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| A flamingo hides from its own reflection. |
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| Scarlet Ibises in the trees. |
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| Green parrots are so photogenic. This one posed happily while I worked my way through my cameras. |
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| Photographing the photographers. |
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| Macaw blimey! |
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| I really liked the sunlight on these pools. |
There had been a small amount of drama with a massive cockroach in Liz's bathroom in the morning, which took the shine off the otherwise very agreeable accommodation. She informed the receptionist about it and was assured it would be dealt with. This was the day after we visited the Brazilian side of Iguazu Falls, and we had all morning and some of the afternoon to ourselves before flying to Rio. We had seen that our hotel was very near to a bird sanctuary called Parque Das Aves, or Bird Park. Who doesn't want to go to the bird park?
Well, you have a choice. If you want the bird park then enjoy the views above. Alternatively you can read the following callback to Antarctica, in which I will highlight some of the birds there which weren't penguins. Now, ordinarily I don't know much about birds, so this was an education for me too. I mean, I can identify the main guys. Crows are cool, even if they did once try to murder me and I like ducks. Geese sometimes fly past my flat's balcony in summer, honking away as they pass. That's pretty neat. But when it gets down to the nitty-gritty of all the different species, there is an overwhelming variety.
Luckily, amongst the specialist guides on the Ocean Endeavour was an ornithologist improbably named Bentley Bird (I don't know whether this is a case of nominative determinism or whether she married into the name.) She was very enthusiastic and knowledgeable. She also frowned on the anthropomorphism of penguins, so if she's read any of this blog, I'm so, so sorry. That isn't to say she was super-serious about it. She brought an engaging sense of fun to a subject she was clearly passionate about.
Top of the list of non-penguin Antarctic birds is Wilson's Storm Petrel. This small brown bird has a white rump and flanks, giving it the appearance of a stripe across its wings. Sightings of Wilson's Storm Petrel provoked great excitement from the serious photographers with their giant telephoto lenses. I was less successful in my efforts to capture them, and didn't even attempt to with the View-Master camera as they never got close enough to be more than a vague brown dot in the sky. The excitement it brought to birders on the zodiac was infectious, although I couldn't help being reminded of an incident many years earlier on safari in Malawi, when a woman had become wildly animated by the sight of a lilac-breasted roller. In her defence, I only found that so funny because it reminded me of the illustration on the cover of the 1970s edition of the board game Careers, which shows an ecologist spying a bird and declaring, "Oh my, a yellow bellied sap sucker." So that's a private joke that I've taken everywhere.
One of the most common birds we saw was the Brown (Antarctic) Skua. They mostly eat fish, but also prey on penguin rookeries, picking off their eggs and taking chicks. You don't want to know what they do with the chicks - they have a very unpleasant way of, er, opening them. Unsurprisingly we saw them around a lot. I even managed to photograph them with the View-Master camera. Visually they're very brown with a beige front, giving them a twin-tone look, like an avian Austin Allegro.
All wildlife sightings were logged by the expedition staff and we were given a record of what was seen and when we saw it. That's a collective 'we', as I certainly wasn't present when a Magellanic penguin was spotted on our first day at sea. Seeing the sightings presented that way does make it clear that all the albatrosses we saw were while crossing the Drake Passage. They were wandering, light-mantled, black-browed and grey-headed albatrosses, if you really want to know. They were big, and they followed the ship. How bored they must have been millennia ago, flying around waiting for humans to hurry up and invent boats.
In fact a few of the bird sightings were from when we were still in easy range of South America, so I'll leave them off my avian top 10, from most to least frequently seen:
- Wilson’s Storm Petrel
- Snowy Sheathbill
- Antarctic Blue-eyed Shag
- Antarctic Tern
- Brown (Antarctic) Skua
- Kelp Gull
- Southern Giant Petrel
- Southern Fulmar
- Northern Giant Petrel
- South Polar Skua
I don't have the bird-fu to give much detail on any of them beyond raising one eyebrow at the name 'Blue-eyed Shag'. I will however note that the top 6 were all seen every day on the peninsula. The most elusive was the South Polar Skua, which was only spotted one day, either at Damoy Point or in the Lemaire Channel. I've looked closely at my photos from Damoy Point and have to conclude that telling the difference between a South Polar and Brown Skua is far beyond my sub-amateur twitching abilities.
Despite having little aptitude for the technical aspects of birdwatching, I do enjoy the little feathery beasts, which is why I went to look at lots of them at Parque Das Aves. However that can wait for next time. Hope you enjoyed the brief return to Antarctica.
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