Golden Bats and Pink Pigeons

by Gerald Malcolm Durrell

  I peered into the depths of the Latania to see what was alarming this host of jewel-like geckos, hoping it might be a snake. There, making his way laboriously but methodically up the stem, was a large Telfair’s skink. Every now and then, he would pause in his climb and glance up, his tongue flicking in and out of his mouth. Up above, the panic-stricken geckos leapt and scuttled and peered round the fronds, their shiny black eyes looking round and horror-stricken in their little coloured faces. The Telfair’s slow, ponderous approach had something rather prehistoric about it. After watching for a bit I decided that he had terrified the fairy-like Vinson’s quite enough, so I caught him and transported him some fifty feet away from the Latania. When I came back to finish my orange, all the geckos had settled down to bask in the sun and resume their small lives.

  Half an hour later, a triumphant shout from Wahab informed us that we had captured our fourth snake. Again, it was a juvenile, but somewhat bigger than Zozo’s. We made our way back to camp, well satisfied, and even the tintinnabulation of the Shearwaters that night could not damp our enthusiasm.

  Next morning, we had only time for one more search, since the helicopter was due to arrive at noon. We went off into the palm grove but met with no success, and so returned to the gruelling task of humping all our equipment down the valley and on to the heat-shimmered helipad. We left the tent up for shade and kept three jerry cans of water intact, using the others to give ourselves a much-needed bath.

  At a quarter past twelve, Wahab began to get restive. At twelve-thirty, he started pacing up and down outside the tent. When he organised something, he liked it to run smoothly. At half past one, we made some tea and congratulated ourselves on not having used up all the water. At half past two, Wahab took Zozo outside. They went up on to the blistering helipad and stood there, gazing hopefully at the dim, heat-haze-blurred mountains of Mauritius.

  Wahab’s very annoyed,’ said John. ‘He likes things to be done properly.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, ‘but what can we do? We could radio, I suppose.’

  When Wahab came back, I suggested it. He thought for a bit, and then we took the tiny radio transmitter up on to the helipad and stood in a perspiring circle, trying to make it work.

  ‘It’s no good,’ said John, at last, ‘it’s as dead as the Dodo.’

  Wahab gave him a reproachful look. We trooped back to the tent, leaving the defunct radio on the helipad.

  ‘Zozo looks really worried,’ said John, in a whisper.

  ‘Well, he has only recently been married,’ I pointed out. ‘It’s a bit early to find himself turned into a Robinson Zozo.’

  ‘I think he really imagines we’ve had it,’ said John.

  Zozo was sitting, moodily, under a palm tree nearby. I decided to lighten his gloom.

  ‘Zozo,’ I called.

  ^Yes, Mr Gerry?’ he said, peering at me from under the brim of his solar topee, which made him look ridiculously like a green mushroom.

  ‘It seems as if the helicopter is not coming to rescue us.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Gerry,’ he agreed, soulfully.

  ‘Well,’ I said, kindly, ‘I wanted you to know that, by an overwhelming vote, we have decided to eat you first when the food runs out.’

  For a moment, he stared at me, wide-eyed; then he realised it was a joke and grinned. Even so, it did little to relieve his gloom. Wahab prepared to go up on to the helipad for the twentieth time.

  ‘I can’t understand where they are,’ said Wahab, irritably.

  ‘Look,’ I said, soothingly, ‘why don’t we have a cup of tea? Zozo, put the kettle on.’

  Zozo, glad to have something to do, filled the kettle.

  ‘You’ll see,’ I said to Wahab, ‘the moment that kettle starts to boil, the helicopter will arrive.’

  ‘How do you know?’ asked Wahab.

  White man’s magic,’ I said solemnly, and he grinned at me.

  Strangely enough, just as the kettle started to boil, we heard the drone of the approaching helicopter. Within half an hour, we had packed everything in and, in an indignant snowstorm of tropic birds, took off with our precious cargo of snakes and lizards lying in their cloth bags on our laps.

