Pebble's Penguins and Petrels

Fire trailer on Pebble Island

In the morning, we were taking a tour of the west side of the island with Jackie. But first it was the airstrip run as Alan and two other guests were flying out today. There are always two of the islanders that go to the airstrip, and they have multiple responsibilities. First the airsock has to go up, and they call in the wind speed and direction to the base at Stanley. Next there is the job of driving over the airstrip and chasing away any sheep, birds, horses or anything else that might get in the way of the plane. Then they have to hitch a fire trailer up to the 4x4 and be ready to act as fire crew should there be any incident in landing or takeoff.

Nic with the starting line of gentoos

Air duties complete and the plane safely back in the air, we set off for the tour. There was quite a lot of driving involved today and Jackie had to negotiate her way over some tricky ditches and streams.

Our first stop today was the Gentoo penguin colony. Their site here is some way inland but they had created themselves a little mud bath to splash around in and many of them were filthy.

Gentoos on Pebble Island

It fascinated us the way that they would run from us initially, and then how a group of them would gradually edge back towards us in a little line.

They would stop a few metres away, until one would bravely take another step or two, and the others would follow suit. This would continue until they were quite close and then, especially if you had got down to their level, perhaps the boldest would come right up to us and maybe take a little peck to check us out. Thankfully they were usually quite gentle in their pecking, and usually their would go for the boots, trouser legs, or the tabs on the zip of the fleece.

Moulting rockhopper

From the Gentoos, we drive on to the huge colony of rockhoppers on Pebble. Their route down to the sea is steep and fairly precarious, but they manage it quite impressively. The even more impressive thing though is that they don’t get smashed on the rocks at the bottom; the waves crash into the coast very strongly, and it is a wonder that the little penguins make it in and out of the sea in one piece.   Many of the penguins are still moulting so can't go out to sea yet, and they stay at the nest site.  They do look amusing in their various stages of shedding their fluffy feathers, and the ground around them looks like it has been snowing.

Rockhoppers passing by

Having spent some time round the nests, I wandered over to the route that the penguins take down to the sea. I sat down on some low rocks alongside their normal path and waited until some came along. Initially those that came through took a wide berth around me, but soon a small group started to gather a short distance away. They appeared to be getting up the numbers and courage to walk right by me. They hesitated for a while, but then one seemed to take the lead and they all marched by. They kept pretty close together, and the last one was keen not to be left behind, but they made it through and from then on the little rockhoppers seemed quite happy to waddle past me.

Argentine Learjet memorial & graves

Our next stop was the site where an Argentine Learjet was shot down in the conflict. While all deaths in war are regrettable, this was more poignant for the fact that when the plane was hit it didn't explode, so the five crew on board were alive and conscious as it plunged to the ground. The radio operators could hear their screams all the way until the plane crashed down. The remains of the bodies that were found at the time were buried in the Argentine cemetery in a single grave with all five names, but years later an especially dry spell revealed some parts of the plane in a boggy area, and more remains were found. These were buried at the memorial, and again all five names were listed. I think it is a testament to the people who were on Pebble Island, who were held captive in the lodge during the conflict, that they have maintained this site as well as those to the British casualties.

Flightless Steamer Ducks

From here we drove down to the shore passing a group of steamer ducks. There are two types of steamer ducks, the flightless ones and ones that can fly. Jackie thought these were the flightless ones but as there is very little difference, the only way to be sure which you are seeing is if it starts to fly. These didn't fly but they may just not have felt like it!

Great Southern Petrels

On the beach we found more gentoos, before driving up the steep bank to watch the Great Southern Petrels.  These large birds look rather ungainly on the land, especially as they run to take off, but once in the air they move rather more elegantly, even if they do look a bit like a lancaster bomber to me.

HMS Coventry Memorial

On the way back we stopped off at the memorial to HMS Coventry, which sits up on the side of First Mountain, overlooking the place that the ship went down on 25 May 1982. It had been there on radar picket duty and was effectively attracting fire away from other ships. It had successfully shot down attackers all day but finally got caught out by a sudden attack. The ship capsized in less than half an hour, killing 19 men, two of them Chinese laundry workers. The last person to leave the ship was the Captain, David Hart-Dyke (father of comedian Miranda Hart), who spent years coming to terms with the loss of the ship and the lives of some its crew. The memorial was built in 1983 by ex Coventry crew members.

