaya and cotton, which covered the sooty terns’ breeding grounds. This was a disaster for the col-ony as the terns scrape out shallow depressions in the bare ground in which they lay their eggs, with little or no nest lining. Nest densities are greatest in open areas with only 30 to 50 per cent

vegetation cover. By 1967, when the current owners, Guy Savy and his part-ners, took over, the sooty terns had all but vanished.

In the past 40 years, a concerted con-servation effort involving careful man-agement of the vegetation to restore the breeding colony has successfully broken the island’s unnatural silence. Sooty tern numbers have risen from around 18 000 in the 1960s to more than 750 000 pairs today. Studies have shown that many adults come back to Bird Island each year and, what’s more, their chicks return as adults to breed at their natal colony.

Sooty tern eggs are considered a deli-cacy in Seychellois culture, but over-collection and the killing of adults and chicks have led to a steep decline and even extinction on several other

islands. The managers of Bird Island, in keeping with their nature-based tourism philosophy, have achieved a sustainable balance and are able to supply Mahé with a number of sooty tern eggs each year. This, in turn, helps to stem the trade in poached eggs while satisfying traditional culture.

Although sheer numbers make them the obvious stars, sooty terns are not the only participants in Bird

Island’s conservation and tourism suc-cess story. At least 20 other bird species can be seen throughout the year – the island’s northerly location means that it is the first landfall for many migratory birds and vagrants that are sometimes blown off course by the westerly squalls that occur during the monsoon.

A total of more than 15 000 pairs of brown noddy terns .stolidus are found on the islands of Aride, Cousin, Cousine and Bird, with Bird Island holding the largest population. Courtship involves an engaging ‘dance’ of nodding heads (of particular amusement to Japanese guests) but, as I discovered, brown nod-dies are especially aggressive towards intruders near their nest sites. Unlike the lesser noddy tern Anous tenuirostris, which nests only in trees, these noddies make themselves at home at the base of coconut palms and even in coral cavi-ties and on ledges.

The introduction of rats to various islands in the Seychelles, including Bird Island, devastated populations of brown noddies and many other bird spe-cies. The eradication of these rodents,

together with rabbits, has contributed greatly to the successful breeding of brown noddies, wedge-tailed shearwa-ters and white-tailed tropicbirds.

Homicidal noddies aside, life here can take on a fairytale-like feel, with some species looking as though they’ve stepped from the pages of a book of fables. One such character is the fairy tern Gygis alba. Its pure white feathers give it an angelic appearance that is quite startling against a vivid blue sky and, when the heavens are white, its translu-cent wings render it almost invisible.

Fairy terns lay a single egg on a bare branch. It looks precarious, but the adults sit patiently behind the egg with their lower breast feathers fluffed out, falling away and backwards as they fly off in search of fish. After about three weeks, the chick hatches, complete with well-developed claws to cling to the branch of its birth, while the adults ferry small blue and silver fish to it sev-eral times a day, carrying up to six neatly in their bills.

Once upon a time, in the pristine seagrass beds around Bird Island, a character that fuelled the imagination of sailors and sparked the myth of mer-maids really did exist, giving the island its temporary title Ile aux Vaches, island of the cows. The dugong Dugong dugon was once common around the

once upon a time, in the pristine seagrass beds around Bird Island, a character ... that

sparked the myth of mermaids really did exist

38 A F R I C A G E O G R A P H I C • m A R C H 2 0 0 9

OPPOSITE However, the lack of small trees in the Linyanti woodlands is a concern for biodiversity. Seedlings like this camel thorn acacia are found,

BELOW However, the lack of small trees in the Linyanti woodlands is a concern for biodiversity. Seedlings like this camel thorn acacia are found kds.

