21-22 /02/17 Two Days at Sea - Heading North for Arica
Click on the images to enlarge to full size.
If our wildlife expectations had been met so far in the tour, they were about to enter another dimension of superlative. Dawn was still breaking, on our first day since Coquimbo, when I made it out on deck. It was immediately obvious that things were afoot. There had clearly been a significant attraction of seabirds to the ship overnight. I quickly rescued a couple of stranded Buller’s Shearwaters and put them over the side. I kept coming across early rising passengers with bloodied hands, who had done something similar, but hadn’t reckoned with the powerful ripping hooked tips to their bills. Lesson 1: Don’t mess with an indign...
11/02/17 Punta Arenas and the Magellan Strait
Click on the images to see them at a larger size.
After four flights we finally reached our destination of Punta Arenas, Chile, situated on the north side of the Magellan Strait in deepest Patagonia. Here we joined the Fred. Olsen owned cruise ship Boudicca on my latest speaker tour. Among other things I would be lecturing on the birds and cetaceans of the region. I was accompanied on this occasion by my fellow ecologist and cetacean enthusiast Anthony (Anno) Brandreth. Ship business prevented us from exploring ashore so we had to content ourselves with a session viewing the Magellan Straits from Deck 10.
Brown-hooded and Kelp gulls were much in evidence, as was Chilean Skua, Souther...