Bird Island

While in Africa last year, a chance remark by a fellow photographer, something along the lines of ‘have you ever been to Bird Island?’, to which I answered in the negative, planted a seed. Bird Island, hmmm must be called that for a reason. A little research revealed that indeed the island is aptly named. It is the northernmost speck of land in the Seychelles archipeligo, only about a mile long and half a mile wide. Now having the status of a conservation zone it is managed for the wildlife with visitor numbers strictly controlled. Happily, I can confirm it does just what it says on the tin, i.e. it is an island full of birds.

But it is meltingly hot. So hot that it’s hardly worth having a shower, because 30 seconds later you will be dripping sweat, rendering the whole operation, and a cascade of precious water, pointless. It took us over 24 hours to get here by taxi, train, tube, Heathrow pod (look it up, it’s brilliant), airbus to Doha and onwards to Mahe, until finally a light aircraft into the small grass landing strip in this remotest of Robinson Crusoe islands surrounded by the turquoise Indian Ocean. But it has certainly been worth all the tiring travel just to see so many lovely birds so close and unconcerned. A few pics from a quick stroll around before the blisteringly fierce sun set.

As I complete this blog it is full dark, or maybe not so because the heavens are strewn with stars. So many stars I have become lost in the sheer scale of it all. I’ve been watching the constellation of Orion gradually sink into the horizon for an hour or so while pondering the immensity of the cosmos in general. Every so often a meteor will scythe across the velvet blue sky leaving an arrow of golden gases in its wake. There’s nobody else watching this, only me. Out of the whole population of the globe I am the only soul seeing these phenomena conspiring above me. Well, maybe a few birds subconsciously register the transgression of light across the heavens, but no other human does, of that I am sure. Why? Because the island is 200 miles from anywhere, there are only a dozen souls in residence and only one is sitting here typing this – all others have retired for the night. Furthermore, I haven’t seen another pair of binoculars at all which I find amazing in itself. Here we are on an island a mile long sitting in the middle of the Indian Ocean surrounded by warm, shallow seas and coral reefs and it appears we are the only couple that appreciates the stupendous scale of the wildlife all around. I hope I’m not being presumptuous here, but surely the spectacle of thousands of Sooty Terns swirling around all day, calling in their raucous collective voice, the fact that every tree has its own colony of noddies and Fairy Terns. Beautiful beyond words tropicbirds glide through the skies while piratical frigatebirds patrol above should surely set anyone’s pulse racing. But no, it doesn’t seem so. Is it me? I wonder sometimes.

It’s time for bed, but the Sooty Terns are still at it, their screeches and yelps can be heard from all points of this well named Bird Island. Goodness knows how we will sleep tonight, but you know what I don’t care.