  At my request, the pilot circled the island at low level. We saw its great humpback, bare and desiccated, and the edge of its crater, as if some giant sea monster had taken a bite out of its side, and the pathetic, thin belt of palms and Latanias running like a pale green half-moon round one side, and over it looming the great sheets of eroded tuff. It seemed incredible that even now, when the island was practically dead, it should provide a home for such a variety of creatures and plants, and even more incredible that six of them should be found nowhere else in the world.

  As we rose higher and higher, and the island dwindled against the turquoise sea, I became determined that we must do everything we could to save it.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  PINK PIGEON POSTSCRIPT

  By 1975 the Black River project had a pair of Pink pigeons, the female of which David McKelvey reckoned was too old to breed, and two odd male birds. As there had been no breeding success by 1976, it was thought imperative that some more birds be caught to increase the captive breeding stock. The problem was that the entire flock of pigeons appeared to have vanished from the cryptomeria grove. Looking for thirty-five birds in that vast area of forest was a Herculean task. John and Dave spent many hours soaked to the skin, hopefully surveying various areas; but all searches were in vain. When they should have been in the cryptomerias, building their ridiculous nests, they were nowhere to be seen. This was extremely worrying. With the benefit of hindsight we now think that the two cyclones, which had forced us to abandon Round Island and had bogged us down for so many days, were responsible for retarding the breeding season. However, at the tail end of our final trip, the Pink pigeons suddenly returned to the cryptomeria grove and started to nest.

  Since nothing had been done between 1975 and 1976 and it seemed most urgent that a reasonable breeding group should be established, both in Mauritius and in Jersey, I decided that, after we had returned to Jersey, John should return to try to capture more Pink pigeons for the captive breeding project at Black River and to procure a breeding nucleus for us here. So after we had returned to Jersey with our precious cargo of Round Island geckos and snakes, John had to prepare to go back to Mauritius once again.

  When he got back, he went straight to the cryptomeria grove and found himself a suitable tree. From this vantage point he could survey most of the valley. He settled down to await the Pink pigeons. After three hours, he began to wonder whether the pigeons had once more moved out of the cryptomerias to some other area. Then, glancing about, he suddenly saw, in the tree next door to him, a Pink pigeon sitting on a nest. As he said, ‘Once I’d seen the damn thing, it was obvious that I had been staring at it for three hours and it had been invisible.’ Greatly excited, he climbed down, made his way to the base of the tree with the nest in it, and sat there until dark to make sure that no monkeys found it, for he could hear troops of them all around in the forest.

  When it was dark, he hurried back and alerted Wahab, Tony Gardner and Dave. The four of them planned to return to the nest at dawn. If there was a baby in the nest, they proposed to take it and replace it with a young rammier pigeon of the same size. Then they planned to put mist nets round the tree to catch the parent birds. All worked very well. They found to their delight that the nest contained an almost fully-fledged baby and this was duly replaced with the baby rammier pigeon. Then, with great difficulty, they rigged up the mist nets.

  However, when the mother bird returned, either by cunning or stupidity — one suspects the latter — she evaded the nets but happily continued to feed a baby which in no way resembled her own. They waited all day but without success and so, leaving the nets in position, they went home to return the following morning at dawn. By the time they got back, monkeys had found the nest. It had been destroyed and the rammier chick devoured. So, although th
ey could not catch the parent birds, at least they had the satisfaction of knowing that they had saved the Pink pigeon baby from being killed. It was kept in the aviaries at Black River and within three days was flying and feeding itself.