41w w w. A F R I C A G E O G R A P H I C . C O m40 A F R I C A G E O G R A P H I C • m A R C H 2 0 0 9

islands of the Seychelles, but for the past century, hunting, fishing-related fatalities and habitat degradation, com-bined with its long lifespan (50-plus years) and slow rate of reproduction, have made it all but a ghost in these waters. Listed as Vulnerable to extinc-tion on the IUCN Red List and on the verge of being regionally extinct in the Western Indian Ocean, dugongs have, until recently, only occurred in Madagascar, Mozambique and the Comores. Since 2001, however, sight-ings around the Aldabra Atoll, some 1 150 kilometres to the south-west, indi-cate that these shy marine mammals might be returning. If they could repop-ulate Aldabra’s waters and be allowed safe passage north, Bird Island’s healthy marine environment would be an ideal habitat for their reintroduction.

Although no siren’s song serenaded me on my walk back from the colony, I did hear the scrunching sound of beach excavation and, as I squinted through the darkness, the large shell of a green turtle Chelonia mydas gradually ap-peared, masked by a spray of sand. This is one endangered species that has found its way to the safety of Bird Island, and on nights throughout the year, especially between June and September, females clamber onto the beaches above the high-tide mark to nest and lay between 100 and 200 eggs.

Like the sooty terns, mature turtles often return to the beach of their birth, and Bird Island has a wealth of healthy seagrass meadows upon which adult turtles feed almost exclusively. After this female had dug her egg chamber

and started to lay, the island’s resident ecologist gathered guests to watch as she buried her clutch and returned to the water. There are no lights here, which can disorientate nesting green turtles and their hatchlings as they make their way back to the sea. As part of the island’s conservation programme, females that come ashore are tagged and nests are monitored, contributing to a wider turtle–monitoring project within the Seychelles.

Bird Island also hosts a population of the critically endangered hawksbill turtle, whose sharp, curving beak enables it to feed on sea sponges and toxic jellyfish. Perhaps because it is one of the few plac-es where it is undisturbed by humans, this is the only known place in the world where hawksbill turtles come ashore dur-ing the day to nest. Their peak nesting period stretches from November to mid- February, and hatchlings start emerging some 58 days after the eggs are laid.

Pollution, overexploitation, con-flicting use of resources and other harmful consequences of human development are serious

and sharply increasing threats to the marine ecosystem of the Seychelles. Yet, the conservation and sustainable use of the archipelago’s biodiversity is essential for the development of its two major economic sectors: tourism and fisheries. The cumulative degradation of the marine environment caused by a combination of natural and anthropo-genic disturbances, including the indi-rect effects of global climate change, such as coral bleaching, is therefore a

serious problem. Amongst the flurry of words used to

describe ecotourism ventures, it is not easy to differentiate those that are guided by conservation principles with nature at their core from the green-washers and glitzy marketeers. In a world where damage to the marine habitat through dredging and land rec-lamation has led to the destruction of entire mangrove forests, coral reefs and seagrass beds in favour of luxury five-star resorts and real-estate develop-ments, Bird Island offers an escape to a place that truly is at peace and in har-mony with nature.

like the sooty terns, mature turtles often return to the beach of their birth, and Bird Island has a wealth of healthy seagrass meadows upon which they feed

OPPOSITE However, the lack of small trees in the Linyanti woodlands is a concern for biodiversity. Seedlings like this camel thorn acacia are found,

BELOW However, the lack of small trees in the Linyanti woodlands is a concern for biodiversity. Seedlings like this camel thorn acacia are found kds. infotravel

Don’t think that because Bird Island is free from modern trappings (no television, air conditioning or thirsty swimming pools) and prizes its cast-away image, that it spoils you any less. Bird Island has balanced conser-vation and tourism with the running of an ecologically sound operation. The classic sandy beaches are protected by a barrier reef, making swimming safe and better than in any chlorinated pool, and the natural-ly ventilated chalets allow the various birdcalls intermingled with the sounds of a 200-year-old tortoise to infuse the air.

For more information, tel. (+248) 22 4925; fax (+248) 22 5074; e-mail res-ervations@birdislandseychelles.com or visit www.birdislandseychelles.com