Kisite Revisited

On Tuesday a few of us were told that we'd be going out on the boat the next day rather than going into the forest. There's a group of Roseate Terns on Kisite Island at the moment, about an hour and a bit off the coast and GVI and a couple of guys from Kenya Wildlife Service go out and take recordings. This is only the second time they've done it. Roaseate Terns are migratory and at this time of year they use the island as a breeding ground.
Anyway, I'll start from the morning.

We started off at the jetty at around six in the morning. We waited about an hour to get the permits and for the boat to arrive.

A photo I took of a kingfisher while we were waiting around.

A black kite.

After about an hour on the boat we arrived at the island. There's a sand bank just before it where the boat pulls up. As we came closer there were hundred of terns resting on the bank and we could see a few flying above the island.

The boat pulled up about 20 metres from the sand bank and we waded in from there.

A close-up shot of a Roseate Tern.

A few of the hundreds of birds on the sand bank.

Our base manager and the guys from KWS went to go up onto the island to count the eggs and see how many pairs of terns there were. That's when things really started happening.

 Literally thousands of terns took off from the island and started swarming all over the place, calling out to each other. Eventually I was able to get closer once the tide went out.

It was like being in a wildlife documentary. Thousands of them flying and calling to each other like a metre above my head.

The captain got a call that there were whales not far from where we were so we went to the shore to see if we could get a look at them. This is what I got:

Those little triangles waaaay out there are dorsal fins, I was told, of a humpback whale. Would have liked to see them closer but you could see the spray from their blowholes which was cool.

Saw some other cool things on the way tot he shore though (the tide had gone out so the shore was a lot further away than it had been).

 An eel

 This is the view of the island from the shore. All of it was previously covered in water.

 Sea Cucumber.

This crab looked like it had a fight with the octopus it's holding. Think it had won since it was the one still moving.

That's all really for now. Might post a few straggler photos tomorrow since it's my last day! :'(
See ya'll soon
-Kev