The Banzai Chicken Blog: 2011

Bye, for now ....

It was with a great deal of sadness (and over a week of farewells) that Fran and I departed St Helena on Monday. Unfortunately the main conservation job did not pay sufficient to offset rapidly rising costs on the island (10% inflation, a 100% increase in utilities, introduction of a 20% import duty). These same costs ensure that most Saints (with an average annual wage about 1/5th of what we were earning) are unlikely to be able to raise themselves above poverty (or very close to it). It was a surreal experience - as we were packing the Government announced the signing of a contract to build the airport - something that is likely to change the way of life on the island. We are so pleased that we managed to see St Helena when we did, and look forward to returning in a few years time and seeing all our friends. And just maybe we might be able to fly there (or maybe not - the promise of an airport on St Helena has been raised several times in the past 20 years!).

The five days on the rocking boat did allow for me to (nearly) catch up on my photos. Here are a few of the recent ones.

Now if this Cape Town hotel room would just stop swaying ...

Great Stone Top - the highest sea cliffs in the southern hemisphere

Drying St Helena coffee - one of the most expensive in the world

part of the last remaining canopy formed by endemic gumwood trees at Peak Dale. This site is also the last home of several insects that require such a canopy. Worryingly, this canopy is provided by about 20 old trees.

Masked boobies are recolonising St Helena (here near the Asses Ears) - one of the few times that a seabird species has recolonised a settled island!

A rare sight - 11 wirebird in flight (a 12th straggler was cropped from the frame)

Vanessa Thomas and Andrew Darlow with the collection of seed from endangered endemic plants that they have gathered over the past three years

One of the earlier conservation efforts - the great wall - built to keep goats from the last large stand of gumwood trees. Unfortunately this was unsuccessful and the area is now a barren area of eroded clays locally known as Crown Waste

Members of the Deadwood Syndicate inspect their cattle before ear-tagging the calves

Fran negotiating a steep narrow portion of track on the way to Lots Wife's Ponds

One of the few joys in the world when you nest in the open and have to sit on an egg for a few weeks is the freedom to crap in a complete circle

Fran and Mike on Little Stone Top

model | photographer

One of the things about photographing in remote locations is that you often get asked by local photographers "how do I do this ..." "how do I take this sort of photograph" "what sort of equipment ...". One memorable conversation was with one photographer who is trying to set up his own business here and struggling (as any photographer would) to do portrait photos during the evening - without the benefit of a flash. Thinking about it I had the bright idea about doing a workshop to help 1) photographers learn some of the basic techniques for lighting models, 2) to introduce some of the wonderful Saints to modelling and 3) bring both groups together so they could start working as the basis of a new industry on the island. I took this idea to the St Helena Development Agency who talked to the nice people at the Adult & Vocational Education Service. A quick word to the very helpful Nick Thorpe secured the use of the wonderful old Tinker's building with great windows and a bright interior and it was all go. The day was just fantastic - the energy was amazing, there were flashes and reflectors going off everywhere, people climbing through windows and draping themselves on various parts of furniture and lots and lots of laughs. Everyone had a great time, and though it wasn't about the final image (it was about the techniques and working together) some great images were captured. Here's just a selection. remember, apart from some cropping, these are as the image came out of the camera. They put to shame the few photos I managed to squeeze off during the day. A huge thanks from me to SHDA, AVES, Nick Thorpe, Sophie, Chelsea, Sinead, Imogen, Robyn, Ed, Josh and Merrill.

Sinead by Ed

Sinead by Robyn

Chelsea by Robyn

Chelsea and Sophie by Robyn

Sophie by Merrill

Imogen, Sinead, Sophie by Ed

Chelsea by Ed

Imogen by Josh

Imogen by Ed

Us by Me

And finally, please support your local photographers and models. They've come a long way in a short time and it is not an easy job.

If you want to contact any of the photographers or models email me and I can provide contact details.

And finally finally an unashamed plug for Merrill's website: The Fantom Agency

Wirebirds & Saints

You gotta feel sorry for the poor little wirebird - it is the last of the endemic landbirds on St Helena (the other 5 are now extinct) and as a result of cat predation and loss of breeding habitat its numbers have halved in the past decade until only around 150 pairs remain. All this and there was until recently only one, very busy - and dedicated, person in charge of their welfare. Luckily the UK's RSPB have supported wirebird conservation on St Helena for quite a while, and as a result two new programmes have just started - both seeking to control wild cats in some of the areas that are used for nesting. Now a team of three has joined Eddie Duff, the single Wirebird Officer, and they're busy putting out cat traps (well, they will, when they've talked to all the neighbors to make sure they don't trap any pet cats), monitoring rat and cat numbers, and putting cameras on nests to see what happens to the eggs. I was lucky enough to sneak away for an hour with the team (which rapidly turned into 4 hours) as I was given a whirlwind tour of such famous wirebird sites as Deadwood, Mulberry Gut, Horse Point and Bradley's Garage. Eddy proved the consummate tour guide (as always) and even had one bird trained to voice commands (or so it seemed).

