Author: heronphotography

Knowing that I needed to be ready to be picked up just after 11am I got myself out of the house at about 7.30 on Sunday and set off for a walk down to the beach and then across to the coast on the other side of the island and back up to the settlement. 

 

 

 

Rufous-chested dotterel (I think)

 

Blackish oystercatcher

 

Kelp gull

 

 

Brown-hooded gull

 

White-tufted grebe

 

Dolphin gull

 

 

 

Tussacbird

 

 

Crested duck

King shag

 

As I approached the settlement and was trying to find the best way to get over a fence, I startled a black-crowned night heron.

Dolphin gulls

 

Speckled teal

 

Snowy shearwater

 

Having a little time left I went for one final visit to the rockhopper colony and passed by the cormorant rookery, now deserted.

 

My flight back to Stanley was quite an epic experience. Although it’s only a 25 minute hop direct, we had a number of stops along the way, at Sea Lion Island, Pebble Island, Mount Pleasant Airport and then finally back to Stanley.

Despite my plans to be up for sunrise I ended up falling back to sleep and having a rather late start. When I finally managed to get myself moving I headed over in the direction of the rockhopper colony, just a 15 minute walk from the settlement. On the way, though, I was distracted by a group of skuas which were hanging around and scrapping with each other, both on the ground and in the air.

 

Once I’d had my fill I carried on to the cliffs and clambered down onto the rocks in the hope of walking around to the rockhoppers were they would exit the water. Unfortunately my plan didn’t work out as I encountered a large chasm in the rock, known as Long Gulch, and I had to work my way back up through the tussac grass and walk around it to finally get to the rockhoppers. This was probably the biggest rockhopper colony I’d seen and there were also a large number of cormorants. I spent some time photographing them, and then settled myself down with my back to the tussac to read my book for a while and enjoy the penguin chattering in the background. The penguins are moulting at this time of the year and look rather sorry for themselves.

Rockhopper penguin

Rock shag

Dark-faced ground tyrant

Having decided to move on I headed back towards the gate only to be surprised by a person emerging from the tussac grass. I had heard the plane come in earlier so I suppose that the appearance of other people shouldn’t entirely have been a surprise, but I was in my own little world! Having shown her around the rockhopper colony, we set off together to see what we could find in the pond and on the beach.

The pond was rather quiet although there were a few silver teal at the far end and some crested ducks closer by, so we didn’t stay for too long before continuing on to the beach.

Crested duck

There were far less birds on the beach than there had been the previous day and we didn’t really stop too much on our way down to the far end where the gentoos can be found. When we got there we found a hive of activity with gentoos porpoising and coming in on the rocks. I spent quite a bit of time trying to photograph the gentoos porpoising and I wish I’d stayed there for longer. Whilst I was busy I put my bag down to make things easier, and fortunately my companion was more alert than I was as she caught the Johnny Rooks attacking it and had to rescue it. It now has a small hole through to the padding on the back but fortunately is not damaged beyond use!

 

Getting rather cold, we took a short walk along the path that the penguins follow to their rookeries and then headed back towards the settlement, where we had a very welcome cup of tea. I also had an important date with the radio at 6pm as the telephones and internet had been down, so it was the only way to find out what time my flight would be leaving on Sunday. Until recently, radio was the main method of communication on the islands and the next day’s flight schedules are still broadcast every evening after the weather and shipping forecast. Luckily for me I was scheduled on a midday flight giving me the full morning to enjoy myself.

 

listening to flight on radio

Having completed our doctors’ visit we made the half hour drive from the north end of the island back to the settlement. Carcass Island is the only place that I visited on my 2009 trip to the Falklands that I’ve been back to on this trip, but I couldn’t remember what to expect or match my memories of that trip to individual locations. As we approached the settlement and I saw the beach and the Nissan hut by the jetty it began to seem familiar. 

After some lunch, a very welcome salad (vegetables are expensive here), I headed out for a walk down to the south end of the island. I started out with a walk along the rocky beach, which was full of tussacbirds and caracaras, as well as driftwood and bones.

I could hear a lot of songbirds chattering in the bushes next to the beach so I headed inland a little in the hope of spotting something I hadn’t seen yet. No such luck, but I did find a Falkland thrush.

Climbing up the hillside towards Jason Hill, there were some great views down to the two beaches where the penguins hang out.

 

I also spotted some teaberries, a Falklands favourite.

