Seychelles warbler (Acrocephalus sechellensis)
What I spent a lot of time looking up into the trees in search of. There is a research team working on this little bird and its ecology and evolution. It was the reason Cousin Island was made into a reserve - at one time just 26l of these birds survived in a mangrove area on one side of the island. There are now around 350 on Cousin and some have been translocated to neighbouring islands to create new populations.
Had a bath, maybe have a lie down!
Noddys caught in the mist net!
Dave (the researcher) was trying to catch a warbler but wasn't having much luck! There are far more noddies and unfortunately they are not too bright. The researchers use nets to catch birds so they can ring them and identify them in the future.
Fariy tern (Gygis alba) chick looking very cute
Ready to release an annoyed looking noddy that got caught in one of the mist nets.
Sometimes they fly back into the net like a boomerang circling back at you!
Lesser noddy chick
This one had fallen to the floor with its nest. We placed in on a fallen tree, but most of the time the chicks die as the parents don't normally feed them or tend to them once they have fallen from the tree. The large number of lizards mean they have slim chances.
Seychelles skink (Manbuya seychellensis)
Endemic species. Cousin Island has one of the highest lizard densities in the world. They get plentiful food in the form of Noddy eggs and chicks falling to the forest floor.
Wright's skink (Trachylepis wrightii), also endemic
The Aldabra giant tortoise was close to extinction with the only population found on the remote Aldabra atoll.
These tortoises have since been introduced to other islands in the Seychelles (such as Cousin and Curieuse) as well as a few other Indian Ocean islands. The only other place giant tortoises are found in the wild are the Galapagos Islands.
Aldabra giant tortoise (Geochelone gigantea). They love a good scratch in those hard to reach places!
Seychelles magpie-robin (Copsychus sechellarum).
This Seychelles endemic species almost went extinct with the entire population constituting 20 or less individuals in the 1980s and 90s. However conservation efforts have allowed the population to recover and there are now known to be at least 234 birds (as of October 2011).
.....ending up like this!
Seychelles fody (Foudia sechellarum), listed as Near-threatened on the IUCN redlist, but common at the dinner table.
Endemic to the Seychelles
....moving on to look like this, before eventually......
The White-tailed tropicbird (Phaethon lepturus) starts out like this......