New Island, West Falklands

October 27: New Island, West Falklands.

       What a day. We made a beach landing in the inflatable Zodiacs near the Barnard museum on New Island, one of the smaller islands in the West Falklands. New Island was given, in its entirely, to a nature conservancy.  There are about six houses for researchers and the rest is wild. The island is 8 miles long and about a mile wide in most places. A short morning walk took us to a series of cliffs and valleys where Southern Rock Hopper Penguins, Imperial Shags (cormorants) and Black-Browed Albatrosses all nest.. thousands of them. Rock hoppers look like small belligerent rock musicians with red eyes and yellow eyebrows. Their name actually comes from how they walk — less by waddling as other penguins do, and more by hopping especially on rocky terrain. There were birds everywhere, and while some colonies featured a particular species, other spots were completely mixed. We also saw a major predator of young penguin chicks and penguin eggs, the brown skua. The rock Hopper penguins nest near the albatrosses, who can scare off the skuas, so mixed nesting is advantageous for the penguins. 

        The albatrosses have already mated and are sitting eggs on columnar nests made of guano and grass, while the rock hoppers and shags are still courting and building their rather simple grass-lined nests. We also saw a single pair of Macaroni Penguins, somewhat larger and with much larger yellow face feathers. We also saw some new meadow birds. That was just the morning!  

When we got back to the ship we learned that there were a lot of Kevin’s on the ship.  Everyone heard, “Kevin 308 and Kevin 318, please check back in.”, over the loud speaker.  Whenever anyone leaves the ship they need to sign out and sign back in when they return.  These Kevin’s did not check back in.  People were amazed at the number of Kevin’s on the ship, but of course there are not that many, the person making the announcement meant cabin 308 — her accent gave everyone a good laugh.

        After lunch we took a 5 mile walk, covering much of the length of the island. Here and there we saw Magellanic Penguins, nearly always alone and standing upright and still like sentries. Since these penguins nest in holes in the ground, it is possible the ones we saw were sentries and we just didn't see the others. Near the end of the hike we came to large colonies of Gentoo Penguins, including a whole parade of them coming up from the beach. We also saw Striated Caracaras as well as Skuas, scouting out the penguin colony for possible prey. Once we were penguined out for the day, we headed back to a beach to take a Zodiac back to the ship. On the Zodiac trip back to the ship, we were entertained by Peale's Dolphins swimming and  jumping all around. 

      So, we saw four species of penguins, dolphins, and eight other new birds. Oh, and it was 50 degrees and sunny with (relatively) mild winds... Not normal weather here at all for the Falkland Islands...we have been warned not to get used to these conditions.