Our man (Andy Schofield) writes:
Early sunrise over Henderson Island (Andy Schofield)
I was awoken in my bunk by the deafening and now familiar clattering of the anchor dropping. Quickly followed by a “knock, knock” at the door, “Andy, we're there!”
I jumped from my bunk, hurriedly threw enough clothes on to be classed as decent, grabbed my binoculars and ran up the stairs to the observation deck aboard the Claymore II and opened the door to great disappointment! It was still dark!
I’d waited eagerly for nearly 3 months whilst on Pitcairn to visit the near mythical (in my eyes anyway) Henderson Island and again, just like Pitcairn, I’d arrived but couldn’t see it. Thankfully I didn’t have as long to wait this time and as the sun slowly rose the mythical island became a glorious reality. There were birds everywhere!
Frigate birds (Greater and the much scarcer Lesser) were patrolling the skies above the Island, Boobies were scattered all along the beach noisily displaying, Murphy’s and Kermadec Petrels peeled past the boat heading out to sea. Fairy Terns and Blue-Grey Noddies flitted above the trees like confetti on the wind whilst Red-Tailed Tropicbirds raucously chased each other around the skies and Henderson Petrels zipped over the boat effortlessly. It was brilliant!
Masked boobies courting on the beach, oblivious to my presence (Andy Schofield)
Weather conditions were perfect, calm, clear and the perfect state of tide for the often perilous “jet boat across the reefs breaking waves” landing on the Island and within a minute of leaving the ship I was walking on the amazing white sand beach surrounded by the noise of breaking waves and birds.
The beach was full of Masked Boobies that were so approachable it didn’t seem normal; it was an amazing privilege to be able to sit so close to them and watch their everyday behaviour of displaying, nest building, territorial skirmishes and the odd marauding from the ever present Greater Frigatebirds.
I really wanted to see the Islands “extra special” birds, the five Island endemics. The Henderson Rail, Fruit Dove, Lorikeet, Reed Warbler and of course the Henderson Petrel. I had already seen the petrel from the ship before landing, but with four more to try and see the pressure was on! Remarkably it took me less than half an hour ashore to see them all; it just illustrates what a fantastic place Henderson Island really is. In fact the first Henderson Rail that I saw found me! I was walking through the beach front vegetation when I noticed something small and dark running out of the undergrowth and catching invertebrates that were hiding under leaves that I was disturbing with my feet.
Henderson Rail (photo R. Cuthbert.)
I couldn’t believe my eyes, the more I kicked around leaves the more the rail would come out and search around for anything that I had disturbed, I ended up with two rails feeding and walking literally around my feet, they became so confident or were just so oblivious to my presence that they ended up following me around as I looked for some of the other birds. They are incredibly lovely birds and very small, much smaller than I expected, when I saw the first one I initially thought it must be a chick it was so small! It didn’t take me long to see the Henderson Reed Warbler or in fact the Henderson Lorikeet, both being that noisy calling that you couldn’t fail to see them. The Lorikeet was so bright and vivid as I guess you would assume being a member of the parrot family. Beautiful greens, red, blue and bright yellow, but the star of the Henderson show for me was the Fruit Dove!
I have been lucky enough to travel and work overseas carrying out research and sabbaticals quite a bit in my 25 years working with the RSPB, some would say too much, but this means that I have had the remarkable opportunity to see many of the world's pigeon and dove species and it never fails to amaze me how stunningly beautiful some of this group of birds really are and the Henderson fruit dove is no exception. They can actually be really hard to see as they sit in the canopy of the fruit bearing trees, which thankfully on Henderson aren’t that high. Their greens and yellows of which they have several shades are perfect camouflage with the canopies leaves and the beautiful blue greys of the head look just like the sky in a gap through the leaves even the stunning addition of a beautiful cerise cap looks like a bright, ripe, juicy fruit! They are stunning. In fact, if I won the lottery this weekend I would probably go and try and see the almost 400 Columbidae species that occur worldwide.
Henderson Fruit Dove (R. Cuthbert)
The only downside to my whole Henderson experience was that I did see a rat or six, The RSPB currently has a six month research expedition working on Henderson, if you would like to read more about the teams work follow the link below.
http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/ourwork/b/biodiversity/default.aspx#
We've been working with the UK's amazing Overseas Territories for almost 20 years, but are still only scratching the surface of understanding their wonderful wildlife. One of the most remote and little known Territory environments is found in the Pitcairn Islands, the last remaining British Territory in the Pacific. Home to the extremely friendly descendants of the Mutiny on the Bounty, the Territory is made up of one inhabited island (Pitcairn) and three uninhabited ones.
We have a longstanding programme underway to restore one of these off-islands (Henderson Island World Heritage Site), but were conscious that the environment of Pitcairn itself is in many ways less studied than that of its uninhabited neighbours. Staff members have spent ten days on Pitcairn in consultation with the local community in 2010 and 2012, but as far as we are aware almost no general terrestrial conservationists have spent more than a week or two on the island. No one therefore really has any idea how big or threatened the population of the unique local bird, the Pitcairn reed-warbler, is, several of the island's unique plant species may be down to just a few individuals, and what invertebrate species exist on this fertile volcanic pinnacle is an almost untouched world still awaiting exploration and discovery.
We've therefore sent our new Overseas Territories Officer, Andy Schofield, to Pitcairn for three months to work alongside the Pitcairners and try to answer some of these questions. We're very excited to see what he may find!