South Georgia - Part I

This is a bit of a one-species post.

South Georgia = King Penguins,   King Penguins = South Georgia

South Georgia has the biggest King Penguin colony on Planet Earth; - the are 150,000 pairs  at St. Andrews Bay.

We visited St Andrews Bay and Salisbury Plain.

St. Andrews Bay, South Georgia

Those are all King Penguins along the shoreline in the distance.  And below, a bit closer.

King Penguin rookeries are attended by Snowy Sheathbills, which scavenge for whatever they can get. Here's one with three KPs on the beach.

Snowy Sheathbill - Chionis alba

I was ignoring this fluttering white bird above the tideline at Salisbury Plain, thinking it was just another grubby Sheathbill, so thanks to Dave Barnes, a fellow photographer, for pointing out to me that it was really a Snow Petrel , one of our target birds of the trip !

Snow Petrel - Pagrodroma nivea

The King Penguins seemed to be entering the sea in small groups.

They looked rather diffident about going in...once in the water, though, they could really move !

The penguin rookeries were a real spectacle, at which the photo opportunities seemed overwhelming...

King Penguins

It's not all sweetness and light for Aptenodytes patagonicus though, Southern Giant Petrels haunt the beaches to predate their young and hasten the demise of sick individuals.

Southern Giant Petrel

Among the supporting cast - 

Antarctic Tern

South Georgia Cormorant 

South American Sea Lion

Elephant Seal - pup

South Georgia has lots of wildlife - and it's mostly "up close and personal".

No need for long heavy lenses here.

Ush, Ush, and away...

Ushuaia bills itself as "Capital of the Malvinas", and the visitor - especially the visiting Inglese (Englishman) - needs to be aware that the Falklands/Malvinas issue is alive and well here.

Still, a little political friction doesn't seem to spoiling anyone's fun.  It seems that nearly all the Antarctic Peninsula trips go from Ushuaia.

Antarctic cruise ships at the pier

We trundled through the security gate at the entrance and made our way to our ship - Plancius, operated by Oceanwide Expeditions, our home for the next 19 days. Sailing away eastwards we had glorious evening views back down the Beagle Channel and to the Cordillera Darwin beyond.

Les Eclaireurs Lighthouse, Beagle Channel

We soon got started sea birding, mostly off the rear deck. On the first morning we found a good number of birds - of mostly four or five common species - following the ship.

Southern Fulmar

Southern Giant Petrel

Antarctic Prion

Cape Petrel

Black-browed Albatross

There are a variety of cetaceans in the south Atlantic, here, some shots from a memorable encounter with a group of Long-finned Pilot Whales.

Our first stop in the Falklands was West Point Island.

Kelp Goose (male)

Long-tailed Meadowlark

Land Rovers ! - it must be the Falklands...

The main attraction at West Point Island is a breeding colony of Black-browed Albatrosses.

Black-browed Albatross

Black-browed Albatross

In the afternoon, Carcass Island, Falklands.

Both Magellanic and Gentoo Penguins breed on Carcass Island.

Magellanic Penguin

And the penguins are not the only attraction...

Magellanic Oystercatcher

Magellanic Oystercatcher

Striated Caracara

Flightless Steamer Duck family

Plancius off Carcass Island, Falklands

At sea once more, we were followed by more seabirds as dusk fell....

Southern Giant Petrel

Black-browed Albatross

The next morning we called in at Port Stanley, capital of the Falklands...

....where (former Prime Minister) Margaret Thatcher appears to be popular.

"Pandas of the Sea.."

Commerson's dolphin (Cephalorhynchus commersonii) 

We’ve been away !  An Antarctic Cruise and several weeks in Patagonia.  My first chapter of turgid travelogue is below.

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TRELEW is a town on the Atlantic coast of Argentina, about halfway between Buenos Aires and the tip of the South American continent.

The area was settled by Welsh farmers from the 1860s. More recently, a “must do” tourist thing has been to the visit the town of Gaiman for “Welsh” cakes and tea, as Diana, Princess of Wales did in the early 1990s.

After a memorable session of tannin-laced carbo-loading, we headed west into an area of broad, flat fields and encountered a flock of about fifty Burrowing Parrots sitting on electricity lines.  Here are two of them.

Burrowing Parrots

Southern Lapwings are the epitome of “Common and widespread” - in the Trelew suburbs they they seem to occupy every roadside grass verge.

Southern Lapwing

California Quails are an introduced species that is doing well.

California Quail

On to Puerto Piramides in our four-door Chevy from Patagonia Rent-a-car.  We had four nights there as a base to explore Peninsula Valdez.

Puerto Piramides

On our first morning, we drove down to the seafront, found a throng of people donning lifejackets outside Tito Botazzi and signed ourselves up for a Whale-watching trip.  After one-and-a-half hours we had seen five pairs of female Southern Right Whales and their calves.

That's a barnacle-encrusted whale in the foreground 

Peninsula Valdez has a network of ripio (gravel) roads, which keep car speeds slow and distances long.  There were nice views from vaious lookout points, including here at Punta Delgada.

Punta Delgada

The most frequently seen roadside bird was the Elegant-Crested Tinamou.

Chimango Caracaras were also common.

This party of ostrich-like Lesser Rheas had a female trying to look after no fewer that sixteen young birds.

The characteristic animal of the area is the Guanaco..

Back at Puerto Piramides, we ate at the Guanaco Restaurant, where the steaks are highly commended.  “Guanaco Ale” is on tap.

Back down the coastal highway, and just south of Trelew is the port city of Rawson.  At Playa Union two different outfits 

http://toninasadventure.com/indexing.php

http://www.estacionmaritima.com.ar/English-Version/

run trips to see the star natural attraction of the area, Commerson’s Dolphins. 

We went with Toninas Adventure, but both companies had boats out at the same time.  The poster in the Toninas Adventure office is captioned "PANDAS DEL MAR".  (That's in Spanish, obviously.)

Commerson's dolphin (Cephalorhynchus commersonii) 

Commerson's dolphin (Cephalorhynchus commersonii) 

Commerson's dolphin (Cephalorhynchus commersonii) 

Commerson's dolphin (Cephalorhynchus commersonii) 

 The "Pandas of the Sea" were playful and confiding, everything a tourist with a camera could ask for !