Intro to Aldabra, Arriving, first Tropic Bird Survey & first camp!

I can’t believe I have almost been here for one month! It has gone very fast. Here is a quick intro to Aldabra, followed by a condensed summary of what I have been getting up to over the past 3 weeks.

Aldabra is the world's second-largest coral atoll, and is located east of Africa (We’re actually closer to Madagascar than the rest of the Seychelles). It is officially part of the Aldabra Group of islands in the Indian Ocean that are part of the Outer Islands of the Seychelles and is over 1,000 km southwest of the Mahé (Where the Capital of the Seychelles is). Aldabra is 34 km long and encloses a huge, shallow central lagoon. The atoll is made up of four main islands: Grand Terre, Malabar, Picard (Where the research station and my house is located), and Polymnie. Due to its extreme isolation, Aldabra features a high degree of endemism (wildlife only found here). It is home to unique bird species, including the white-throated rail (the last remaining flightless bird in the Indian Ocean – they love to try and come inside the house). Aldabra also boasts significant nesting sites for green and hawksbill turtles, a population of over 100,000 Aldabra Giant Tortoises and one of the last stable, abundant populations of the coconut crab in the western Indian Ocean. In 1982, was inscribed as a UNESCO Marine World Heritage Site.

Here is a link to the website of SIF who I am working for on Aldabra: https://www.sif.sc/aldabra

I arrived on Aldabra on the 14th May after spending one Month on Assomption, and it has been full steam ahead since I arrived! My first afternoon was (14th May) was spent doing Biosecurity checks on all of our luggage and some equipment that had been sent across on the boat with us. We have to be very thorough with checks as each and every transport event brings with it the risk of an inadvertent introduction of a known or potential pest species such as a rodent, invertebrate, weed, fungus or disease. As Aldabra is a very isolated and fragile ecosystem the introduction of invasive alien species could have catastrophic impacts on the ecosystem. We are currently in a Pre RaCE (Rat & Cat) Eradication time frame, lots of the monitoring I will be doing is actually about creating baseline data for pre eradication, with feasibility studies having been completed last year, monitoring will then continue post eradication if enough funding can be generated to complete the planned eradication programme. However, In almost all cases it is more cost and time efficient to prevent Invasive species from reaching islands than to attempt a response to a pest incursion or, in the worst-case scenario, to eradicate them. So the biosecurity work is very important. All of my luggage was unpacked, checked and repacked on Mahe before heading to Assomption, then again on Assomption before heading to Aldabra, and then again once arriving on Aldabra.

I was shown to my new house for the next 10ish months which I am sharing with Angela (Trainee Ranger), and then left to unpack and settle in.

For my first full day on the island Angela and I joined Rona (The Assistant Aldabra Science Coordinator) for a Tropic Bird Survey – this is a survey that is done every 2 weeks (twice a month) and involves checking 7 islets for nests of Red & White-tailed tropic birds and continued monitoring of previously identified nests. When we find a nest we give it an ID number, attach a tag with the number to a branch as close as possible with some flagging tape to make it easier to see and if the location allows we also deploy a camera trap to take images in case of any predation events etc. Upon finding a new female who we suspect is on a nest we carefully use a long pole to gently partially lift her to see if there is an egg or otherwise. Then on future visits and surveys the same is done to determine if an egg is still present, if a nest has failed, if the egg hatches or if a chick is present. This continues until a nest either fails at egg or chick stage or a chick successfully fledges. At the time I am writing this blog I have now done two of these surveys.

When conducting the survey it is very important to plan around the tides as we need a low spring tide of 0.2m to have access to the islets. Climbing up onto them and around them is a little tricky but I’m getting used to it. They are made of something called ‘champignon’ which is the local name for the jagged, ancient coral limestone formation. It’s named for the French word for "mushroom," and has distinctive, eroded pinnacles and deep pits which characterise the island's unique and rugged landscape. It is also VERY Sharp so we have to be very careful.

