With the influx of Lesser and Brown Noddy’s, comes the preparation for the 2013 sea bird season! We have started preparing our Sooty Tern breeding colony site for their scouting and arrival in late May/early June. We saw a 200% increase in numbers last year to the previous year just by clearing and improving their nesting sites. We are also preparing for our annual sea bird census of Noddy’s, Tropic-birds, Fairy Tern’s and Bridled Tern’s, as well as the monitoring of nesting success of the Brown and Lesser Noddy’s over the entire season. We are looking forward to witnessing all the courtships and nest building which are always fascinating with a small touch of comic relief!
Pair of Lesser Noddy's proud of their newly constructed leaf nest
Sooty Tern’s arriving for the 2013 nesting season
It is a great time of the year when the wind is low and the seas calm! All you can hear are the cackling Fairy Tern’s and the waves crashing throughout the day. The heat is at its maximum some days, but the birds are thriving and the sea is very inviting!
We have just completed one of our bi-annual census’ on the Fairy Tern and Tropic-bird breeding populations. The census was a great success and was carried out smoothly, at the same time having a little fun! The Fairy Tern population was estimated at 595 pairs during the SE Monsoon in 2012 and 2654 pairs during the NW Monsoon in 2013. The Fairy Tern population on Cousine Island therefore currently stands at approximately 1624 pairs. The tropic bird population was estimated at 1643 pairs during the SE Monsoon (2012) and 740 pairs during the NW Monsoon (2013). The average Tropic bird population on Cousine Island therefore currently stands at 1191 pairs. We had a lot of fun executing the census and will be making it a permanent project on the island due to the importance of having a more accurate estimation of breeding pairs on the island throughout the year.
Tropic-bird chick waiting for its mother to return with lunch
Tropic-bird mother and chick sleeping during the afternoon heat
We were delighted and surprised to find Squeaker (Cousine’s hand raised Fruit Bat in 2011) munching away at giant a soursop fruit right outside the conservation office this week. We heard his familiar calls and recognised his naughty face! We were convinced when we heard him shouting at the tele-handler and dumpers which were obviously bothering his peaceful meal time. We climbed the tree and he recognised us instantly and came over to lick and chew on our fingers. He has returned with the other bats who have come to roost and feed on available Figs. He left during the SE monsoon (August) when the island was very dry. So it has been over 6 months. We are so happy to see him and glad that he is living a happy and natural life and moving from island to island with the other bats.
saying hello
Claw cleaning
It has been a great Hawksbill nesting season so far! Lots of hard work bringing great results and satisfaction that we are enabling a Critically Endangered species a better chance of survival into the future. During the month of January there were a total of 55 individual emergences, 29 successful nests and 4949 eggs recorded. Furthermore another 31 nests hatched during the month and 2092 healthy hatchlings were released to the sea. The number of nests during January (29) is still higher than lasts years’ number of 22 nests laid during the same month. Below is a table summarizing all the turtle data collected during the entire season so far.
Hawksbill female laying a nest
Hatchlings emerging from their nest
| Table 7: A summarized description of all Hawksbill Turtle activity monitored during the 2012 / 2013 nesting season. |
| Month of Monitoring period |
Number of Emergences |
Number of Successful Nests |
Number of Eggs Laid |
Number of Hatchings to sea |
Number of New Turtles Tagged |
| August |
1 |
1 |
150 |
0 |
0 |
| September |
4 |
1 |
186 |
0 |
1 |
| October |
46 |
13 |
2512 |
85 |
6 |
| November |
106 |
34 |
5996 |
53 |
11 |
| December |
105 |
41 |
7102 |
1856 |
2 |
| January |
55 |
29 |
4949 |
2092 |
1 |
| Totals |
317 |
119 |
20895 |
4086 |
21 |
Another successful year complete on Cousine which we are very proud to look back on. We reached our conservation goals set out at the beginning of the year and are excited to start our new list and push a few more exciting projects on the island. A few highlights of 2012 were: A record number of Green Turtle nests from one single female on Cousine (7 nests); the start of our dune restoration project; the ringing of 185 juvenile & sub-adult Sooty terns; our second pair of successfully fledged Magpie twins; a successful seabird census & that’s just to name a few. With a little bit of passion, a lot can be achieved!
This turtle nesting season has been an exceptionally good one on Cousine Island and when communicating with other conservation islands it would seem that most have had a fair to good year in terms of nest numbers. We have now become accustomed to being greeted by a least one female turtle making her way up the beach every day, much to the delight of various guests! By the 31st of December 2012 Cousine Island had already recorded ninety-three Hawksbill Turtle nests, 32 nests more than the total number of nests (61), recorded at the end of December last year. Of these turtles we have tagged a total of twenty new individuals, a sure sign of turtle conservation success. The average number of eggs laid per nest thus far is 173, with the success rate currently up to 63% for the nests which have already hatched. Infertility and predation by crabs is currently the primary reason for decreasing hatchling success. Furthermore, over 2033 hatchlings have already safely found their way to sea this season.
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