Conservation project Malgas Island, Saldanha - Day 2

After an excellent nights sleep, how wonderful to wake up to the sound of birds and not the sound of traffic! Still no sign of Pelicans which is a good thing, but the Kelp gulls and Sacred Ibis remain a nuisance. Sadly this afternoon i saw a Kelp gull steal a tiny baby Gannet for its supper, so sad but it's nature i guess.

Our days are wonderful, basically we watch birds all day long! Heidi does a really early morning recky to check that no Peli's have arrived, breakfast and then  we are out on our patrol round the island, well except we cant at this stage get right round as there are too many birds in the way and we dont want to disturb them. I spend quite alot of time on the roof as you have an excellent view point from there over the entire island. In the evening we do our rounds again this time counting all eggs that have been predated by Kelp gulls so far it really hasnt been too bad considering the amount of birds on the island.

Our main focus remains to keep the Pelicans away from the Gannets as best we can as they swallow the Gannet babies whole if they get a chance. To the best of my knowledge this only happens here in South Africa and the reason is due to Pelicans feeding on farmers offal and not fishing like they should, this has apparently now stopped.

Have a look at some of the days sightings here: http://picasaweb.google.com/sbramhall/MalgasDay2#