Variable Hawk

And for any bird lovers reading I'll include the picture of the other bird that we saw that I know the name of.  It is a variable hawk.  It was originally called a red backed hawk but that got confusing as the hawks are different colours depending on their age, gender and the season.  This one does have a red back so is apparently an adult female in her dark phase.  And that is probably the last bit of proper birding information you can expect from me!

More of Sea Lion Island

Magellanic penguins

After the tour around the island the first day, our plan was to walk around it the second day, and spend a bit longer with the penguins.  We set off after breakfast with our packed lunches,and plenty of layers to fight off the rather cold wind that always seems to be blowing through the islands.
We walked over to the beach where the elephant seals and magellanic penguins would be, and where you can sometimes see orcas out looking for a meal.  There were no orcas out today though.

Elephant seal

The magellanics kept their distance - they do seem to be the most timid and least friendly of the penguins we've encountered so far - but it was still good to watch them hovering around the water's edge, apparently not being entirely sure whether or not they wanted to take the plunge into the cold sea.

There were a lot of elephant seals out on the beach, some of them huge ones.  You have to be careful as you approach them because if you don't look carefully you can mistake them for a rock and end up getting too close for comfort.

Elephant seals squaring up

We watched a couple of seals get into a bit of a tiff and start growling and barking (or whatever seals do) at each other.  They don't seem like they would be able to do a great deal of damage in a fight, as they just face up to each other and bite, but in fact they are quite powerful and even though this seemed more like a spat than an all out fight, they drew blood.  They settled down after a while though, presumably having established an appropriate pecking order.

Diddle dee

We were just going back up the beach with the intention of walking over to the other side of the island to the rockhoppers, when it started to rain.  It rained hard and at some point at least it hailed.  Now I had my waterproof trousers on, but Nic had decided not to bother, and he in particular was getting really quite wet. So we decided that as the lodge wasn't far away, we would retreat to give the rain a chance to pass over, and for Nic to dry out. 

Snipe

We stayed at the lodge for lunch and set out again in the afternoon.
Although the other birds along the way weren't our main interest, we were at least able to recognise a few of the main types found here.  There are the little snipes that run around in amongst the grasses and the diddle dee, the bigger striated and crested caracaras, and the even bigger turkey vultures.  We had no idea what most of the others were, but never mind.

Nic in the tussac grass

This time we did make it the two and a half miles to the rockhoppers.  We took the longer route around as we had been warned that it is possible to get horribly lost in the huge tussac grass.  Seeing the size and expensive of it for ourselves, we could see the potential for trouble so kept well away.

Rockhopper calling

The rockhoppers are probably the cutest looking of the penguins here and it is fascinating the way they hop along and over the rocky area they choose to make their home on.  Most of the ones here are the chicks, not yet ready to go out to sea themselves.  There are some adults standing guard, but most are out getting dinner for the little ones.

Rockhopper penguin

At this time of year, the young ones are grown to full size and are in various stages of shedding their downy feathers and growing their distinctive yellow tufts.  A few are at the unfortunate point where they have lost all the fluffy feathers from their head and neck, but none from the rest of their body, which gives them that baldy look like turkeys or vultures.

Rockhopper penguin spat

The rockhoppers generally appeared to be quite placid creatures.  Every so often there will be a territorial spat or some other disagreement, but mostly they stayed huddled on their own space, puffing themselves up a little to keep out the wind, and just quietly looked around to see what was going on.

Rockhopper pecks Nic's boot

HMS Sheffield Memorial

A few were more inquisitive and came a bit closer to us to check us out.  Nic was sat on the rocks and one of the braver ones gradually approached him and had a quite peck at his boot, but soon hopped back off again.  I am pleased to say that neither penguin nor boot was traumatised by the experience.

