Monday, April 14, 2008

Bird Island Day 2

This pretty young Fairy Tern was sitting on the tree next to our chalet this morning. Good morning Bird Island.
I went for a walk right round the island this morning. It should take about an hour. It is fantastic to be able to walk right around a real remote 'desert' island. I saw four other people on my way round.
Looking back along the long sweep of West Beach...
Noddy's perched on an old beach shelter at the North point of the island.
And some very brave Great Crested Terns.

I found a very beautiful Cowrie shell. It must be fairly newly vacated because the pattern is still clear on the shell.
There were thousands of ghost crabs all round the beach. Some of them are quite feisty.
A superb walk. I was away about two hours so I arrived back just in time for lunch. Karen and Lisa were already getting stuck into the buffet.
After lunch we went over to the calm East beach for a swim. On the way we had wait for todays plane to land before we could cross the runway.Me and Lisa did some diving for coral.
Karen took a walk along the beach and found an area full of hermit crabs. Here she is pointing them out to Lisa.
Hermit crabs crawl into discarded sea shells or snail shells. They retreat into the shell if they are threatened.
This crab is looking for some toes to pinch!
This is different type of Ghost Crab to the one I saw on the West Beach this morning. One of their main foods is baby turtles!Back at the Lodge we saw a flight of about 50 Greater Frigate birds circling above. They have a wingspan of over 6 feet, but they are very agile. They wait for the Sooty Terns to return from a days fishing and try and steal their catch.
An outstanding day finished off by a great sunset.