Berkeley Sound

6th November 2015. Berkeley Sound, East Falkland, Falkland Islands.

A final view of Sea Lion Island as we fly away. looking towards the south end of the island, I think.

And this is Stanley, only town in the Falklands.

One of the ships in Stanley Harbour. Fortunately, not the one we travelled on to South Georgia.

We headed off overland in four wheel drive vehicles to the southern shores of Berkely Sound, north of Stanley, in response to a reported sighting of a stray Northern Rockhopper penguin. The northern variety has much longer yellow head plumes and its most numerous location is at Gough Island in the Tristan da Cunha group. However, the penguins we saw were the more common Southern Rockhoppers, though someone else in our party caught a brief glimpse of a northern one.

Southern rockhopper, as for all following penguins.

Cochon Island.

Looking north, across Berkeley Sound.

Distant sea view with Cochon Island.

Last Day at Sea Lion Island

Mar12

5th to 6th November 2015. Sea Lion Island, Falkland Islands.

On my last day in Sea Lion Island, I wandered around in the middle of the island, where there is a variety of wildlife, then returned to the Northern end.

Speckled Teal.

Upland Goose.

Flightless Steamer Duck (Male).

Kelp Geese.

Patagonian Crested Duck.

Kelp and rocks.

The waves were still breaking through the tunnel in the rocks though the sea was much quieter than the first two days.

Patagonian Crested Ducks.

Kelp Goose.

Elephant Seal.

Kelp Goose.

Gentoo penguins on the northern beach.

Flightless Steamer Ducks.

Elephant Seal with scars.

Getting up close…

Sand blowing along the beach.

Elephant Seals.

Sand and Kelp.

Looking towards the Lodge.

Flying Steamer Ducks.

Gentoo Penguin Road including a water crossing.

They’d bank up at the edge of the water and when there was enough numbers, they’d dash across as quickly as possible.

After all, you never know when there might be an orca or a leopard seal.

And there was at least two inches of water….

This is now the morning of the next day. There was a little extra time before we were due to fly out.

Pebble Island Penguins and Skuas

Dec29

1st November 2015. Pebble Island, Falkland Islands.

I’m about to start posting on wildlife in the Falklands but first a brief account of some computer misadventures that has delayed this post. Feel free to skip this bit if you’re not interested or it’s too technical.

Computer Issues and Solutions

Ten days ago, my computer died, suddenly and completely. The CPU (the chip that powers it) was dead. The computer was six years old and replacing the chip didn’t seem enticing. New ones are no longer available for that motherboard and a second hand chip from EBay might prove to not work. The motherboard was also incompatible with Windows 10, so an upgrade to a modern machine was in order.

As it happens, I wrote an article on that for the Canberra Photographic Society. so it was fairly easy to work out what I needed. Some of my files may be 50MB out of the camera and when I combine multiple images for panoramas, focus stacking or HDR, the files get very large. Taking the images is just the start. The processing task is not to be underestimated and since I process a lot of images I don’t want to be forever sitting round waiting for something to happen. So my requirement is for pretty heavy-duty image processing and this is not a typical PC.

I retained the case, power supply and hard drives. I purchased new motherboard (Gigabyte Z170X – Gaming 7), CPU (Intel Core i7 6700K), CPU cooler (Thermaltake Riing Silent), video card (Gigabyte Geforce GTX 1060) and 32GB RAM (GSkills Ripjaws V DDR4). This is actually a previous generation motherboard and CPU (from about six months ago) so I was able to save a bit of money with little loss in processing speed. I had also bought a new 30 inch NEC professional monitor a couple of months previously (at half price) and may in due course get a couple of M.2 SSDs (3 to 5 times faster than normal SSDs) to speed up the machine further for bootup and for the Lightroom catalogue and cache.

I ordered the PC components and ended up with a new working PC except with one “minor” problem – no access to my images because when the CPU died, it took out my data drive. Even without buying two more M.2 SSDs, my PC has six hard drives – an SSD for startup and applications, an extra drive for non-photographic storage and a RAID 10 array of four drives (i.e. my data drive). The RAID array has two pairs of drives that mirror each other for safety and each pair simultaneously writes across each drive (called striping). This makes it both fast and easy to recover when a drive fails. The problem was that when the CPU died, it knocked two of the drives out of the RAID. I was unable to rebuild it, even after a clean reinstall of Windows.

