Wild and wonderful

The snorkeling was awful; poor visibility and we saw very few fish, apart from a couple of rays and one small shark. The fishing was disappointing. It rained a lot, torrential at times. We hardly saw any sun or blue sky. We did not get to see the full moon. But the wildlife, walking, meals and relaxing were fantastic!
Bird island is owned by an old Seychellois family. It is not a luxury resort. Their main focus is conservation. This is what makes it special. Many scientists come and go but Roby is the ‘hands-on’ man who patrols the 5 km perimeter 4 times a day, making his notes. He is passionate about what he does and gave us a wonderful talk on all the creatures that populate this small coral island.

There are giant tortoises, including Esmeralda, who is actually male, not female! He is reputed to be over 200 years old. Roby showed us how to ‘jack up’ a tortoise by scratching its back leg. They love it and stiffen their legs, lifting their shells high off the ground. (There's a video at the end of this blog!) Among other more common bird species, there are frigates, brown and lesser noddies, waders, plovers, long-tailed tropic birds, sooty and fairy terns -here's a picture of one of these with her chick. They're all ‘tame’.

Best of all, both green and hawksbill turtles lay their eggs at this time of the year. On rainy, windy Monday night, we came across a big green turtle (about 1 metre across) digging with her front flippers. We could see where she had come up the very steep sandbank. She must have been exhausted as instead of going further up the beach beyond the high water mark, she was busy digging just over the rim. We got there at about 9.15. She finished digging a big round hole with her front flippers, then dug a much smaller deeper hole with her back ones. We watched all this from behind her, lying on our tummies at the very edge of the hole. Only when she started to lay did we turn on a small torch - Roby had told us what would or wouldn’t disturb her. She was coy and had almost hidden the laying from view with her back flippers, but we could just see the ping-pong ball sized eggs plopping down. I counted 62. To cover the eggs, she flicked sand behind her with her front flippers and paddled a compact wall with her back ones, moving slowly forward as she did so. Although she didn’t grunt, it must have been a huge effort, as she rested between every scoop. We wondered if she might tumble down the steep bank and end up on her back, but she shimmied down on her shell with flippers out of the way as easy as you like and off she went into the sea.

We got back to our bungalow at 1.20 am. We both feel over-awed by the experience. We marked the spot 12 m in from the nest as we felt sure with the whole nest would be washed by morning – and sadly it was. But she is oblivious of course.

On Wednesday morning, Dudley was tired and so I went for a walk on my own and came across a hawksbill turtle coming out of the sea to lay! She went right up into some bushes, resting a lot, bumbling into and clambering over driftwood, grunting a little as she went along – she didn’t seem to have the sense to go round the obstacles. Turtles are very short-sighted. They are smaller than the green turtles. She’d wedged herself in under some branches and I wondered whether she might get stuck there and whether Roby ever helps them in these situations. A Swiss couple that we’d met arrived and together we watched her digging her hole – interestingly only at the back. Her eggs came out more than one at a time – sometimes 5 at once! Roby arrived and he broke off some branches around her and said we could scoop some sand out from the back to get a better view. She was also less shy and had her flippers spread wide open, so I got some good photos and also a little movie! I felt sad that Dudley missed this. Roby wanted to measure and make his notes etc., so we left him and her to it. Hawksbills lay up to 230 eggs, the green turtle fewer.
This is a paille-en-queue (long-tailed tropic bird) chick.

Wee beasties

There are pretty geckos here. They are shy and scuttle up the wall or behind a curtain if you get too close. We're fond of Freddy, a cheeky Madagascan fody. He knows his way in and out of the house and often comes into the kitchen to look for crumbs......

But that's when we stop looking at the 'wee beasties' through rose-tinted spectacles.....

The other geckos are much more intrusive and ugly. They get into everything. Our kettle and toasters have covers now. We've boiled a few in the dishwasher . They mess everywhere too. This would make good glue - it sticks to granite, tiles, glass wood, plastic etc.

Spiders run boldly into the house and then disappear, reappearing when you least expect them to e.g. when you're reaching for your towel. A lot of screaming goes on in our house We have been told they are all harmless - so why do they give us the shivers?

In the evenings, mosquitoes, enormous cockroaches, and sometimes flying ants or leathery rhino beetles come flying in. We take it in turns now to swat the cockraoches with a flyswatter - more screaming if we miss and they run towards us (yes both of us!).

We found a monster 12 cm long centipede lurking on a skirting board. It had two vicious looking spikes at its rear end. It clung tenaciously to the end of the broom, not wanting a flying lesson, but on the second swing, it sailed off into the bush below our house. Wasps make mud nests on curtains. Tiny ants get into the sealed sugar container....

Then out of the blue, three dragonflies grace us with their presence. One appeared in the kitchen, another in a bedroom. They stayed for a while, then flew away. I found a third one dead, but intact, with its wings spread. I was able to study it close up and was blown away by its beauty and intricacy; its iridescent wings, its little face, composed of many parts, the lacy web of its wings. Having these visit felt like a privilege.