Bill&Theresa: Birds (Part I)

This Posting is dedicated to Charles, our friend in Houston with a strange penchant for birdwatching! I never quite understood, but maybe a little more now, than before the cruise. Part II will be Penguins, which hopefully, I can post by this weekend!

With respect to the pix, I have to acknowledge these are "tweeked". If you have ever tried to photograph a bird in flight, you might agree, it is a little like skeet shooting with a .22 and a scope!! I got lots of pix of blue sky, fuzzy waves, or less than half a bird! I also got some pix with a lot more sky than bird. I cropped some of them down (these are the only pix I've tampered with so far on this blog), but that means when you click on the thumbnail to enlarge, the enlarged picture will be a lot more fuzzy than the icebergs, for instance. My apologies. Nevertheless...

A few words on birds. I’m no bird fan, but watching them cruise around, up and down, and back and forth over the ship for several minutes, without beating their wings even ONCE is mesmerizing! The grace with which the Petrels and Albatrosses soar is ill described with words, and just as illusive with a still frame picture. Naturally, I tried to capture that experience in the camera, but naturally I failed. Knowing these pix can do no justice to seeing some of these birds in person, I hope you enjoy them anyway!

The Petrels and Albatrosses are some of the largest birds in the world and have wingspans up to 10 or 12 feet respectively. They spend their first five years out at sea, and do not return to land until they are ready to breed. They can cruise for thousands of miles, and some have been known to go as far North as Brazil. These birds hang glide on the air currents, riding the winds, to conserve energy. High winds do not faze them, but “no wind” forces them to alight on the sea and wait. They (at least the albatrosses) can lock their wings and actually nap while flying (there isn’t much out there, after all). Feathers on the bottom of their wings sense the pressure change when they are close to the waves, and wake them up, as they get close. Then, turning into the wind to climb, they resume their glide slope.

Kelp Gull
This was the first day on the ship, and these guys (and many others) were everywhere (incluing on the railing). It's not the prettiest vantage, but the only place he was still enough to capture a shot!

Antarctic/Southern Fulmar

Southern Giant Petrel

a.k.a. Big Bird!! (about 10 ft Wingspan!)

Black Browed Albatross.

This was in the Falklands; there was a colony of them intermingled with the Rockhopper Penguins. They more or less got along, with a few minor disputes. These guys are striking, and very easily recognized. Aside from a wide variety of Petrels, these were probably the most proliferate (flying) birds we saw on the cruise.

Cobb's Wren
This little guy is uniquie in that he can only be found in the Falkland Islands, nowhere else in the world!! So, for bird watching enthusiasts, he is one that most people never check off their list!

Duck Family on the Falkland Islands.

Mmmm...Sand!!!

Upland Goose (Another bird found exclusively on the Falkland Islands.)

South Georgia Pintail

Found on South Georgia Island (obviously), not particularly close to Florida!

Skuas (Arguing?) Skuas are sort of the "garbage men" of the birds. They eat anything, which is sort of good in that nothing goes to waste, and sort of gross, in that, well, they hang around waiting for seals to be born. Let's leave it there. But, they are scavengers, opportunists, and devious too! They sometimes work in tandem, one distracting a penguin parent, causing it to drop the food intended for a chick, and the other snatching it up, much to the objection of the penguin!