The sun was still low as we pulled into a beautiful harbor between the two halves of Steeple Jason Island and shuttled ashore in Zodiacs. As we climbed into the grassland above the beach, passing a small colony of Gentoo penguins, we followed our long shadows around to the western shore of the island – home of the world’s largest breeding colony of black-browed albatross. (Indeed, over 70% of the world’s population breeds in the Falkland Islands!)
It was a spectacular experience – spending the morning with tens of thousands of albatross chicks, with adults occasionally swooping in from their days-long fishing expeditions to find and feed their youngsters… all while Caracara birds kept a watchful eye out for any opportunity to make a meal out of an unwary or unprotected chick. Read on! and check out the gallery of photos and videos.
We pushed our way through the tussock grass – taller than we are! – and found ourselves at the edge of a massive albatross colony, stretching as far as the eye could see along the shoreline (photo below; the video panorama may be easier to convey the scale of the scene). When an adult landed, and navigated the landscape of seemingly identical nest cups and fledgling chicks, its chick would get excited and start pecking and pestering the adult. All that pecking around the adult’s bill triggered them to regurgitate, enabling the chick to feed directly from its parent’s mouth. The gallery includes a few photos and a video.
After a while I began to understand the landing pattern for the adult albatross as they soared in from the sea and down into the colony. I made my way around the edge of the colony, through the tussock grass, until I was directly under their landing pattern. I spent easily an hour attempting to track them in flight as they sped by, often just barely overhead. Another guest snapped this stunning photo of an albatross soaring directly past my camera:
Needless to say, I did not capture a usable photo from such a close encounter… but I did catch a similar moment on video! In quieter moments, the tiny but ubiquitous tussock birds were extremely curious and friendly:
We also had an opportunity – our first and only opportunity on this voyage – to visit sea lions. A small group were resting in the tussock grass near our landing site. The gallery includes a short video.
While waiting for a ride back to the ship, I enjoyed watching a family of Gentoo penguins splashing about in the tidal pools. That, and lots more to see in the gallery of photos and videos! Watch a Caracara bird tackling a traffic cone – or watch me and my father wading through tussock grass. Or enjoy up-close photos of cute albatross chicks!
David Kotz 