Blog 2 – Bird Island and beyond

Flew in on an Otter 10 seater plane 30 minutes across the ocean to this island with no tv, telephones, internet or locks on doors. D now in seventh heaven – he has seen so many birds he does not know which way to turn. There are fairy terns, beautifully white, cuddling up on branches together (yes, it is a very romantic place although there are not many of us here and maybe only one pair of honeymooners). I am writing this with noddy terns flying past me in flocks, tropic birds with long white tails feathers flowing out behind them, sanderlings, crab plovers and the magnificent frigate birds high above. I am told that 850,000 pairs of chattering, wheeling black and white sooty terns (yes, he finally got to see them) appear here to breed every October and there is certainly a large colony here at the moment. This island is a wildlife sanctuary and the birds (and their eggs) are protected as are the hawksbill and green turtles which come ashore to lay their eggs.


Flying into Bird Island


On this!

This island has white sandy beaches with no-one on them but during the middle of the day the temperatures reach over 35c – the only place to be is in the sea or in the shade on the verandah of your cabin. The reef offshore is teeming with beautiful, colourful fish and coral - saw a massive bunkerhead parrot fish and a fairly small white tip reef shark who looked at me and decided I was bigger than him so beat a hasty retreat (as did I if I am honest!!) We were up at 6.00am – yes really – to see the sunrise (magnificent of course) and met up with Esmeralda – the island tortoise weighing in at 298kg and said to be 250 years old!!! Could possibly end up weighing the same if we carry on eating at this rate..... Need to be here longer really, we move on again tomorrow to another island, Praslin. Hardest thing being here is trying not to get burnt - how hard is that ......


Our cabin on Bird Island


Doug makes a new friend!

Until the next update ...
Annie & Doug