Leaving the Falklands and heading back to sea

Our second day on the Falklands was spent exploring the capital of Stanley (population 2,200).

You see the ridgetop that the last row of houses is sitting on in the picture above? That’s actually the extent of the town. On the other side of that hill is barren sand dunes –

The morning was foggy and blustery, but I got lucky and snagged a picture of a pair of Magellanic penguins –

Apparently there’s a colony that lives just outside of Stanley, but they were very shy the day we visited, and we could only see their burrows –

I was quite happy though, with the duck butt…

… of a Flying Steamerduck.

I could spout a lot of facts about the Falklands, but I won’t, as we just weren’t that excited when we were there.

Getting back to sea meant another 60 hrs of sailing, and another 2 days to work on bird photography. This was the view out our window the next morning (grey and foggy) –

Even though we were out in the middle of nowhere, a number of bird species would give us a fly-by…

That pair of Cape Petrels kindly showed off both the beautiful pattern on the top of the wings, as well as the smooth coloration underneath. As I had said previously, I really liked the albatrosses as they would glide effortlessly by…

… and they came in a variety of colors –

I think this pair was a Wandering Albatross (white) and a Petrel –

The next day started a little foggy, and gave us this really cool phenomenon off the back of the boat –

It quickly brightened up, and I got on with trying to capture the elusive Antarctic Prion –

(this is majorly blown up and cropped) ;)

These little buggers would barely skim the top of the water and were super fast. It was like trying to photograph a flying mosquito at a distance! Then, I’d breathe a sigh of relief when a Giant Petrel would come gliding by, like an aircraft carrier –

Land ho! Shag Rocks –

A shag is the British name for a cormorant, and these rocks in the middle of the South Atlantic were covered with them –

They came by to check us out…

… and hopefully you can appreciate the brilliant blue eye rings. The one above is an Antarctic Cormorant, while this squadron were South Georgian Cormorants -

We bid farewell to Shag Rocks, as the fog came rolling back in again –

Our next destination was South Georgia Island, which is a haven for innumerable birds and seals, and I can’t wait to share lots of pictures with you in the next post.