 

Along the way I was followed by yet more caracaras, numerous everywhere, but particularly on Carcass it seems.

 

Having made it up to the top of the hill and then back down again, avoiding the magellanic penguin burrows, I skidded down a steep sandy bank onto the beach.

Magellanic penguin

Walking along the beach I accumulated a trail of caracaras and startled a group of crested ducks, who took to the water.

Crested duck

Falkland steamer ducks

The gentoos were congregating at the far end of the beach and I caught sight of a group porpoising in to the shore.

 

 

According to the map there are South American terns at the tip of the island, but the tussac grass was so thick and tall that I didn’t try and fight my way through to find them but instead cut across to the other side of the point to the other beach.

 

After a long stretch of beach, the rest of the walk was clambering over rocks, getting distracted by all the birds.

One of the species I was hoping to see was the Cobb’s wren and there were plenty of them along the way playing hide and seek amongst the rocks. The biggest problem in photographing them was that they kept coming too close!

 

As I was happily pootling along I was startled by a hissing sound and I turned around to find that I’d nearly tripped over an elephant seal. Gave me quite a shock.

One of the highlights of coming out to the Falkland Islands for my elective was always going to be accompanying the doctor(s) on a visit out to camp (i.e. outside of Stanley). Camp visits take place each Tuesday with a different group of settlements being visited each week on a 6 week rotation. I had hoped to go out to Fox Bay a couple weeks ago, but there was no room for me on the plane, and last week’s visits didn’t take place so I was excited to get an email last Friday asking me if I wanted to go out on this week’s visit which would include Hill Cove (which is on West Falkland) and Carcass Island. As I set off for Bleaker Island soon afterward replying to the email there wasn’t time to think further about the visit, but as I was lying in bed on Sunday night I couldn’t help but think it was a shame to go out and not spend any time at Carcass, so when I had a break after the ward round on Monday morning I called up FIGAS (the air service) and asked if it would be possible for me to stay overnight and return a day later than planned. They hadn’t yet scheduled the flights so I had half an hour to call up the settlement and see if I could arrange accommodation before confirming my plans. Unfortunately for me Carcass were fully booked for the night as they’d had some guests who needed to return from one of the outlying islands a night earlier than planned due to the strong winds forecast, but when I asked if I could bring a tent and camp out they kindly agreed, even though they don’t usually allow camping, and said I could have full use of their facilities and that they’d feed me as well.

It ended up being an early start as I wanted to send some emails before we left the hospital for the airport at 7.40am. We took off at around 8.30am and had a stop at Saunders Island before making the short hop over to Hill Cove where we were picked up and driven to one of the settlement houses to see our patients. The plane waited for us whilst we had our consultations and the pilot was dropped off to feed some very cute lambs whilst he was waiting!

As is the custom here we all divested ourselves of our shoes before entering the house and so I had one of the most unusual consultations I’ve yet experienced – two doctors, a medical student and a patient, gathered in a bedroom, all of us in our stocking feet. Of course, this suited me perfectly, with my love of walking around everywhere in my socks! The owners of the house were also the guardians of the settlement’s ‘camp chest’, a cardboard box containing a supply of medications such as antibiotics, steroids and strong analgesics in case anyone is acutely unwell. In this case, having spoken to the patient over the phone the doctor will call the camp chest holder and ask them to issue the appropriate medications to the patient.

Having completed our mini surgery at Hill Cove we returned to the plane and set off again to Carcass Island. This was to be a ‘strip visit’, meaning that our patients would come out to the airstrip to see the doctors. The consultation doesn’t quite take place on the airstrip itself, but rather in the land rovers that are there to meet the plane. I had the interesting experience of trying to measure someone’s blood pressure whilst the plane was taking off again and another land rover was idling next to us! I also had to keep guard of the doctors’ bag to make sure that nothing blew away, and more importantly, that the caracaras (also known as Johnny Rooks) didn’t steal anything from it. They’re very inquisitive birds and real hooligans.

Whilst we were busy seeing our patients the plane made a short visit to Westpoint Island to drop off another passenger before returning to pick up the two doctors and take them back to Stanley. It was about 11.30am by then and I was delighted in my decision to stay on the island, especially as I had most of the day yet ahead of me. Having had pouring rain overnight and flown through quite a bit of rain and cloud on the way to Carcass, the weather had now improved and it was a lovely sunny afternoon, just perfect for hiking and bird watching.