Surprisingly, for such an elegant bird, the tropicbird (or payanke) has generally been overlooked in the design of logos for conservation organisations, compared to say, the frigatebird, which has been adopted by Aride Island Nature Reserve, Cousine Island, Seychelles Islands Foundation and others.

Island Conservation Society (ICS) has changed all that with the launch of its new logo, featuring the Red-tailed Tropicbird, Payanke Lake Rouz. Although the White-tailed Tropicbird is far more familiar than the red-tailed version, the latter is fairly common in the Aldabra group, including on Cosmoledo where ICS is putting together conservation projects in collaboration with IDC.

The Red-tailed Tropicbird breeds across the Indo-Pacific including Seychelles, Mauritius and Comoros. Unlike the White-tailed tropicbird, it often roams far out at sea in search of food. One bird in Australia was recently recovered in Réunion while another ringed off Sumatra was recovered in Mauritius showing that it is quite capable of crossing the entire breadth of the Indian Ocean. However, so far, birds ringed in Seychelles seem to prefer staying close to home! One ringed on an islet of Aldabra in 1986 was recovered in the very same location 11 years later in 1997.

In the granitic islands, the Red-tailed Tropicbird breeds only on Aride, where a tiny population of about six pairs is present. It is one of Aride’s star attractions for keen visiting birdwatchers, who are unlikely to get the opportunity to see it elsewhere in Seychelles unless they are fortunate enough to be amongst the lucky few to make it to the Aldabra group.

Apart from on Aride Red-tailed tropicbirds breed on lagoon islets of Aldabra (about 2,000 pairs) and Cosmoledo (up to 200 pairs). Historically, they must certainly have bred elsewhere before rats and cats arrived including at Astove, where Major Stirling found it during a brief unintentional sojourn on the island as a shipwrecked sailor. Sadly, it has never been recorded there since.

Even within its current range, the red-tailed Tropicbird sometimes struggles against the odds. At Cosmoledo, it regularly attempts to breed on Grand Ile but young are usually taken by cats. On Aldabra, the reason it is restricted to tiny lagoon islets is because both rats and cats are to be found on all the larger islands of the atoll.

Plans to be implemented by Island Conservation Society with the support of Islands Development Company mean that the future appears a little brighter for this beautiful, elegant bird. Perhaps one day it will be a more familiar sight in Seychelles for visitors and Seychellois alike.

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