  Meanwhile, John continued to search for nests, and soon discovered another one containing an egg. He and Dave had discussed at length what they should do in a case like this and had decided on a course of action. From Dave’s observations they knew that both the sexes incubated the eggs and that the change-over between the parents occurred at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. approximately. So the plan was to take the egg, to be placed eventually in the incubators at Black River, and to substitute for it a domestic pigeon’s egg. Then the nest was to be covered with a specially adapted bal-chatri in the hopes of catching the parents. By this means we would know that we had secured a true pair, for since the sexes were alike, if you caught an odd bird it was difficult to know what sex it was. The bal-chatri is a very ancient device used by falconers for capturing hawks. It consists of a rounded cage, like an old-fashioned meat or cheese safe, into which is put one’s bait — in the case of hawks, a bird and in the case of the nest, an egg. The whole of the top of the contrivance is covered with fine nylon nooses. The idea is that, once the bird lands on the bal-chatri, it will get its feet entangled in one or other of the hundreds of little nooses that cover it.

  In due course, Dave climbed the tree and replaced the egg with a domestic pigeon’s egg. Then he carefully positioned the bal-chatri over the whole nest. During this process the male pigeon had sat some thirty feet away and, according to John, showed no alarm and only a mild interest in what was happening. As soon as Dave had climbed down, the bird flew over and sat in the tree; it wandered about the branches, twice walking over the bal-chatri. The third time, however, it was caught. They could hear it flapping frantically. David shinned back up the tree like lightning and captured the flapping bird only just in time, for it had been caught by only one toe. They waited two hours; then the female returned to the nest and was also caught within a very short time. In triumph, they transported the first known true pair of Pink pigeons to Black River.

  Elated by the success of this method of capture, they decided on a concentrated search for more nests. With the addition of Zozo and two others to their numbers, they proceeded to comb the woods and within a week had tracked down four occupied nests. Out of this number, they managed to procure two more true pairs, and an odd female to join the two odd males at Black River.

  Out of the eggs in the nests, one was found to be addled but on the morning that John left for Mauritius two of the others were successfully hatched under domestic pigeons and another hatching was awaited. This means that now, with seven adult specimens, the Black River project is viable, with enough Pink pigeons to ensure the captive breeding of the species.

  John returned to Jersey with two pairs and an odd youngster. They have settled down remarkably well. This now means that, while the search for a solution to the problems of the monkeys and the preservation of the cryptomeria grove goes ahead, we hope that in Black River and in Jersey we will successfully breed a big enough population, protected from monkeys and cyclones alike. Eventually we will be able to return progeny to Mauritius to reinforce the tiny handful of wild birds left in their precarious habitat.

  TAILPIECE

  After our efforts to help so many endangered species, it is nice to be able to report that we have had breeding successes already. The Rodrigues bats have given birth to two fine healthy babies who are, at the time of writing, fully fledged, if you can use that term for a bat. The Telfair’s skink and the Gunther’s geckos from Round Island have hatched out seven and eleven babies respectively as have the phelsumas. We hope it won’t be too long before we can also report success with the Round Island boas and the Pink pigeons. We are particularly pleased that, as the symbol of our Trust is the Dodo, we are able to help so many other endangered species from the island of Mauritius from which the Dodo was exterminated.

  If you have read this book and enjoyed it and if you believe that the work we are doing for these gravely endangered species is of importance then I hope you will join our Trust. The subscription is modest but you will be helping work of enormous importance to many vanishing species.

  With your help we can accelerate our efforts to help the extraordinarily bizarre and lovely creatures that I have described in this book, not only from Mauritius but from many different parts of the world.

  AFTERWORD

  by Toni Hickey, Senior Bird Keeper, Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust

  I never expected the life of a bird keeper at the headquarters of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust in Jersey to be a glamorous one, and the predicament I found myself in adequately illustrated this point. Phrases such as ‘character building’ sprang to mind as I scrambled in an undignified manner up a very imposing and slippery tree on the island of Mauritius. As I maneuvered myself higher, branch by branch, with all the grace and coordination of an under-tens baton twirlers club performing to a particularly jazzy and unfamiliar version of ‘When the Saints Come Marching In’, it occurred to me that perhaps I wasn’t entirely equipped for life ‘in the field’.

