When Europeans first visited the area around and immediately south of Sydney in the late 18th century, the mainland coast opposite the Five Islands was occupied by the Tharawal people.

The little children brought gifts of fish, pretty sea-shells, fruit and flowers, but Mimosa, an unpleasant child, was sulky and disagreeable to the visitors.

One evening Oola-boola-woo, the West Wind, came home, at sunset, to find Wilga lying on a warm rock, playing with a pet lizard.

He had had a hard day blowing up dust storms in the west and helped to fan a great bushfire, near Appin, so he was tired.

It wasn't long until Lilli Pilli, Wattle and Clematis were blown out to sea, on pieces of rock so that there were five islands, with five little mermaids sunning themselves.

There was no one to play with, for the children in the camp had long grown tired of climbing the mountain side to visit the unruly family, on the top.

Dust and dead leaves fell upon her, grass and wild flowers grew over her, and so she became part of the mountain range.

A. Keast of the Australian Museum in 1952: little penguins, the white-faced storm petrel, wedge-tailed shearwater (aka muttonbird), crested tern and silver gull.

At this time, Australia's only mainland breeding colony of muttonbirds was located nearby at Red Point, but was threatened by human disturbance.

A major problem is the presence of Kikuyu grass on Big Island, which hinders the recovery of native vegetation and the burrowing activities of petrels.

Soil cover is shallow and while deepest on Big Island, grazing in the late 19th century has accelerated the likely irreversible natural erosion processes.