Saving Paradise

Category: birds | Date: Jul 30 2009 | By: savingparadise

In our post on June 26, we shared the exciting news that efforts to establish a Seychelles Paradise Flycatcher population on Denis Island had borne fruit with the hatching of two chicks. No chick had fledged successfully outside La Digue Island, Seychelles for over 60 years. We also told you how this news had created considerable excitement as the Seychelles Paradise Flycatcher is listed as Critically Endangered and this effort is geared towards improving that status. We have now heard that a third flycatcher nestling hatched. Rachel Bristol who is working on the flycatcher project tells us about this happy event and how, quite hilariously, the magpie robins and a sunbird are singing the flycatcher tune!

On Friday the 24th July a flycatcher nestling hatched and its over-enthusiastic father was trying (and failing miserably) to feed it huge green grasshoppers bigger in size than the tiny newly hatched chick. Luckily the female seemed to have the prey size a bit better sorted! The father is a young male and this is his first chick which may explain his food size issues.

It looks like the 2 flycatcher fledglings we had earlier are females which is good news as we introduced more males than females to Denis so this will even up the sex ratio. They are both still at home with their parents though feeding themselves now, and they have changed colour from brown (they are brown fluffy balls when they fledge) to the same colour as a female flycatcher. All juvenile flycatchers plumage is the same colour as adult female flycatchers- males change to male plumage from about 10 months old.

The female who has a small chick in a nest at the moment, with nesting material in her bill. Photo by Catherina Onezia

There is a solitary male Seychelles sunbird on Denis. It is ringed so we know who he is and where he came from. He came from Bird Island and is one of the sunbirds introduced to Bird Island from Mahe in 2006. He is very noisy and very active and if he wasn’t ringed I would swear there were about 4 sunbirds on the island as he moves over a large area and is very visible. He is also very annoying as he has started imitating flycatchers. He is so good that he not only tricks me and Mervin our flycatcher research assistant on Denis, he also tricks the flycatchers themselves who often chase him initially thinking he is a flycatcher intruding on their territory.

The sunbird that’s singing the flycatcher tune on Denis. Photo by Rachel Bristol

I think the sunbird has started this imitation as he is the only Sunbird on the island so has no Sunbirds to sing to/with as on La Digue sunbirds and flycatchers co-habit and I have never ever heard a sunbird imitate a flycatcher.

The Magpie robins on Denis also incorporate quite a lot of Flycatcher song into their song, however they always give themselves away by singing some very obviously magpie robin song after a few notes. The robins were initially noted doing this within about 3 months of the flycatchers being introduced to Denis so they learn fast.

So there you have it, there is indeed now great hopes for establishing a second population for the Seychelles Paradise Flycatcher.

Tags: critically endangered, Denis Island, La Digue, Seychelles Magpie robin, Seychelles Paradise Flycatcher, Seychelles sunbird

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Category: Heritage Gardens, Sanctuary at Roche Caiman | Date: Jul 27 2009 | By: savingparadise

When Nature Seychelles first attempted to hung a beehive at the Heritage Garden, the only creatures that seemed to benefit were the lizards (Seychelles Skink) abundant on most Islands. A queen bee had been discovered in the Garden with many bees around her. So Mr. Hoareau, a bee expert with 40 years experience was called in to organize the colony and collect some honey. However efforts came to naught when in Terence’s words, ” a bunch of lizards had a big feast on the bees’ larvae and also ate up all the honey”. The skinks had discovered an entrance to the hives.

Mr. Hoareau has been called in again to jump start our honey project. This time he comes prepared. He has sealed all entry into the beehive and designed the hive in a manner to only allow entry for the bees. Mr. Hoareau is photographed below at work attracting the bees to his hives using citronella from the Garden and other sweet smelling plants.

The beekeeping project at the Heritage Garden is intended to encourage the community to start similar projects. Honey was used in traditional medicine in the Seychelles and has many benefits. It is however becoming expensive to buy. It is our hope that this project takes off, and that we get to the honey before the skinks!

Tags: beekeeping, honey

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Category: Turtles | Date: Jul 24 2009 | By: savingparadise

Two men have been arrested for possession of turtle meat and spearguns. The taking, selling or buying of turtles is illegal under the  Wild Animals and Birds Protection Act. Offences under this law carry a maximum fine of SR500,000.00 (about 36,000.00 USD) or a maximum term of two years imprisonment. Spearguns have been banned in Seychelles since the 70’s under Fisheries legislation and the Penal Code.

Read more… 

Tags: poachers, Seychelles, Turtle meat, Turtles

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Category: birds | Date: Jul 22 2009 | By: savingparadise

A really nice lady, her husband and her daughter came to our office bearing gifts: two Tropic bird chicks they wanted to leave with us.