  However, this was ‘Annabelle’, the very tree that Gerald Durrell mentions in this book, and climb it I most certainly would. So here I was, some twenty years later, retracing his footsteps, albeit with rather less joie de vivre. My own particular happiness derived from the fact that I had not yet not fallen out of the tree and landed on my own recently sharpened machete! My quarry, and reason for making such a spectacle of myself, was the pink pigeon.

  Leaving a cloud of angry mosquitoes to regroup and plan their next assault at the foot of the tree, I finally reached the top. Well, when I say top, I mean a strategically placed viewing platform that a couple of dedicated/deranged Durrell-inspired fieldworkers had built. The idea behind this intrepid feat of amateur carpentry was to enable pigeon observations to be carried out with all the comfort and safety offered by a small wooden platform balanced precariously at the wobbly end of a 40 ft tree. But here I was, perched atop, and the view that swept down below me was breathtaking. Ahead, the forest sloped gently away into a gully, framed on either side by mountains which seemed to strain in their attempt to pin back the swollen, grey clouds. In the distance, the azure blue of the Indian Ocean draped the horizon like a blanket. However, something was missing...

  Almost on cue, I heard a familiar call. The unmistakable ‘bow coo’ of a male pink pigeon, and a very handsome specimen he was too. With disdain, he surveyed me from a nearby tree. Presumably having established in his pigeon mind that I was neither a threat (male pink pigeon) nor a bit of the other (female pink pigeon) and consequently of no interest whatsoever, he proceeded to go about his business, whatever that was. Despite his indifference, that was a very special moment for me. Inspired by Gerald Durrell and the ‘Ark’ he created, I have made Jersey my home and have been working with birds at the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust (formerly Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust) for four years, assisting with the conservation of this and many other species threatened with imminent extinction.

  Our work came just in time for the pink pigeon, whose numbers had declined to disastrously low levels. Under the careful protection and management of our team in Mauritius, the pink pigeon is now safe and doing well. The population has grown from ten birds to over 350 in the forests of this unique island. Information gathered in Jersey about its health, nutritional needs, social behaviour and breeding habits has proved invaluable in overcoming problems and safeguarding the future of the pigeons.

  However, it is not just the pink pigeon that has benefited from such intervention. Astonishing success has also been achieved with the Mauritius kestrel. This exquisite bird was reduced to only four known individuals in 1974, and many thought it couldn’t be saved. Thankfully, due to a conservation effort led by the Trust’s Carl Jones and spanning over twenty-five years, the population now stands at
over 800 birds. The Rodrigues fruit bat mentioned in this book is yet another example. Through careful management, the wild population now numbers around four thousand. This has been achieved through management of their forest habitat and a public education campaign to eliminate hunting.

  Back in 1984, Gerald Durrell (with the help of John Hartley and others) was instrumental in forming the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation: its purpose to conserve the threatened native flora and fauna of Mauritius, Rodrigues and their surrounding islets. The species I have mentioned were brought back from the brink of extinction with recovery programmes instigated and executed in Mauritius, and backed up by the support and expertise in Jersey.

  Our joint efforts have had far-reaching effects. Our work with the endangered Mauritian birds galvanised the people of Mauritius into being more aware of and concerned about their special island wildlife. So much so that the Black River Gorges area in which we were working was designated a National Park by the government. In fact, Yousouf Mungroo, the very first graduate of Durrell Wildlife’s International Training Centre in Jersey, became the first Director of the first National Parks in Mauritius. This training centre in Jersey is a highly respected facility where people from all over the world, including many among our Mauritian team, come to learn good conservation practice which they can then take back and apply in their own country.

  So what of the reptiles taken from Round Island, I hear you ask? Having been comfortably installed in the ‘Ark’ for over twenty-five years with great success, the skink and gecko have now been retired back to Mauritius into semi-wild conditions (I am secretly hoping that this may happen to me one day). This leaves only the Round Island boa to update you on. We have made great inroads into understanding this enigmatic snake, but it has not completely revealed its secrets to us. There is still much to learn and the study in Jersey continues to help us to address conservation questions that would be difficult to undertake in situ.