So I’m starting again from a data drive with no images. All my files should be backed up on my Drobo (a five-disk RAID-like backup system), so I should be able to restore them. I restored the Falkland Images to a local drive a few days ago to use in generating this post and I’ve just started recovering all images from backup to my data drive. This will take another day or so.

Pebble Island

OK, back to the Falklands.

I haven’t had any problems with jet lag in the past. Partly this may be sleeping on the plane to key my metabolism to the destination. But the 55-hour transfer was just too much to end up fresh at the other end. So I was very lucky that I had personalised tours of the island awaiting me with Montana Short and his four wheel drive vehicle. These images are from the morning after I arrived on the plane.

Montana driving over a boggy stream.

We were heading towards the South of the island. I think this must be Elephant Bay. No elephants so they had probably all swum out to sea. And what you see is typical Falkland islands rainforest, often several inches high. If you click on it you go to a larger than usual image.

Magellanic Penguin peeking out of its burrow with upland geese in the background.

A pair of Magellanic Penguins from the same burrow.

Gentoo Penguin calling out to the gods beyond the sky. … Or perhaps advertising for a mate.

… Or maybe calling for the skuas to stay away.

Here’s a Skua, hovering over the penguins, looking for an unattended egg.

This egg is safe.

Perhaps returning after a fishing expedition.

Now this is a colony of Rockhopper Penguins, again with a Skua patrolling overhead.

Let’s do the time warp again…

A rockhopper on a cliff.

It can get quite territorial when someone wanders close to a nest, even if they have to do so to get to theirs.

… and then it can be on for young and old….
.

Skua on patrol.
.

The last laugh? Two skuas with a stolen egg.
.

Sea Lion Island

Dec1

6th to 10th November 2015. Sea Lion Island, Falkland Islands. Temporary post. Images only. Minimal descriptions for images.

Silvery Grebe.

Magellanic Penguin.

Kelp Geese.

Elephant Seals.

Imperial Cormorants.

Dolphin Gulls, Imperial Cormorants and photographers.

Steamer ducks, probably flightless Falklands variety.

Kelp and rocks.

Rockhopper penguins.

Rockhopper Penguin.

Pebble Island

Nov29

31st October to 6th November 2015. Pebble Island, Falkland Islands. Temporary post. Images only. Minimal descriptions for images.

Striated caracara.

Turkey vulture.

Giant Petrel.

Rockhopper penguins.

Caracara and stolen Rockhopper egg.

Imperial Cormorant.

Imperial Cormorants.

Speckled Teals.

Wreckage of Argentinian fighter.

Striated Caracara.

Macaroni Penguins.

6th April: Falkland Islands (leaving Steeple Jason Island)

Apr25

Late in the afternoon we headed off for the coast of Patagonia, slowly leaving Steeple Jason behind us as the afternoon turned into sunset. There were many albatrosses and giant petrels in the air and some cara caras turned up to farewell us on the ship.

Steeple Jason Island

(Click on image above for much larger version. In the new window, click the button at the bottom right for full screen then use mouse wheel or buttons to zoom in and out).

Cara caras on the ship's mast

A lone black-browed albatross against the late afternoon sun

A cara cara and the Russian flag

Steeple Jason Island

A city of black-browed atbatrosses and possibly gentoo penguins

A giant petrel (above) and a black-browed albatross (skimming the sea) as the afternoon turns into sunset

A black-browed albatross against Steeple Jason Island as sunset comes on.

A giant petrel in front of Steeple Jason Island at sunset

Two giant petrels in the sky as the Falklands recede and the sunset starts to fade away

6th April: Falkland Islands (Steeple Jason Island)

Apr20

In the early afternoon we landed on Steeple Jason island, a somewhat precarious scramble from the zodiac to the rocks in a small cove. There were traces of farming activity from long ago but the island has been uninhabited for some time.

Many went off to try to find the albatrosses in their colonies but few managed to find their way through the very high tussock grass. Perhaps fortunately, I had noticed the great sea highway of gentoo penguins near where we landed and settled in to photograph them. At the end, I just had time to snatch a few landscapes before we were summoned to an early departure.

I settled down in a nice comfortable position and opposite me was a large rock on which penguins were coming in out of the water and being washed on and off by the waves.

