Tag: Birds of Falkland Islands

“Even if you don’t like birds, you’ll fall in love with them tomorrow” – Luciano – West Point Island briefing

19 November 2022

Free from the rules of IAATO, West Point Island landing was for all intents and purposes a daytrip, with optional afternoon tea. Boat groups were ferried to the little wooden pier – a luxury dry landing.

Landing briefing in progress – do’s and don’ts for this particular excursion.

After Yibo’s landing briefing we could leave our life vests with the Expediton Team gear, grab some walking poles, if we wanted to and head off over the hill for the 2 km hike to the Black Browed Albatros Colony on the cliff.

Hiking to the Black Browed Albatros Colony at West Point

For those that did not want to do the hike the hosts also provided a ‘Land Rover Shuttle Service’ to and from the main house.

West Point Shuttle coming through.

I chose to do the hike and at some point I was walking with Fritz and he was eagerly counting and re-counting the chicks along the way – there was a possiblity that this little brood exceeded the number of offspring usually associated with this breed. But alas, several re-counts confirmed that this was not the case- they were a ‘common’ little Upland Goose family.

Mom (Brown) and Dad (White) and their ‘standard’ Upland Goose six chicks

Just before we reached the cliff where the Albatros nests are I spotted a bird I recognized from Lancy’s lecture on birds of the Falklands – well he’s kinda hard to miss.. Longtailed Meadowlark.

Longtailed Meadowlark – conspicuous with that red breast.

The line waiting to go down to the colony – numbers controlled as to not stress the birds.

Then we descended down through the tussock grass down to where an absolute magnificent scene awaited us…

Even WITH these red jackets one could get lost here….

Black Browed Albatros so close you could probably touch one… intersperced with a sprinkling of red-eyed Southern Rockhoppers. Fly-overs so low one actually almost hit of the guests… almost…

In all honesty I stood there at the colony from 11:16 to 14:10 and took 1107 photos with my Sony camera alone.. and some with the phone.

It was both breathtaking and overwhelming – the highlight of the Falkland Islands.

So much ♥

Those feet….

Those feet vs these….

Caracara terrorizing the colony.

On the way back – some more birds…

Upland Geese (Male)

Austral Thrush adult and juvenile (Thanks for the juvenile identification – Lancy!)

Kelp Geese family and mom taking a nap.

Ruddy Headed Geese

Crested Duck

Although there was an invitation to have tea and biscuits with the hosts at the main house – apparently it is very very good – I decided to go back to the ship.