After the survey in the morning I then had a briefing from William who is the Aldabra Science Coordinator as, Rona, William and I were heading to DJL (one of the camp locations we do monitoring at on Grand Terre) – I’ll do a blog post that goes into more detail about the camps and the monitoring we do and when at each camp site – but for this first camp with Will & Rona we were going to select plots for upcoming mangrove fauna surveys. We left Picard at 16:30 and arrived at the DJL mangrove at around 17:30. We walked to the camp hut from where we left the boat which took around 20mins and watched the sunset from the sand dunes before setting up for the evening. There is a camp hut with bunk beds inside but it can get very hot so William and Rona had suggested taking tents, unfortunately the tent we had brought for me did not have any poles so I helped William set up his and Rona’s tents and we used the innards of my tent to fashion a makeshift mosquito net (I hadn’t taken one as I was expecting to sleep in the tent) which is imperative to use to stop rats and coconut crabs running over you in the night. The camp huts are very basic, no electricity or toilets. There is water which is rain water collected in a water butt over the rainy season so we have to use it very carefully to not run out and we have a supply of food and a small gas cooker. In the evening we played some card games, had some lentils and rice for dinner and boiled some water to have a bucket shower at the back of the hut. The next morning we headed out to the field at 7am do our plot selection, it took us until 11:30 to finish selecting all 10 plots which was a great success. Again constrained for time by the tides but luckily we did it in plenty of time. Each plot had to be 2m x2m and at least 25m apart in Rhizophora dominated mangrove. Before the monitoring begins in the dry season I need to learn the scientific name and how to identify the 7 mangrove species found here along with scientific names of the fauna we are most likely to find in the plots (which is a lot of scientific names).

The morning was very hot and quite tiring, but good fun, the hardest part being walking through the very thick and deep muddy clay which we were sinking almost knee deep into as we tried to navigate around the mangrove to select the plots and ensure they were far enough apart from each other with enough mangrove cover inside.

In the afternoon we packed up camp and had to wait until about 16:45 for the tide to be deep enough for us to make the crossing of the lagoon back to Picard. Sunday I explored a little and rested up ready for my first full week at the station. During my first full week starting on the Monday I had a lot of training presentations going over different monitoring protocols which I needs to learn and get familiar with. I also went on my first turtle track survey here on Aldabra, it was nice to do something I am confident in and interesting to learn how it is done here. We have a CAT phone we use to record data directly without needing paper data sheets and it records the GPS location when you enter the data on the field which is very cool and a lot quicker than how I’m used to doing it which has been nice. I also went on my first Phenology survey which involves inspecting lots of plants (which are part of the monitoring protocol, labelled with tags and flagging tape along a path split into 3 zones on Picard called Backpath) and noting any new leaf growth, mature flowers or fruits and estimating leaf coverage, insect/fungal damage and any signs of rat damage. There are SO many plants I need to learn to identify and the scientific names of which I think is going to take me quite a while, but I am excited to learn them.

We were planning to start the dry season monitoring the next week but it had to be postponed as we are still getting a little more rain than usual at this time of year so the rangers (Angela & Clarisha) & I have started an inventory of the research station which is going to take quite a while to finish. I have also started to compile some data from previous opportunistic sightings data SIF has recorded since 1974 to share with a partner which is taking me a while to collate, and I have continued to spend time learning more protocols and species ID.

This week we have also done some litterfall collection and been repairing litterfall baskets for the litterfall Pre RaCE monitoring which occurs the first week of every month, as well as ant surveillance around the settlement area to do surveillance for Yellow Crazy ants which are a very invasive ant species. This involves using jar lids and jam placed around settlement. Luckily none were detected this time round, but this monitoring occurs 4 times a year and around supply boat times also.

During my weekends I have mostly been resting, doing yoga, colouring and last weekend I baked some peanut butter oat cookies. I have also been playing some beach volleyballs with the others. On my 2nd weekend here Angela, Norisha, Rona, Yannick and I went for a snorkelling trip in the mangroves which was very cool!

We have also had a BBQ each Friday since I arrived, where everyone makes a dish and brings it along which has been really lovely. Tonight we are having a BBQ for Rona’s birthday which was earlier this week and I am going to make some lentil dhal to take along.

Last weekend I was helping Norisha & Angela in the vegetable garden which has kind of been abandoned since the last chef/gardener left the island. Although I don’t know how well it is going to do as there was no regard for any of the instructions of how to grow the seeds, the seeds have kind of just been chucked in the ground so I’m not sure how well its going to go but hopefully it goes better than I am expecting.

I haven’t decided how often I am going to write up my blogs yet, either every few weeks or maybe once a month, I will see how much happens/how much time I have, I had been thinking about doing them weekly but we will see how it goes.