Most of these penguins have yellow beaks except the bottom one who has an orange one (there were also a few others). The gentoo penguins at Vernadsky Station had orange beaks so perhaps this is a stray from Antarctica.

I was particularly looking to get gentoos porpoising so I was very pleased to catch the shot above. This is not easy to do because they suddenly bounce up out of the water and then disappear again and it’s difficult to predict where it might happen.

As I was observing the penguins from my elevated vantage point I observed very fast white shapes zooming around in the water. At first I thought, wow, those fish can move really fast. Then I realised it was the penguins. These little fellows are speed demons, underwater racing cars, twisting and turning below the waves.

On the left above, an immature rock cormorant, on the right a gentoo penguin

Not drowning, waving.

Steeple Jason Island with gentoo penguins in foreground

6th April: Falkland Islands (Grand Jason and Steeple Jason Islands)

Apr20

Today was our day to investigate the Jason Islands, a small group of islands at the north-west tip of the Falklands that is seldom visited, partly due to difficulty of landing.

We woke up to a fine day with some cloud but that didn’t mean it was calm. 35 knot winds prevented us from landing at our first intended landing place of Grand Jason Island so we proceeded to Steeple Jason Island, the most westerly island in the group. In the afternoon the weather became more calm and we were able to land there.

Steeple Jason has the largest colony of black-browed albatrosses in the world, with 187,000 pairs and unusually, the numbers are increasing.

Grand Jason Island, a few minutes after dawn, a cormorant in the sky

Steeple Jason Island

There are many rookeries of albatrosses and penguins on bare rock near the coasts of the island. This is a closer view of one, lower mid island in the previous image, mainly penguins in this case with a few albatrosses. Click on the image for more detail.

The rough coastline

Island peaks in cloud

One corner of Steeple Jason Island

A vertical slice of the island near where we landed in the zodiacs

The horizontal panorama above does not fit any larger on this page. There are very many birds in the air over the point, including a giant petrel trailing its wing in the water, and huge numbers of birds beyond the rocks on shore.

The vertical panorama at the right could fit larger on the page but would take up too much space.

To see either of them “properly”, click on them and a window will open with much more detail that you can zoom in and out of and scroll around in.

In that new window, first click the lower right icon for a full window, then use the mouse wheel or other icons to zoom in and out. It’s also better to back off a little from the full resolution that you can get in these screens.

5th April: Falkland Islands (West Point Island) – Abducted by Aliens

Apr20

>>>>>>

Eeerraaark, eeeerraaarkk!

>>>>>>

Penny the Ground-Painted was always telling anyone who would listen about being abducted by aliens and she had the silver bracelets on her ankles to prove it. Erica the Red-Eyed was not impressed.

Erica lives at 3,000 steps up in Noisy Delirium Circle. It’s a long walk up from the harbor frontage.

Trudge, trudge, hop, hop, wait for a crowd to gather then big hop, trudge, trudge …
Ethelbert the Elegantly Absurd: “This is my patch. What are you doing on my patch? You can’t have it.”; Erica: “I’m just passing through. I live at 3,000 steps up in Noisy Delirium Circle, about 40 steps from the end of Sky Mountain Street. Let me through.”
another couple of steps …
Dionysius the Disheveled: “This is my patch. What are you doing on my patch? I won’t let you take it.”; Erica: “I’m just passing through. I live at 3,000 steps up in Noisy Delirium Circle, about 40 steps from the end of Sky Mountain Street. Let me through.”
another couple of steps …
Ignatius the Punk: “This is my patch. What are you doing on my patch? It’s not yours.”; Erica: “I’m just passing through. I live at 3,000 steps up in Noisy Delirium Circle, about 40 steps from the end of Sky Mountain Street. Let me through.”
And so it goes …

Eventually, Erica reaches her elite apartment high in the sky. It was actually built by Eustace the soarer and Wendy the wave-kisser when Noisy Delerium Circle was still called Black-Browed Hilltop. According to rumour, Wendy was last seen going for a dive behind a fishing boat and Eustace now hangs out in a different part of the City, often disrupting other couples by trying to hassle for a new partner.

Erica’s young son, Diogenes the Slightly Deranged, is now bigger than her. “What’s for dinner?” “Fish.” Lots of noisy celebration of the return. “What’s for dinner?” “Fish.” Heads down and screeching sounds. “What’s for dinner?” “Fish.” This goes on for a while.

