Once again I find myself scratching my head and wondering where it is the last month has gone and how is it we are almost half way through March already. The end of March is fast approaching and I know it will be here before I know what has happened. February and March mean 2 things for us on Cousin. February means that 2 of the seabird species that use Cousin as a breeding site are in their highest numbers and March means that the turtle season is coming to an end. So as one species is leaving us for another long break 2 others are just arriving.

In the last week of February I was able to spend 3 days on Cousin working with Eric Blais, the Island Conservation Officer, Steve Esparon, one of the wardens on the island and the 3 current volunteers; Alex, Alex and Valery. The 6 of us surveyed the island for the Fairy terns and White tailed tropic birds that use the island to nest in their greatest numbers at this time of year. The census means that we can get a better idea of the size of the population that uses Cousin for nesting. Much like the turtle monitoring this task is time consuming. It involves climbing all over the island and up to the highest point in order to cover all the habitat types and locations the birds may nest.

At the time of the survey there were tiny newly hatched Fairy Tern chicks in many of the areas selected for survey. Fairy terns don’t actually build a nest of any sort but lay their eggs directly onto the branch. Their white colour makes them easy to spot in most cases and so relatively easy to survey. In contrast, on Cousin, the white tailed tropic birds lay their eggs on the ground but again their colour and also the long tail makes them relatively easy to spot during the census. Long term monitoring of the breeding seabird population on Cousin may well be useful for many reasons including acting as a bio-indicator of the marine environment, specifically fish stocks.

As the seabird census for February was conducted the turtle monitoring was also continuing, although the number of patrols each day is now down to three as the number of emergences detected drops off significantly. The season has been a particularly good one with record numbers of emergences and nests. Gathering this information has been a very big job and at the busiest time of the season has roughly involved more than 24 people hours every day. How is it possible that it has taken more hours than available each day? Well if there are 2 people on each patrol and each patrol takes roughly 2 hours, and there are 7 patrols a day at the peak of the season thats 2×7 - 14 hours of patrols with 2 people on each one so 14×2 - 28 people hours each day. This kind of effort would not be possible without the commitment of staff and of course our volunteers as well as donations by others, that cover the cost of tags (about $2 USD each) and equipment, that enable us to continue such important monitoring.

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