Bird Island Lodge

Bird Island is the last speck of land before the Seychelles bank drops into open ocean, and the lodge is the only building on it apart from the airstrip. The Savy family bought the island in 1967, when guano mining and coconut planting had reduced the sooty tern colony to a fraction of its former size. They cleared the northern end and welcomed their first guests to ten chalets in 1973. The lodge still keeps to simple principles: local staff, solar heated water, no air conditioning and no lights outside after dark, so that turtles and shearwaters are left alone.

The villas are simple by intent, with one, two or three bedrooms and a kitchen annex, and outside lies a lawn where giant tortoises wander. Esmeralda, the best known of them, was once weighed as the heaviest tortoise on record. Breakfast and dinner are served in the restaurant and included in the stay; the kitchen garden supplies cucumbers, papaya and herbs, and big game fishing was stopped in 2017.

The colony sets the rhythm of the year. From April the sooty terns settle on the northern plateau, and in June almost every egg is laid within ten days. Walk to the edge of the colony at dusk and the noise is physical. Between October and March hawksbill turtles haul up on the west coast, and guests can help the monitoring team record them.