The St Helena wirebird standing over the scrape in the ground which is its nest

Wirebird at a nest being monitored by a small video camera which will record the fate of the two eggs

Eddy and his powers of wirebird persuasion

so dang cute!

not cute! The wirebird team (from left) Kevin George, Eddy Duff, Denis Leo

The Peaks

Diana's Peak National Park ("The Peaks") are the jewel in St Helena's crown. Within this tiny reserve (the only reserve on St Helena) are found 244 endemic invertebrate species (and 127 of these are found nowhere else on the island) and over 70 endemic lichens and mosses within the ragged remains of a spectacular cloud forest. However, as it most certainly is a cloud forest getting photos of some of the inhabitants can be rather difficult. On a recent rare fine day Fran and I managed to spend a few busy hours on The Peaks grabbing photographs before the cloud once more descended.

Staff of the Environmental Conservation Section inspect a lone black cabbage tree - home to several rare ferns and mosses - in a regenerating tree fern thicket

a collection of endemic ferns (3 species) and mosses on the trunk of a black cabbage tree

Fuchsia coccinea - pretty, but can strangle the forest. This plant plus NZ flax, a wickedly invasive moss and the nasty pheasant-tail fern are the biggest threats to St Helena's unique cloud forest

The unique Elaphoglossum ferns: E. bifurcatum with the finely divided parsely-like leaves, E. nervosum with the straight leaves at upper right, and E. dimorphum - thought to be a hybrid between the two. Note the ever present NZ flax in the background

Looking out over Longwood towards Flagstaff and The Barn. Our house is just off to the left of picture

The view from the green peaks out to the Eastern Arid Zone. Prosperous Bay - site of St Helena's infamous soon-to-be airport - is in the background in front of King and Queen Rocks

The sun sets into the sea at the end of rare cloud-free day on The Peaks. Yep, that's NZ flax all over those hills

Sandwiches, booze and 6000 litres of diesel (a day)

Fran and I recently had a day taking photographs for the new St Helena Guidebook.

First off was Sally's Sandwich Bar, one of the most nutritious and tasty eateries on the island. Busy Sally is super-friendly, and loves talking with her customers and makes some of the tastiest sandwiches anywhere. She is also a god-send for yachties deprived of fresh greens during their long crossing. The aim was to get a photograph of Sally's with its friendly and clean atmosphere. I didn't want to use a flash as that might put off her paying customers! (However, if I was doing a promo shoot for Sally's I would have used multiple flashes and directed people to places and poses needed). Light was mainly streaming through a big window from camera-right and most shots were hand-held.

Sally (centre) catching up with the news at the same time as preparing sandwiches

Sally greeting another customer

Nice light makes for a great portrait opportunity - even with someone washing dishes!

Next up was Paul's distillery (http://www.tungi.co.sh/) which produces some very distinctive local brews - a spiced rum, gin, coffee liqueur, and a very distinctive strong little number called Tungi brewed from the fruit of the prickly pear cactus. Paul was in the middle of brewing one of his spiced rums and so the shot became one of Paul in action. For this shot I used three flashes: two camera left and one behind the desk to light up the gorgeous copper stills. Then it was just a case of getting Paul in action. Poor guy - every time he moved a flash went off

A man, a still, some fruit, lots of water, and more than a little sugar (check out the bags in the foreground) = some tasty spirits

I couldn't resist this photo - the lovely copper stills - with mountain bike!

Last was a visit to the islands generators in the power station which supply the whole island. The guys there were fantastic at accommodating me just turning up - even if they were a bit camera shy! The 6 generators here go through an amazing 4000 - 8000 litres of diesel a day. The shots were a mix of hidden flashes (thank you Clive (http://clivecopemanphotography.com/) for his training in this technique!) and using the overhead fluorescents. I couldn't resist including a bit of a quirk in a couple of photos.

Six generators make a lot of noise and we were grateful for the earmuffs - even if it meant most of my directions to photographic assistant were in sign language!

The switching board - including the troublesome Breaker 2 which keeps tripping and cutting the power to our place!

The Switch Room

Unfortunately, photographing the fish factory had to be postponed - they had no fish!

A picture is worth a 1000 words (II)

Catching up with some recent events:

Mike has been busy taking photographs of the endemic flora

black cabbage tree Melanodendron integrifolium

small jellico Sium burchellii

Bulwer's petrel has very recently been discovered to breed somewhere on St Helena (nesting site so far unknown, but suspected to be Egg Island) and we were caring for one of the (storm-wrecked) birds that was the basis for this discovery. Unfortunately it died after about 3 weeks of care.