The Seychelles Islands have a rich biodiversity, and this includes a plethora of plumed species. Over 250 different species of birds have been recorded. The expansive flats, coconut, and mangrove forests, as well as protected lagoons, are home and nesting grounds for this vast variety of birds. The species found here include large flocks and significant breeding populations of frigatebirds, terns, boobies, and an array of migratory birds.

Birds of Seychelles

The Outer Islands’ birding highlights include brown, masked, and red-footed booby, crab plover, sooty tern, and white-throated rail. Other bird species you will spot include the great frigatebird a large sea bird, the fairy tern, lesser noddy (sooty noddy), whimbrel, ruddy turnstone, lesser sand plover, curlew sandpiper, common sandpiper, grey plover, bar-tailed godwit, and the tiny Seychelles sunbird. Many of these are endemic to Seychelles. The atolls of Cosmoledo and Astove hold healthy populations of sunbird, white-eye, cisticola, and turtle doves. Forming part of the incredible array of over 250 bird species found in the region, these endemic species are extraordinary and add to the rich biodiversity of these islands.

Migratory birds of Seychelles

Although many species can be found here throughout the year, many migratory species also use these islands for overwintering breeding grounds or a stopover as they travel to other regions. Annual migrant birds of the Outer Islands of Seychelles include ruddy turnstone, whimbrel, greater and lesser sand plover, grey plover, crab plover, common ringed plover, curlew sandpiper, common sandpiper, sanderling, bar-tailed godwit, Eurasian curlew, barn swallow, and common greenshank. Vagrant birds have included species such as the common cuckoo, broad-billed roller, European and blue-cheeked bee-eater, sand martin, northern wheatear, willow warbler, collared, and black-winged pratincole, Eleonora’s falcon and Eurasian hobby.