Playing catch-up...

No posting in 5 months is, I admit, a pathetic return! In my defence I have been very busy with work in general but specifically project write-ups and of course my Denis island blog (http://denisisland.blogspot.com ) averages 8 posts a month which is a pretty good output. My work situation has been exasperated by the pretty awful economic times we are passing through accentuated in Seychelles by our own internal economic meltdown which has seen the devaluation of our currency, by at one point nearly 80%, and inflation running at 67%!!!! Whilst the rupee has stabilised and strengthened recently my income is still only 30-35% of its value a year ago and so I have had to return to doing consultancy work in my spare time in order to make ends meet and this is the key reason why this blog has been deserted. Consultancy eats up all your leisure time and I had hoped when taking on my current job to be able to leave it largely behind me... so much for planning!

Anyway, I met a major work related deadline last week and have given myself some time off as reward and hence my mind turned back to this neglected blog and the thought of trying to make amends. Despite not writing I have still opportunistically being taking photos of interesting occurrences and so I have a backlog I can try and work through.

I should start however with the awaited orange turtle dove chicks mentioned in my last post. Alas I never did get to see them. I photo’d the bird on the nest up until the end of February but then the spathe of an opening inflorescence bent down and completely blocked my view of the nest. It also blocked the bird’s flight path meaning they had to take a much more circuitous route landing on the other side of the tree and then hopping and struggling round to their platform which was now obscured from balcony view point. So no luck there, sorry...

Over the subsequent weeks I was able to photo a few other species from my flat including some interesting endemic species but I’ll cover them in later posts. For now I’ll focus on a visit of a family group of Barred ground doves (Geopelia striata) that spent a good 30 minutes on my balcony early morning on March 3rd.

The barred ground dove is not native to Seychelles but rather originates from Southeast Asia. It was probably initially introduced to Seychelles as a caged bird and has been present since before 1865. This small, long-tailed ground-feeding dove has been a highly successful invader and is now one of the three most common land birds in Seychelles and can be found throughout the central archipelago. It favours open grassland and urban areas and is often considered commensal with humans but is also present to high altitudes. It feeds on seeds, small invertebrates and food scraps. Whilst not currently recognised as a direct threat to native avifauna its sheer abundance must represent a level of competition to local species.

The Barred ground dove breeds all year round but has a peak of activity October to April. The birds can often be seen sitting in pairs “billing and cooing”. This is a family group that perched close together on my balcony for some considerable time preening themselves and each other. The juvenile is shown in the middle and can be distinguished from the adult as its tail is shorter, plumage more fluffy and in particular it does not have the blue skin around the eye or the base of the bill and likewise its iris is brown rather than pale blue (See photos in sidebar).