Your faithful blogger is a bird nut so today, with no
apologies we are going to feature some birds we saw during our first landing in
the Falkland Islands- New Island. And what better place to do this?! The
Falkland Islands is “crawling” with birds and New Island is especially so. It
is a nature sanctuary, and a variety of management practices are in place to
bring the island back to its natural Falkland state. It will take a while but
it will happen.
But first, a few details about our day. We were due to land
at West Point Island in the northwest part of the Falklands, in the early
afternoon. However, very strong winds would have prevented a landing so we
detoured farther south to our "plan B" of New Island. Winds were still strong when we arrived
but they were blowing off the land and a visit to this marvellous place was
possible. Our target was a seabird colony
which was a short hike across a narrow portion of the island. Some of us,
however, made a hike up a nearby mountain before visiting the colony.
After 5 days at sea being on dry land is such a treat,
especially when you can stretch your legs on a hike. And this was our first landing too so there was lots of excitement using our Polarcirkel boats.
For our mountain hikers shown here, the view from the top was truly spectacular!
Those hiking to the colony were treated with various species
of birds along the way, and then the icing on the cake- breeding Rockhopper Penguins,
King Shags and Black-browed Albatrosses. I hope these images give you a
flavour of the place and in particular impress upon you how important for
wildlife New Island is.
 |
| Rockhopper Penguin pair |
 |
| Black-browed Albatross coming in for landing |
 |
| King Shag |
 |
| Rock Shag |
 |
| Long-tailed Meadowlark |
 |
| Ruddy-headed Geese |
 |
| Crested Duck |
 |
| Female Upland Goose |
 |
| A pair of breeding Striated Caracaras |
 |
| Dark-faced Ground-Tyrant feeding chicks |