We stayed watching them for about an hour or so before heading back to the lodge to warm up and have dinner.

First though, we took a look at the nearby memorial to HMS Sheffield and those who died on it in 1982.  The islanders are grateful to those who freed them and, along with those who visit to pay their respects, they take good care of the various memorials on the islands.

Gentoos in the moonlight

In the evening there was a fabulous moon above the Gentoos, which looked really amazing.  Again sadly my pictures don't do it justice.

A tour of Sea Lion Island



Sea Lion on Sea Lion Island

In the lodge we had tea and coffee waiting, but we were somewhat more interested in looking out of the lounge windows to see the hundreds of Gentoo penguins about a hundred and fifty metres away.
In the afternoon, Jenny drove us around the island to show us where the various wildlife could be found.  Our first stop was at the top of the cliffs where we could look down onto the sea lions.  At first you think you can just see the rocks, and then one of the rocks moves and you realise it is a sea lion after all. Once your get the eyes accustomed, you can spot them all.  And you can easily hear the males' loud roars.  You just have to be a bit careful not to get too close to the edge as the winds are pretty gusty and it's a long way down.

Elephant Seals

Next were the elephant seals and a few Magellanic penguins.  We took a bumpy drive through the huge tussac grass, and came out onto the beach to find the penguins running along in front of us.  They mostly kept their distance, but not far from where we stood was a small group of elephant seals and a big male sea lion.

Sea Lion roaring

Elephant seals (and sea lions) can move a lot faster on land than you would expect, and they can be quite nasty if they feel threatened, so the rules are to keep at least three of their lengths away from them, and don't get between them and the sea or their cubs if they have them. We kept the appropriate distance and didn't seem to bother them, though we could see that there was normally at least one of them keeping a watchful eye on us just to be sure we didn't need to be seen off.

King and Imperial Cormorants

Our third stop was heralded by that horrible fishy smell that you get around big groups of seabirds. It was a large colony of king cormorants with some imperial cormorants in amongst them.

With the number of birds flying around, we regarded ourselves very lucky not to have been pooed on by the time we left.

Rockhopper penguin

Then it was off to see the rockhopper penguins. They were nesting alongside more cormorants and it was strange to see the two very different birds sharing the space.  It seemed to confuse one of the baby rockhoppers, it was standing looking up at the cormorants flying above it, and was flapping its wings as hard as it could as if it thought it should be able to fly too.

Rockhopper chick feeding

We spent some time watching a couple of chicks chasing around one of the adults for a feed.  The adult was happy to feed one, but not so keen on the other.  We weren't clear if the second was supposed to get food from it or not, but eventually another adult seemed to intervene on the second chick's behalf and persuade it to feed that one too.

Porpoising Gentoo Penguins

Back towards the lodge, we stopped off at the beach to watch the adult gentoo penguins coming back from the sea.  From being little black and white specks, bobbing around out at sea, you could gradually see them a they got closer, porpoising in and out of the waves.

Gentoo penguin

Some of them timed it right so that they came in gently and were able to waddle out of the water, but others came crashing in on their stomachs and slid up on to the sand.  Most of them then hung around the beach for a while, perhaps swapping stories of what they had caught and the ones that got away, before tottering their way up to the grass by the lodge.

Gentoo penguins coming to shore

We didn't want to disturb them as they walked back, so we took a wider route around, only to suddenly realise that we were in the middle of the magellanic penguins burrow territory.  The magellanics make little burrows in the ground rather than nests, and we were now picking our way through a multitude of them, trying not to step on the shallow entrances that could easily collapse.

Magellanic penguin and chick in burrow

Most of the burrows are empty by this time of year, so walking through was not going to disturb them, and we took care not to get too close to those where a penguin was still standing sentry over its chick. These ones were quite amusing as they watched us get nearer, twisting their heads around so that they could see us better.  They seemed to realise that we weren't a threat, and were going to pass by, but still they would dip into the burrow just to be on the safe side.

We made it through without stepping on a penguin, or getting attacked by the skuas that also had nests around and are quite vicious if you get too close to them, and got back to the lodge for tea and cake.