During the months of March and April, Orpheo, a student from the University of Seychelles, came back to finish his work on the Seychelles White Eye on Fregate Island.

His main goal on the island was to update the distribution map of the birds, as the latest map was created in 2018. The last ringing session for the Seychelles White Eye was carried out in 2017; when the population was estimated at about 270 birds, distributed over 29 territories.

Orpheo, with the help of our conservation team, walked the whole island, calling birds (play-back call), counting them, and observing them at different times of the day. His observations were carried out in the early mornings (5:30 am) as well as throughout the whole day.

The Seychelles White Eye (SWE) is a territorial-social bird. There are between 1 to 8 birds per territory, and dominant males sing during the breeding season which occurs during the raining season.  43 different singing males on 20 different mornings have been observed and we counted 89 ringed birds.

It has been established that birds occupy between 35 and 40 territories (29 territories in 2018). With that we can estimate a population of SWE between 320 and 370 birds (270 birds in 2018).

Territoy map 2018