Our legends tell of the giant black were-penguins that devastated our communities hundreds of generations ago. Today we were visited by friendly aliens from the planet Ostr. Earlier we visited their space craft as it lay on the sea and what a lot of space it seemed to contain. We also bounced up and down out of the water beside their landing craft to get a good look at them as they came in. These Ostr aliens are giant multicoloured hump-backed penguins and while they keep a respectable distance, they also allowed us to come right up and look at them.

Pity about Penny the ground-painted. Last time we saw her she was heading off to a pair of sea lions to tell them how she had been abducted by aliens.

>>>>>>

Eeerraaark, eeeerraaarkk!

>>>>>>

… And so it was in the afternoon that we disembarked at West Point Island. Michael, the Island’s caretaker, greeted us and generously provided a Land Rover bus service to the black-browed albatross and rockhopper penguin colony and also a service back, later in the afternoon. This was much appreciated by those of us who were disinclined to venture far. There was a much higher proportion of albatrosses to penguins than in the previous day at New Island and it was very easy to get quite close.

A few people took a long scenic trek and another group elected to climb an impressive hill in the other direction. Though it was very windy at the cliff where the albatrosses were, it was very calm at the top of the large hill where a spectacular panoramic view presented itself. There were also hundreds of albatrosses sitting out on the water.

Layered rocks on the cliff edge

Panorama looking back from the cliff top

Rock striations

The wild coast far below

Hundreds of black-browed albatrosses bobbing on the waves

A view in late afternoon light while walking back

Back at the “farm”, Jeanette put on a lavish afternoon tea and there was also the distraction of a dead ship on the beach as well as anchors and other marine debris. There was also another afternoon tea on the beach attended by six turkey vultures and eighteen cara cara.

Anchors on the beach

Cara caras and turkey vultures (red heads) at the farm's carcase disposal point

Wreck on the beach

Cara cara, guardian of the wreck

Then a calm and easy return to the ship but the day was not finished yet. Dinner was a barbeque on deck with loud dance music, mainly rock & roll and 60s pop. Everyone donned strange headgear and there were exuberant displays of dancing by passengers, Aurora staff and the Russian crew. Michael and Jeanette attended from the Island and may have wondered what strange universe they had arrived in.

… And I forgot to mention – a fin whale was visible from the ship feeding and with attendant seabirds for about 20 minutes though only the earliest of us back got to see this.

4th April: Falkland Islands (New Island)

Apr19

Wreck on the beach

Google maps location.

The weather was a bit rough early but it calmed down for our landing on New Island. The contours of the island were gentle enough on the eastern side where we landed and encountered this wreck on the beach. Then we walked across to the other side of the island where there were steep cliffs, ravines and many wild birds.

This is one of the many rockhopper penguins who effortlessly present an appearance that young punks can only dream of. Eugenia Skycarpet and Desmond the Decidedly Deranged were also here and you can see them on the next post, for West Point Island.

Some of the photographers from our expedition

Striated cara cara

Five of the sixteen photographers on our expedition are above, photographing penguins and albatrosses.

To the right is a striated cara cara, a small Falklands raptor.

We were in a huge colony of rockhopper penguins and black-browed albatrosses that stretched a considerable distance up from the sea. Cara caras and the occasional turkey vulture circled overhead.

One of the albatrosses is below, sitting on a characteristic mud nest. There were many young albatrosses here, stretching their wings and testing the wind in preparation for their first flight.

Black-browed albatross on nest

Rockhopper penguins bouncing along

You may like to watch this short video that shows why they are called rockhopper penguins. They walk and they also jump. They seem to gather at a rock until they think it’s safe to proceed, then all bounce along….

The side of a pond filled with feathers from moulting penguins

At the side of the wreck – copper, wood, nails and sand …

… and by the time we came back to the beach and the wreck, the tide was out.

Murray Foote

Tag Archives: Penguins

Berkeley Sound

Last Day at Sea Lion Island

Pebble Island Penguins and Skuas

Computer Issues and Solutions

Pebble Island

Sea Lion Island

Pebble Island

6th April: Falkland Islands (leaving Steeple Jason Island)

6th April: Falkland Islands (Steeple Jason Island)

6th April: Falkland Islands (Grand Jason and Steeple Jason Islands)

5th April: Falkland Islands (West Point Island) – Abducted by Aliens

4th April: Falkland Islands (New Island)