falklands (1 Viewer)

:t: Hello


I am so jealous of many of you since you are able to go to these remote places that carry such an abudence of birds and can view them in ther natural habitats! :C


Just curious have any of you been bird watching in the falklands? These islands have a HUGE variety of differant species of birds with a relative high population.


I was wondering have any of you had the pleasure of whitnessing interactions between differant species of birds on these islands?

IF so do tell :t: :t:

Was down there 4 yrs ago. Fantastic birding. One of my highlights was sitting fairly close to a Gentoo Penguin colony with my camcorder watching them being mobbed by Skuas.......Exceptional for other marine life as well. And it didn't cost me anything...BONUS

Been living and birding in the Falkland Islands for the last 19 years now.
Had many great days four that spring to mind are:

14 days on Steeple Jason colour marking 16,000 Black Browed Albatrosses fledglings for a project to see where they go after leaving the Falklands.

Six species of Penguins in a day (King, Rockhopper, Macaroni, Magellanic, Gentoo & Erect Crested).

Finding a pair of White Cheeked Pintails (First for 150 years) on Jan 1st 2003

Finding a Black Crowned Monjita (First Falkland record) on one of the outer islands last year.

Seen 131 species in 19 years on the Falkland Islands including

Green Backed Firecrown
Roseatte Spoonbill
Chilean Flamingo
Purple Martin
Brown Chested Martin
Pied Billed Grebe
White Faced Whistling Ducks

To name just a few.

Come and see us some time.

Best regards


Alan

Falkland islands

Hallo Allan,

Your infomations sounds really good.
How is possible to see bird colonies ?
Are the birds in protected areas, which needed a permission ?
Which is the best way to see lot of seabirds ?
In New Zealand I made a bird watching trips with boat and saw Skua and 4 different Albatrosses.

Best regards
Dieter

scuba0095 said:

Just curious have any of you been bird watching in the falklands? These islands have a HUGE variety of differant species of birds with a relative high population.

I was wondering have any of you had the pleasure of whitnessing interactions between differant species of birds on these islands?

Click to expand...

Hi Scuba

I spent two weeks in the Falklands in December 07 which included several of my best birding days ever. Sealion Island, Saunders Island and Carcass Island were my main locations - all of which were great. Saunders is a fantastic location for penguins, albatross and a lot of small birds. Carcass was the best overall for small birds.

Most memorable interactions were seeing a pair of magellanic oyster catchers repeatedly bombing a pair of caracaras over a period of an hour - which sadly ended with the caracaras finding and raiding the eggs. And watching a skua take a chick right out of a gentoo rookery and then fight over it with another skua.

A small selection of my photos can be found on these pages
General Falkland Island Birds
Falkland Island Penguins

As to the question about getting there, restrictions etc Albatross02 - there is some good information on the official Falklands tourism website. I found the best way of getting around was to book a local company to build my itinerary for me. I told them what I wanted to see and they sorted it.

wow you are so lucky

did you see johnny rooks interact with skuas and kelp gulls? or better yet any stinkers?


falklands has their own group of birds that act like a mixed species of vultures!

scuba0095 said:

did you see johnny rooks interact with skuas and kelp gulls? or better yet any stinkers?

Click to expand...

Well johnny rook was everywhere - you didn't have too look hard to see one. Usually, however, when I saw them they were after carrion, or penguins, or my sandwiches!

There was a petrel nest site on Sealion - however the hide was a bit far back and the tussock grass too high for a good view (plus I only went in the hide on the worst weather day). On the whole the petrels seemed more shy than most of the birds, so most of my petrel sightings were at a distance. I came away without a really decent shot of one.

And for some reason I've never been too bothered by gulls - so I didn't really take much notice of the kelp gulls - although I saw a lot. Oops!