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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MKinHK" data-source="post: 3633257" data-attributes="member: 21760">My final day of birding was a catamaran cruise from Grand Baie at the northern tip of Mauritius to two offshore islands - Gunner's Quoin and Gabriel Island - in the hope of finding some seabirds. By joining a boat with lots of other people this is expensive but not outrageously so - about USD100 per person including an open bar, an excellent lunch and free use of snorkelling kit. We were out for almost seven hours and in addition to the seabirds, of which more below, we also saw three different sea turtles and hand great views of a female Humpback Whale and her calf.We started seeing terns within a few minutes of entering the blue waters outside the reef - a mixture of Sooty Terns and noddies which I believe were mostly <a href="http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=352344" target="_blank">Lesser Noddies, although one I photographed looks like a Brown Noddy</a>. We also had close fly-bys from several Wedge-tailed Shearwaters, which must be one of the commoner birds I've never conclusively ticked, despite being in range on numerous occasions.But there is no questions that it was the tropicbirds that really stole the show. Scores of Red-tailed Tropicbirds were soaring round the 160m-high cliffs on the eastern side of Gunner's Quoin. Despite most, if not all, being in full breeding plumage the slender red streamers were often difficult to pick out against both the cliff and the bright sky, contributing to a rather thickset, foreshortened jizz, that was heightened by the wing position being rather far back on the body and the sturdy neck and short tail.By contrast the White-tailed Tropicbirds were creatures possessed of a truly otherworldly beauty. More slender, graceful and finely proportioned, with their broader and longer streamers looking like a dart of pure white light against the incredibly blue sky they completely blew me away - and instantly entered my top three birds of all time. There were a few pairs around Gunner's Quoin, and forty or so over our lunchtime stop at Gabriel Island, including several birds that were flying low among the casuarina trees.  When looking up to see them overhead they reminded me irresistibly of a hatch of pure white mayflies dipping and floating above above the polished darkness of an evening river. Truly magical!We had one more morning watching Bottle-nosed Dolphins and Spinner Dolphins off the southern coast from Le Morne, which provided a fine finale to the trip, even if nothing could come close to those White-tailed Tropicbirds!CheersMike</blockquote>

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