All activities / Wildlife Safaris / Bird Island
Wildlife Safaris in Bird Island
A small private coral island at the northern edge of the Seychelles bank, 100 kilometres from Mahe. A single low-key lodge shares the island with a breeding colony of hundreds of thousands of sooty terns, nesting turtles and free-roaming giant tortoises.
Why here
Bird Island is wildlife at close range on an island barely a square kilometre across. From May to October a breeding colony of around 700,000 pairs of sooty terns covers the northern grasslands, a wall of noise and motion you walk straight into, joined by nesting fairy terns and common noddies. Green and hawksbill turtles haul up the beaches to nest, and giant tortoises graze freely across the island, among them Esmeralda, a male once weighed at 298 kilograms and recorded as the heaviest free-roaming tortoise on earth. There is one small lodge and no crowd, no television and no day-tripper traffic, just the tide, the birds and the tortoises. This is the accessible face of Seychelles wildlife, the atoll of Aldabra being far harder to reach.
Best months
The sooty tern colony builds from late March, lays in May and holds through to October, so the seabird spectacle peaks over the southeast monsoon. Turtle nesting runs mainly October to February. Giant tortoises and the resident birdlife are present year round. The island is flat and hot, and everything is done on foot, so bring sun cover and water.
Getting there & around
Access is by a thirty-minute charter flight from Mahe, arranged through the lodge, which caps numbers because the island has only twenty-four chalets. Stays are booked as full-board multi-night packages well ahead. There is no independent day access, and the island runs on its own quiet rhythm with limited connectivity.
Skill levels: beginner
Schools & guides (1)
Bird Island Lodge
OutfitterBird Island Lodge opened its first chalets in 1973 on a private coral island 100 kilometres north of Mahe, and today runs twenty-four low-key chalets with no televisions and no crowds. The island holds a breeding colony of around 700,000 pairs of sooty terns from May to October and is home to Esmeralda, a giant tortoise weighed at 298 kilograms and once recorded as the heaviest free-roaming tortoise on earth. Hawksbill and green turtles nest on its beaches.