Hafriza,, the nice lady, her husband Lionel and daughter Shania rescued the chicks, about 2 and 3 weeks old from an Albizia tree they were nesting on, which was old and needed to be cut down.

The family lives at St Louise in Mahe. Tropic birds are only seen on Mahe at remote places on high cliffs or very tall trees where they can escape predation. They are found breeding on the ground on rat-free islands like Cousin, Cousine, Frigate and Aride.

Both chicks were healthy and active and had been surviving on a diet of king fish for their meals. When Terence gave them some pieces of fish he happened to have at the office, they happily gobbled them down.

Shania craddling one of the chicks

Hafriza and her family are about to leave on holiday. It has been agreed with the family, that we are going to send the birds to North Island rather than release them on Mahe, when the time comes, where there are too many predators.  North Island is also where Hafriza’s other daughter is on school holiday and is undertaking some work attachment. I bet it will be good for the chicks to have family until they hopefully fly away one day….

This is the nice thing about Seychelles; people do care about wildlife and the environment.

Tags: Tropic bird

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Category: Thank you | Date: Jul 21 2009 | By: savingparadise

So today I got quite a nice surprise. Pernille, she of the I’ve left Copenhagen for Uganda and Louder than Swahili fame gave me what is to me a big endorsement  matched only by you our blog friends, who come over to read our posts, leave comments and share with others what we have written.

Pernille is a very accomplished blogger currently residing in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. She works for a Danish development organization and her work for them in Northern Uganda and now Tanzania, and her life in both places, has provided quite some interesting fodder for her almost daily postings on her blog. What I have always loved about her blogs is her bold style, both in design and writing. In 2006 she was chosen as Ugandan Blog of the Year.

It was in fact through blogging that I first came to know Pernille and we became good friends, and even ended up at the Barcamp Nairobi 08 together, for which she wrote an excellent post on ICT usage in Kenya.

So when I saw her latest post about yours truly, well, I just had to tell you about it. Therefore today, I am digressing from telling you about Paradise to say: thanks Pernille! and thanks Wildlife Direct for this space (you guys rock) and to all of you who come over to read the interesting blogs and post comments and donate and support the work being done by everyone here.

Forgot anyone? Oh yeah, Nature Seychelles, my mother, my family, friends….

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Category: Bats | Date: Jul 20 2009 | By: savingparadise

On July 15, 2009 I accompanied Terence for a monitoring exercise for the Seychelles Sheath-tailed bat Coleura seychellensis carried out by Nature Seychelles at Baie Lazare, Mahe.

Baie Lazare has one of three roosts on Mahe occupied by the endemic and very rare Seychelles Sheath-tailed Bat. So rare is the bat and so limited its range that it has been listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List, and is considered close to extinction. The bat is also listed by EDGE (the edge of existence programme), the global conservation initiative which focuses on threatened and unique species.

The Seychelles Sheath-tailed bat was once abundant on Praslin, La Digue, Mahé and Silhouette. It suffered a dramatic decline during the mid-late 20th Century. The exact cause of the population decline is unknown, but it’s been linked to habitat destruction, human disturbance, decline in insect density, and possible predation by barn owls. Recent studies failed to detect any bats at previously known roosting sites on the islands of La Digue and Praslin, and the species is now thought to be extinct on both islands. This bat is now only known to roost on Mahe and Silhouette, with an estimated 50-100 individuals believed to exist. Past records show 32 individuals at La Passe on Silhouette, and 36 individuals at three roosts on Mahé: Cap Ternay, Baie Lazare, and Anse Major.

The monitoring is being done with the help of two volunteers and on this day we were accompanied by Ian Valmont.  Ian and the others have been recording dusk emergence of individuals at the roosts on Mahe. We sit outside the roost where we can see bats emerge. Ian and Terence are carrying ultrasonic detectors (Bat box) set to 37 kHz to detect when a bat is approaching. However, the counts are based on actual visuals of the bats. At this roost, 7 individuals have been recorded and all were seen on this day. Other observations on  the bats behavior and the status of the habitat are also recorded.

The bats are difficult to photograph at emergence as they fly past rather fast. My amateur skills produced very poor quality video from our digital camera. I am hoping that at the next monitoring I will be more successful. However we did manage to record some audio files on Terence’s phone picked up by the “Bat box” as they emerged (Terence is photographed here climbing to the cave with Ian Valmont, carrying the bat detector). I have uploaded it here for your listening pleasure.

Very little is known of the bat’s status and ecology, so this monitoring, part of a project that started in 2006, helps to contribute to existing data and  identify threats to its continued existence. The threat to the bats is real and present due to its unprotected status and the fact that it relies on coastal habitats which have come under intense pressure from housing and tourism development on both Mahé and Silhouette.

Find more information on the bat at EDGE

Tags: Seychelles Sheath-tailed Bat

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